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Yr9012 t1_iuw5eej wrote

Most rental places in this area don’t have recessed lighting. This is because it is legally the owner’s responsibility to change the light bulbs of the recessed lighting, and the labor cost is notoriously high in USA. If you get a floor/table lamp, it’s your own responsibility to change the light bulbs

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objectimpermanence t1_iuxetti wrote

>it is legally the owner’s responsibility to change the light bulbs of the recessed lighting

Maybe I'm misinformed, but I've literally never heard of that being a thing.

Even if that’s true, I wouldn’t be surprised if installation costs are more of an issue than anything else. Recessed lights are generally more complicated to install than other types of fixtures.

In older buildings, they can be more difficult to retrofit than traditional ceiling mounted fixtures.

Meanwhile, most high rise apartments have concrete slab ceilings. In that case, you need to build a soffit or a false ceiling to house a recessed fixture, which adds to costs and reduces ceiling heights.

The concrete slab issue is also why many high rise apartments have very few lighting fixtures (of any type) built into the ceiling in bedrooms and living rooms. Without some type of false ceiling, the electrical stuff needs to be built into the slab during construction in order to avoid having an ugly exposed conduit running along the ceiling.

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Miringanes t1_iuz4122 wrote

It’s also because the ceilings of most luxury buildings are concrete slabs in the bedroom and living room. I have recessed lighting in the hallway, kitchen and bathroom because they had the ability to do it due to the gwb ceiling used to conceal the sprinkler branch piping

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smokeymacncheese OP t1_iv0wzv4 wrote

That's fair and does make sense. Tbh I just assumed it was a cost saving measure and also increases the time of building wiring every apartment with overhead lighting. And since there is no regulation saying you need to do it and most people are happy without they never bothered.

I also found it weird that in the bathrooms there's not a drain in the middle of the room in case water over flows (other than the drain in the tub/shower)

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Miringanes t1_iv0yj5l wrote

The floor drain in a bathroom is more of a commercial thing than residential thing and there is no code requiring it AFAIK.

A lot of buildings do actually have a light fixture in the living room, just not recessed, there’s typically nothing in the bedrooms though.

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