Specifying Linear Cove Lighting: A Practical Checklist
Cove lighting looks simple on a section drawing and goes wrong in a dozen quiet ways. A field checklist for getting it clean the first time.
Linear cove lighting is the most specified and most under-detailed product in interior architecture. On a section it's a single line. On site it's a continuous run that has to turn corners, hide its source, hold a consistent colour, and survive a ceiling that was built to a different tolerance than the drawing assumed. Here's the checklist we walk through with designers before a cove run goes out.
1. Lock the colour temperature and CRI first
Everything downstream depends on this, and it's the hardest thing to change later.
- Pick a CCT and hold it across the whole project. A 3000K cove next to a 3500K downlight reads as a mistake, not a design choice. Mixed batches are the usual culprit — specify single-bin tolerance.
- CRI ≥ 90 for any space with skin tones or materials on display. Hospitality, retail, and residential should not compromise here; the cost delta is small and the visual payoff is large.
- Decide on tunable vs. fixed early. Tunable white is wonderful for hospitality but doubles the control and commissioning effort. Don't add it by reflex.
2. Detail the cove geometry for the source you're using
A cove hides the fixture and shows the wash. That only works if the geometry is right.
- Give the light room to throw. Too shallow a cove and you get a hot scallop line on the ceiling instead of a smooth gradient. As a rule of thumb, keep the fixture at least 100–150 mm back from the lip and below sightline.
- Account for the lit length, not the fixture length. End caps, lead-in cables, and corner gaps eat into the continuous line. Dark spots at corners are the number-one complaint on finished coves.
- Choose a strip pitch that matches the throw distance. Dense-pitch strip on a deep cove is wasted; sparse-pitch strip on a shallow cove shows dots.
3. Plan the runs and the power
This is where fixture choice and electrical reality meet.
- Map maximum run length against voltage drop. Long low-voltage runs dim toward the far end. Either use a higher-voltage / AC-native product or inject power at intervals.
- Decide where drivers live and how you'll reach them. A driver above an inaccessible ceiling is a future callback. Specify remote drivers in serviceable locations.
- Count your channels. Every independent zone, dimming group, or colour channel is a wire and a commissioning step. Draw the zoning plan before you pick the controller.
4. Get the dimming right
- Match the dimming protocol end to end. 0–10V, DALI, DMX, and phase-cut are not interchangeable; a mismatch shows up as flicker or a dead zone at the bottom of the dimming curve.
- Specify the low end. "Dimmable" means nothing without a number. If the client wants a candle-low glow, you need a product and driver rated for deep, flicker-free dimming — and you need to test it.
5. Detail for service from day one
- Leave slack and access. A continuous run with no service loop means cutting drywall to replace a metre of strip.
- Order attic stock in the same bin. Two years on, the replacement metre has to match the colour of the run beside it. Buy it now, label it, store it.
A quick pre-issue checklist
| Item | Locked? |
|---|---|
| CCT + CRI fixed project-wide, single bin | ☐ |
| Cove depth/setback suits the throw | ☐ |
| Lit length accounts for corners and end caps | ☐ |
| Run lengths checked against voltage drop | ☐ |
| Drivers in serviceable locations | ☐ |
| Dimming protocol consistent end to end | ☐ |
| Low-end dimming tested, not assumed | ☐ |
| Attic stock ordered in matching bin | ☐ |
Cove lighting rewards boring discipline. Get the colour, the geometry, and the runs right on paper, and the install is uneventful — which, for architectural lighting, is exactly the goal.