What Is a Wall Washer Light Fixture?

A wall washer light fixture is not something that will help you with your household cleaning. This type of light typically washes the wall with illumination. This is also used in areas where light is spread in the entire space. This fixture differs from shining a focused beam in one particular area or merely emitting light down toward the floor.

How the Wall Washers Work

In many cases, wall washers are recessed fixtures sometimes with a socket or eyeball type featuring a housing that can be moved by hand to any direction. This allows you to turn and change the angle of the light to achieve the desired effect in a room. There are wash lights that are required to completely wash one wall with light.

Some recessed wall washing fixtures look like standard square or rectangular recessed lighting fixtures that are mounted into the ceiling. This type of wall washer has a special reflective shield inside the housing around the light to reflect the light toward the wall. These wall washer versions are mostly used in restaurants and other businesses in highlighting a focal wall.

Wall washing is to evenly illuminate a wall. The intent of wall washing is to illuminate a wall without accenting the texture on it, unlike wall grazing or slot outlining. The fluorescent wall washing fixtures can work well for several applications since they have the ability to provide long strips of even lighting aside from being energy-efficient.

To get fluorescent wall washing perfectly right, you have to figure out what you want to achieve and calculate for the best way to do it.

What are Fluorescent bulbs or lamps?

The fluorescent lamps or bulbs provide soft and even white lighting which is perfect for wall washing applications. Commonly used fluorescent bulbs are the compact fluorescent bulb that looks like a twisted tube of glass or the T-8 bulb which is the common long bar of light.

How to assess the Wall

Wall washing actually works well with gypsum boards since the lighting tends to flatten out any texture on the wall. This can also be great for brick or stone walls which make it appear painted when lit with a wall washer. The gypsum wallboard, however, would seem to glow when evenly illuminated with wall washers correctly. The fluorescent light also minimizes the effect of flattening the wall because it is a soft lighting, but the effect will still be there.

Avoid washing a glossy wall with light since the light will only be reflected back into the viewer’s eyes. It would be glaring.

Choosing a Fixture

Pick a fixture that covers the entire wall without showing the gaps between fixtures, since your objective is to provide even illumination. The wall washing fixture are recessed fixtures hidden or at least visually minimized. Choose a fluorescent ceiling fixture designed for wall washing that accepts a T-8 fluorescent bulb. It can help you direct the light where you need it most.

Wall washers are generally mounted on the ceiling near the wall you intend to wash. The fluorescent wall-washers come in three types but the most used is the lens which is semi-recessed fixtures that are surface-mounted. The lens fixture is equipped with a small eyelid that covers part of the light and reflects the light toward the wall. It is designed to hold a single compact bulb. The semi-recessed and surface-mounted fixtures on the other hand can hold the longer T-8 and T-12 fluorescent bulbs and can throw the light away from the room towards the wall without reflective panels.

How to determine wall washer location

To determine the location of wall washers, the magic triangle method is used by lighting designers. The magic triangle method involves measuring the height of the wall that you intend to light and multiplying that number by one-quarter. This would be the distance away from the wall that the wall washer should be placed to get even illumination. For installing more wall washers light fixtures, spacing between T-8 fluorescent fixtures should also use this distance apart from each other starting from the end of the wall.