Halo H7ICAT 6-Inch Air Tite Recessed Housing

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 23.5 x 21.2 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• Shipping Advisory: This item must be shipped separately from other items in your order. Additional shipping charges will not apply.
• ASIN: B0009J4DOQ
• Item model number: H7ICAT

By : Halo
List Price : $36.00
Price : $11.68
You Save : $24.32 (68%)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

This is the housing to use if you want a larger-aperture (six inches) lighting solution for installation in insulated ceilings. The H7ICAT offers a wide variety of trims to choose from so you can customize the unit to match your décor, finish, and desired lighting effects. The unit is air-tight with all available trims, which means no more leakage of warm air into your attic. (Compare to Halo's H7ICTNB, which gives you the added convenience of no-socket-plate construction, and the H7ICT, which is air-tight with certain trims.)

Like most of Halo's recessed lighting fixtures, the H7ICAT is designed for ease of installation and flexibility across a variety of materials and situations. The hanger bars include pre-installed nails (self-tapping screws are also available) in special housings that ensure smooth, straight penetration, whether you're working with laminated composites, engineered I-joists, open-web joist plates, or even frozen lumber. The automatic leveling flanges allow you to hold the housing securely in place with one hand while driving nails with the other. The housing also includes integral T-bar clips for use with suspended ceiling T-grid systems.

Halo also makes it easy to work in confined spaces. To install in joist spans of less than 12 inches, simply collapse the hanger bars then bend and break them along the score lines--no tools needed. The bars can also be removed and repositioned on the opposite side of the frame if you need to mount the unit at 90 degrees to the original configuration. Wiring is a breeze with Halo's patented Slide-N-Side wiring system, which allows wiring outside the junction box.

Trims sold separately. UL/cUL listed for damp location, feed through, and direct contact with insulation and combustible material.--Josh Dettweiler

What's in the BoxSix-inch-aperture housing

Technical Details

• IC-rated 6-inch-aperture recessed downlighting fixture
• For commercial/residential use where housing will be in direct contact with insulation
• Air-Tite construction prevents leakage of warm air into ceiling
• Aluminum housing dissipates heat; galvanized steel plaster frame
• 1-year warranty; requires 1 120-volt incandescent lamp (not included)

 

Halo H7ICAT 6-Inch Air Tite Recessed Housing

 

Costumer Reviews

I personally like the H7ICAT. I used this to add recessed lighting to my existing ceilings where the attic was accessible above. You will need at least 7.5" (see actual specs on Halo's website) of clearance. which stands above the 6" (5.5") beams in my attic. Even with an open attic, you will find cross beams that block a particular situtation laying across the beams at 5.5" of depth. They make the H27ICAT (or just H27IC if not air-tight) to fit in 6" of space. I have found the actual hole size to be 6 3/8".

The air-tight seals aren't always perfectly affixed... but air-flow should definitely be very limited if any. It comes with a ring gasket that you stick on to the ceiling hole after you slip in the can. You basically cover the gap between the edge of the ceiling hole (on the room-facing bottom side) and wrap to the inner-can edge. Your trims go right over it. Personally, it doesn't fit (I too large for my can ; hole), so it easily tears and is very sticky so I could shorten it and seal it up.

I liked that this model had a plate with the light socket in rather than requiring a trim that the socket fit into (although you can remove the plate and use those trims). However, you actually cannot adjust the height of the socket plate very much in the IC cans. There is a safety inhibiter that seems to be in all IC cans of all brands. So you can't really push the bulb up higher to the top edge. I found this to be a major issue at first. Putting in a PAR30L hung nearly to the ceailing edge and looked awful (my personal opinion). I found PAR30 (short) bulbs to fit much better.

The can lists support for specific trims and bulbs. This 6" models supports many, but you cannot just swap any trim and any bulb type. The can (and Halo's specs on its website) lists the bulb types and max wattage supported for each trim. You are pretty much limited to 50W in PAR30 bulbs (the only ones short enough to not hang near the cealing edge). In the end, I am very happy with my recessed lighting, but was a little surprised that it was limited to 50W max in a PAR30. This seems to match other brands I have checked.

The "new construction" cans such as the H7ICAT ; H27IC cans seem to work great for existing ceilings with an open attic above, except that they have a bracket that is meant for you to install from the bottom side that slips under the beams (as if there is no ceiling). I cannot slide the rails all the way in place because I cannot slide the lower lip of the bracket below the beam which has the ceailing nailed into it. The easy solution to this is to take two plyers, grip the bracket on the vertical edge where there are a few holes and grab the horizontal lip and bend back ; forth until the metal fatigues and breaks off. Then they nailed in just fine. Personally I found it tough to nail in my existing attic. I bent some nails, drilled my own hole and just used a screw, and in other places I just didn't bother to secure it (the remodel cans aren't secured anyway). They seem to sit up there just fine. You might need the right tools to break the metal off. I recommend needle-nose plyers for the vertical edge and pipe-clamping wrenches that can grab on and hang on (if you know what I am referring to). Otherwise could take some effort to squeeze with both hands.

I also found spacing to be a problem (not necessarily related to this can or this brand). Some websites seemed to indicate 6' - 7'6" was fine. Perhaps it is the 50W max and height adjustment limitations, but it left uneven lighting with dark bands in between. They really looked like separate spot lights, even though they were "flood" bulbs. I ended up going back and adding more cans in-between and now am very happy with the lighting. It is said that recessed lighthing works best as accents anyway and not for uniform lighting. The better rule seems to be for any distance down to a surface (counter, table, chair, or floor), you can place lights in the ration of 1/2:1 to 3/4:1 (where the first number is the distance down. So for an 8' to the floor, tha't 81/2 = 4' to 83/4=6' (if I understood the ratios correctly -- I'm not a contractor or expert). Obviously shorter if a table is only 5' from the cealing. I have found 4' to 6' to be much more reasonable than 7'6" which really didn't work well for my 8' cealing. If you dim your lights, the bright spots are smaller and there is more separation too.

For the H7ICAT cans, I have seen them priced from 8.97 to 17.99 each. Regardless, they seem to be a smaller price of the overall project once you add trims, bulbs, additional wall switches, more romex, etc.

I am not an expert or contractor, so this is just informal opinions of what I found and did with my H7ICAT.

Been doing electrical work for over 30 years and have used most cans out there and the Halo can is by far the best - maybe not the cheapest but best to install