I have moved into a new property which has dimming switches in most of the rooms. I am adding in some hanging pendant light fixtures into the living room, which will be installed by an electrician.

My questions are:

1) Presumably any light fixture can be dimmed, as long as it's wired correctly to a dimming circuit/switch? (assuming I'm using the correct bulb). Is this correct or must the light fixture itself be wired in a certain way to accommodate going onto a dimmer?

2) Must I buy a bulb that can specifically be dimmed? I want to buy an Edison style bulb, must it specifically say it can be dimmed or not. If it doesn't say, what could the consequences be?

Hi,

1) Yes, ( not including some bulk heads, emergency and outdoor light fixtures), it really is down to the lamp used, wiring for domestic dimming remains the same but you must make sure your dimmer switch can take any added light fittings/lamps.

There are some types of lamps that can't be dimmed, If you are going to use GU10 LEDs, make sure they are the dimmable type, some low energies can't be dimmed either.

If you are going to dim just one ES lamp, for best effect it should be 100w tho' you can dim 60w.

There's a bit more to dimming than simply buying a dimmable bulb.

The dimmer switch needs to be suitable for the type of light that is being dimmed, or thinking about it from the other angle, the light needs to be suitable for the type of dimmer installed.

The type of light can be anything from an incandescent bulb (these are the old style bulbs with a wire filament) or a 240V Halogen, or a 12V Halogen running from a 240V to 12V transformer (and there's a difference between leading edge and trailing edge transformers), and then finally* there's dimmable LED lighting. Again, LED uses transformers which can be either Constant Current or Constant Voltage. Depending on the age of the installation the dimmers might only be suitable for incandescent and 240V Halogen.

There are plenty of guides online about the types of dimmers and the lighting that's suitable. If you're in rented property then ask the landlord about the switches. If it is a purchased property then try your solicitor to see if the vendors have that information. Alternatively either have the electrician come by and inspect before you purchase the fixture(s) or if you're feeling confident you could unscrew the dimmer switches from the wall and (without undoing any of the wiring) you could look to see what's written on the back and then look up that infor online.



* These aren't the only types of dimmable lamps, but they are the most common in a domestic setting where the light fixture is a pendant.