The Many Benefits of a Commercial Lighting Retrofit

The many ways that retrofitting your existing commercial lighting can be beneficial can also be surprising. When most people think of retrofitting their existing lighting they think of merely the energy savings that they will save. While this benefit is real and quite often saves enough money on electricity to pay for the cost of the retrofit, there are many additional benefits as well.

Safety is one of the benefits that is hard to quantify but can more than make up for the cost of the lighting upgrade. Dim, blinking, or dirty light bulbs and fixtures can create a safety hazard by hiding trip hazards, objects sitting or protruding into walkways or wet slippery floors. The better the lighting the less likely that a trip or fall accident will happen. The cost of a workers comp claim or the cost of a lawsuit from a customer will greatly outweigh the costs of upgrading your lighting. This problem can be compounded if equipment, shelving, or decorating has been changed significantly since the lighting was originally installed. Light fixtures may be blocked by equipment that wasn’t originally there when the lighting was installed, making most of the light they produce be blocked off from illuminating the areas needed.

Additionally, better lighting can improve the atmosphere in a room. A well-lit room will contribute to happier and more productive employees in addition to contributing to a better customer experience. It’s hard to put a dollar figure to this benefit but it’s clear that this benefit is real. A dim workspace becomes miserable to work in, and nobody wants to patronize an establishment that feels like it’s trying to hide something in the shadows.

One often overlooked benefit is the decrease in hassle that you gain when retrofitting your lighting. Besides the energy savings that newer bulbs provide, they also provide longer life, which equals less changing out of bulbs. Although the act of changing out a bulb seems simple enough, compound that with all of the bulbs in a large facility or building and that task can quickly become a job. Longer lasting bulbs such as LED’s practically eliminate this hassle. No more rushing to replace a bulb that went out in an area that needs to be very bright. No need to bring in equipment routinely to change out hard to reach bulbs. No more changing out working bulbs because the other ones in the area went out and you don’t want to bring in the lift next week to replace it. No more hunting down bulbs that are no longer carried by many suppliers or that are obsolete.

Bottom line, retrofitting your commercial lighting saves you money in the long run, improves your safety, improves the quality of life for your employees and customers, and simplifies a recurring problem. It’s hard to argue with that. If you are considering a commercial lighting retrofit contact us here at Relumination to see how we can help.

How an Expert Can Make Your Lighting More Efficient

For businesses in all industries and of all sizes, finding ways to reduce operating costs to improve profitability is very important. For many companies, one of the best ways to reduce costs is by reducing energy costs. For those that are looking to reduce their energy costs, working with a lighting efficiency service provider could be very beneficial as they can provide you with a number of different tips and services.

Consultation

One of the first things that a lighting efficiency expert will be able to provide you with is a consultation on your current situation. The company will be able to examine your property, your energy bills, and areas of lighting usage to determine where lighting is being used the most and where it is being wasted. Based on this information, and other information about your business, the company will be able to provide you with a detailed plan to reconfigure your lighting sources. This will help to drastically reduce the amount of light you waste in unnecessary areas of the building.

Automation System

A lighting efficiency provider will also be able to help you to establish an automation system for your lighting plan. Building automation systems provide a range of different services to organizations. One of the main benefits is that it can help to control energy and lighting usage at your property. For example, this can include turning off lights in rooms that are not in use and reducing the amount of light used when the building is closed at night and on weekends. Over time, this can drastically help to make your property more efficient.

If you are interested in learning more ways that you could reduce your lighting usage, you should contact us to learn more about the services we provide and how we could make your property more efficient.

When Your Business Is Manufacturing, The Lighting Needs To Be Excellent!

If You Don’t Think Lighting Has A Big Effect…..

Maybe it’s because the impact of poor lighting has not been fully realized. When updating our lighting to the best level, we’ll notice improvements in the following 4 areas:

Safety

The average manufacturing facility undoubtedly complies with all government safety regulations. (This article details OSHA’s lighting requirements). This compliance, however, probably doesn’t require optimal lighting. Logically, less than great lighting creates less than great safety. Which allows for excess workplace accidents. Yes, great lighting makes a manufacturing business as safe/efficient as possible.

Mood

A poorly lit work area carries a subliminal message of drudgery. A well-lit facility promotes a positive atmosphere of cutting-edge production. In other words, it’s where you’ll find the winning team. Improved morale is the intangible by-product.

Productivity

When a manufacturing business provides a premium workplace, it’s reasonable that productivity will reach its apex. It’s reasonable because a premium workplace can’t possibly provide an obstacle to peak performance. If production lacks, a properly illuminated facility is not the culprit.

Expense

Lighting improvements cut expenses in more ways than one. Increased productivity is, in effect, equal to reduced expense. Also, less workplace injuries equate to cutting unnecessary expense at an Olympic level. But, the obvious savings come in the form of state-of-the-art lighting fixtures and lamps. Modern lighting technology operates at a tremendously low cost. Today’s lighting lineup is amazingly energy-efficient.

Data Center Efficiency: Three Benefits of an LED Commercial Lighting Retrofit

A data center processes, stores, and distributes data for a single organization or many organizations. It is filled with computer servers that together, consume considerable power. The servers also produce considerable heat, which in turn requires air conditioning.

This adds up to a costly power bill. Data centers work to minimize power consumption by consolidating the work loads of its servers, eliminating unnecessary computing, and using more efficient servers. Some data centers have reduced air conditioning power consumption by increasing their room temperatures by several degrees. However, there is still more room for improvement by doing a commercial lighting retrofit with LEDs. Here are three reasons for this:

  • LEDs consume less power. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, a 12 watt LED light puts out the same lighting as a 15 watt CFL light or a 60 watt incandescent light. This amounts to a 20% and 80% power reduction respectively. In addition, an LED light outperforms an energy-saving incandescent light by 72%.
  • LEDs produce less heat. This is a consequence of its higher energy efficiency, since energy not converted to light becomes waste heat. Less heat production from LEDs places a smaller load on air conditioning, which saves on AC power consumption.
  • LEDs can be turned on and off without a warm-up period and are easily dimmed. LEDs are compatible with smart control systems that use motion sensors to turn on lighting when someone enters a room, and turn off lighting when no one is present. It can be used with external lighting sensors that adjust LED brightness according to ambient light coming in from windows.

Summarizing, LEDs themselves consume less power, their reduced heat output means your AC system consumes less power, and you can easily use them more efficiently with automation technology.