Tips for Exterior Lighting and How to Keep Safe During the Winter

As the days get shorter and the nights longer, having exterior lighting is more important than ever. Whether you own an office building or an apartment building, you need to make sure that the office workers or apartment tenants stay safe. People will be leaving work when it’s dark, and ice and snow can create dangerous situations.

Exterior lights should be placed along all walkways around your building, by steps, and near the entrance. Having lights near the entrance will make the building look more welcoming. You also want lights in the parking lot so that people can enter and leave their cars safely, and so that they can see where they are going (around one in five collisions occur in parking lots).

Lights should also be installed all around your building, especially near any entrance points. This will keep your building safe at night from intruders.

When installing exterior lighting, you need to consider a number of things. First of all, the outside surroundings usually don’t reflect light as much as indoor furniture. This can cause the light to shine heavily on one area without lighting up other areas. You want the light to cast a glow over a large swath of land. You also don’t want the lights to be too bright and end up shining through the building’s windows.

Of course, all exterior lights must be able to withstand the outdoor weather conditions such as rain, snow, heat, and frost.

Environmental Sustainability: Why LED Lighting Is a Step in the Right Direction

Economic sustainability requires that business activity not cause environmental deterioration or depletion of natural resources. For the most part, this hasn’t been the case for the last 150 years. Energy inefficient technologies accelerate the use of non-renewable fossil fuels that spew carbon dioxide and other pollutants into the atmosphere. However, more recent technologies are reversing this trend. These include LED lighting, which is having a positive effect on reaching environmental sustainability in a number of ways. Here are four of them:

LEDs Put Out More Light with Less Power

Lighting can account for a third or more of the energy consumption in buildings. This hefty energy consumption is due to huge inefficiencies in old lighting technology such as incandescent and fluorescent lighting. LEDs are far more efficient than either of these two lighting technologies.

From a sustainability point of view, LEDs reduce fossil fuel consumption and place a smaller energy load on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power. This makes renewable energy sources and their reliance on battery storage technology more economically viable. Technological improvements in renewable energy, batteries, and LED lighting will only make renewable energy still more competitive in the years to come.

LEDs Have a Greater Service Life Than Other Forms of Lighting

LEDs have a substantially greater service life than either incandescent or fluorescent lighting. This reduces LED light replacement, which reduces the environmental impact of their manufacture since fewer lights are required. The resource and energy consumption of their manufacture and packaging, as well as the fuel consumption of transporting raw material and finished products are reduced.

The greater service life of LEDs also reduce their disposal into landfills. LEDs don’t contain environmentally damaging substances such as the mercury used in fluorescent lights.

LEDs Produce Less Heat

The extensive lighting of buildings place a heavy heat load on air conditioning systems during warm weather. Because LEDs put out substantially less heat, air conditioning systems do less work and therefore consume less energy.

LED Light Output Is Easily Controlled by Sensors

LED lights are easily dimmed and switched on and off by sensing technology such as motion sensors. These prevent unnecessary lighting in unoccupied areas of buildings, which further reduces energy consumption.

Protect Your Customers and Your Business with LED Lighting

As a responsible business owner, you’ve kept your property safe for both your customers and employees by looking for and promptly correcting safety hazards. Injured employees reduce your productivity and their insurance claims increase premiums. When customers get injured, you risk possible litigation and losing their repeat business. One of the most common injuries sustained on business property is slip, trip, and fall accidents. These can occur in any area frequented by foot traffic.

For example, staircases are often the site of fall injuries. They and their railings should be structurally sound. Carpeting at their top and bottom must be free of wrinkles and well secured. Likewise, parking lot pavement shouldn’t have large pot holes, cracks, or other tripping hazards. It must be cleared of ice and snow. Similar upkeep duties exist for sidewalks, walkways, and garages. In addition to structural problems and slippery surfaces, another common cause of slip, trip, and fall accidents is poor lighting.

In fact, poor lighting alone is a big risk factor in these accidents. In some ways, lighting is the weakest link in your efforts to keep your business premises safe. One burnt out or dimming/flickering bulb can make sections of your otherwise well maintained property unsafe. Business owners are required to cordon off or place a warning next to uncorrected safety hazards. However, unless the warnings are themselves lights, they become invisible without good lighting.

LED lighting will last up to five times longer than CFL lights. LED lighting also has a fuller frequency spectrum than CFL lights. This means the light is more similar to daylight and therefore provides better illumination. Longer lifetime and better light add up to better protection of your customers, employees, and your business. Other benefits include lower energy costs and reduced maintenance requirements.

The Future of Lighting

Imagine a world where light switches don’t exist. Your factory floor is illuminated only when and where it needs to be. Your administration offices feature light fixtures that have more intelligence, providing services, such as public address, WiFi, and security, and they’re incredibly energy-efficient. This is the future of lighting. And you can make it happen today.

Already in the marketplace, there are light bulbs and lighting fixtures which produce some of these effects. High-efficiency LED bulbs are already available for most industrial and commercial needs, and they aren’t even custom-designed. You can find LED bulbs designed to fit most existing receptacles, and while the price is currently slightly prohibitive, it will go down. LED bulbs that replace the old tube fluorescents are already available, and in the near future will have additional features.

Light fixtures that detect motion are also already available, but this is a flawed technology in that it only activates lighting when there is motion in a room. Future lighting fixtures will contain heat and motion sensors, turning on lights when a warm body is in the room, even if that person isn’t moving enough to trigger the motion sensor, enabling good lighting for office workers, and reducing the turn-off time once everyone has left for the day.

Lightbulbs containing WiFi repeaters or security cameras are also already available, although these are consider niche products, your business could definitely benefit from converting to the secure wireless connections offered by these ‘near-future’ systems, especially once they’re integrated into a single bulb or fixture. Costing slightly more to implement, the cost savings add up over the increased lifespan of newer bulbs. And newer bulbs are living longer and longer with every iteration.

Consider the future of lighting your workspace now, and invest in better illumination for the future.

Quality Lighting to Keep a Workplace Safe

Quality lighting solutions are a necessity when it comes to keeping a commercial office space, retail center, warehouse, or mercantile occupancy safe for their employees and a building’s means of egress well-lit. Severe weather, fires, and threats by an intruder can all contribute to the need for quality lighting to be present and maintained at a workplace. Relumination can provide services and quality products that will keep a business during an unforeseen catastrophe.

Escape Routes

The proper interior lighting can provide illumination to an escape route for employees or customers during a crisis. Relumination is able to provide energy-efficient lights that are in good working order. It is important for companies and building owners to be ready for any type of evacuation situation, such as a fire or tornado. Clearly marked and well-lit escape routes are important to all of the occupants of a structure.

According to the Health and Safety Authority, “All workplaces must have clearly identified means of escape in the event of fire.”

Employee Safety

Employees working in a building want to fill safe at their job. Good lighting and emergency exit signs go a long way in offering assistance to workers during unplanned events that require immediate evacuation and the need to find an exit door quickly. Keeping a means of egress marked and illuminated may also contribute to less slips, trips, or falls in the workplace. This is good for the general well-being of all employees, and also for keeping worker’s compensation losses to a minimum.

How LED Lighting Will Benefit Your Business

As a business owner it is important to have good lighting around your store or warehouse. Many businesses have made the switch to LED lighting to not only save money, but also cut down on lighting maintenance. Below are 5 benefits to making LED lighting upgrades at your business.

1. Reliability: One of the main benefits of LED lighting is its reliability. This is attractive for both commercial and industrial businesses, as it means less time is spent changing out faulty lights. LED lamps have a life span of over 50,000 operating hours, which greatly reduces the amount of a time a business will spend on lighting maintenance.

2. Color Options: LED lights, unlike incandescent lights, are able to produce light in a wide range of color spectrum. These options allow business owners to set the tone in a given space, based on its lighting needs. These color temperatures include:

  • Warm White– This is the light that most people are familiar with, and is most commonly used for intimate locations such as restaurants or lounges.
  • Natural White– This shade is cooler than warm white, using more white than yellow. This light is best used for commercial applications, such as in offices.
  • Daylight White– This shade most closely resembles natural sunlight. Some locations that would benefit from daylight white are large areas such as conference rooms, classrooms, and retail stores.
  • Cool White– The best application for cool white light is in areas that require intense light, while offering high contrast. Some examples are jewelry stores or art galleries.

3. Brightness: Not only does LED lighting offer a wide range of color options, it is also brighter than traditional incandescent or florescent lighting. This is due to the fact that LED lights convert more energy into visible light, as opposed to heat.

4. Energy Savings: Since LED lighting emits more visible light, rather than producing heat, upgrading can greatly reduce your energy costs. Many businesses must leave lights on 24/7 for safety and security reasons, so keeping electricity costs down is key. Since very little heat is produced, it will also cut cooling costs during the summer months.

5. Upgrading is Simple: When it comes time to upgrade your current lighting system, LED lights can easily be designed and manufactured to fit your current specifications.

If you are looking for ways to cut costs for your business, while adding the appropriate color of light to any given space, it is time to make an upgrade to LED lighting.

Why LED Lighting Improves Office Productivity

An optimal office environment requires more than keeping it well lit, maintaining a comfortable temperature, and providing workers with the right tools. These are only the basics and don’t include more subtle environmental factors. Subtle effects such as the brightness of the lighting and its spectrum of color components, play an important role throughout the course of the work day. Although you can, with some effort and focus, achieve spectacular productivity in less than ideal conditions for an hour or two, the subtle environmental effects will take their toll over the course of the day and workweek.

Light brightness can produce eyestrain when it’s too dim. Unfortunately, many office environments overcompensate with lighting that’s too bright. This produces fatiguing glare and likewise causes eyestrain. The right amount of light will vary depending on the task. The ideal lighting that reduces computer screen glare for example, is different from that required for reading text off a sheet of paper, which depends on reflected light. This is solved with an adjustable light source for the different types of work. LED lighting readily accommodates this.

LED lighting is unique in that it is whiter than other types of lighting. The reason is that its light has a fuller color spectrum and closely resembles sunlight (minus the UV rays). Specifically, LEDs have more blue light.

It’s this blue light that boosts your mood and alertness when outdoors on a sunny day. This means that workers in LED lit rooms without windows will not feel like they’re working in brightly lit caves. The blue light component boosts their mood, alertness and productivity. Unlike a window however, the weather won’t affect the output of an LED light.

Some have exploited this “outdoor lighting” effect by installing LED panels in the ceiling that look like skylights. Others have taken this further and devised LED ceiling panels that simulate white clouds floating under a blue sky.

When considering the period required for LED lighting to pay for itself, most estimates only take energy savings into consideration.

New Lighting Technology for Energy-Efficiency

To achieve better illumination, industrial, manufacturing, and commercial sites are retrofitting old metal halide and high-pressure sodium lighting systems with next generation LED lighting. In the process, those sites are realizing substantial energy-efficiency benefits from those LED lighting systems.

An LED lighting system can generate the same or better luminosity as a traditional lighting systems while consuming less than half the electrical energy as a traditional system might require. The costs of retrofitting a traditional industrial or commercial lighting system with an LED system will be recouped in twelve to eighteen months after installation solely from reduced energy utilization. Next generation LED systems can operate for up to 50,000 hours continuously, and in some cases for more than 100,000 hours. This reduces maintenance and replacement costs as well.

Newer LED systems have also responded to the criticisms of degrading luminosity that had affected the first generation of LED’s. LED manufacturers have developed heat sink technology and other systems that reduce the thermal load on LED luminaires. Reduced thermal loads extend the life and performance of LED’s and keep fixtures operating at peak performance for several years.

Industrial and commercial sites that retrofit with LED systems will also experience secondary energy efficiency benefits from improved employee safety and performance. LED lighting is closer to natural lighting than traditional illumination systems. Employees are better able to distinguish fine detail and contrasting features in objects under LED light. These improvements lead to reduced employee fatigue and better overall operational efficiency.

 

The benefits of converting your business to LED lighting

For any business, the initial benefit of conducting LED lighting is the long-term cost savings. Yes, bulb-for-bulb, LED lighting does have a higher initial cost compared to incandescent lighting. However, over the course of an LED light’s lifespan, the real-life costs are a mere fifth of incandescent lighting.

Beyond the obvious cost savings aspect, there are three reasons why a business should consider upgrading their lighting to LED.

  1. Typically, LED lighting does not require equipment upgrades or replacement. Most incandescent bulbs have a direct equivalent LED replacement. Changing the bulbs in your offices, signs, security lighting and accent lighting is fairly effortless and should not incorporate additional costs beyond that of the bulbs.
  2. Incandescent bulbs have an expected lifespan of 2,000 hours compared to 50,000 hours for an LED. For a business, this longer lifespan equates to cost savings in the form of less required maintenance and reduced on-site storage of replacement bulbs. Additionally, lighting for signs and security will be more dependable. LED bulbs are also harder to break than incandescent and fluorescent lighting
  3. From an aesthetic standpoint, LED lighting provides a business with an array of options. Because the bulbs last longer and are more dependable, signs will not flicker and interior lighting will provide a more comfortable and secure feeling for employees and customers. LED lighting also comes in a variety of colors that can be designed to accommodate company colors, to create ambiance, or to fit a specific need. Available colors cover the spectrum and can easily be controlled via preprogramming or by a mobile app.

Depending on your business’ needs, LED lighting is available in an array of styles and applications.

6 Things to Consider About Energy-Efficient Lighting

If you are thinking about energy-efficiency (who isn’t these days?) and about buying some of the smart building products on the market, we have some ideas to help you. Here are 6 things to consider about lighting control.

  • Networked Lighting Systems. One of the smart ways to save energy dollars is to upgrade to a network lighting system. These systems combine digital sensors with lighting capability and smart controls. They also give you the ability to analyze data collected by the system. You want a system that is energy-efficient, saves operating dollars while it improves the comfort of your building, and uses smart devices to your advantage. Consider the following qualities before buying.
  • Occupancy and Vacancy Sensors. Consider buying a system that uses occupancy and vacancy sensors. The sensors control the system by distinguishing between occupied and vacant rooms and adjusting the energy use in those rooms accordingly. To do this effectively, you need a system that can distinguish between living heat sources (your employees) and non-living heat sources (office machines). The occupancy sensor also must distinguish between humans and large inanimate objects. One neat feature available in some systems is a sensor with daylight “harvesting” capabilities. These sensors adjust the building’s artificial energy use by sensing the amount of daylight coming in through the building’s windows. Then, the system adjusts the level of indoor light correspondingly.
  • Improve Office Comfort Levels. Look for a system that allows your employees to adjust the lighting levels in their office space determined on specific tasks. A system that adjusts lighting based on the time of day can also help employees maintain healthier internal body clock rhythms. Adjusting light to lower levels at closing time before completely turning off the lights is an employee safety factor.
  • Data Collection. Networked lighting systems collect data on space utilization and space occupancy. How useful the data is depends on its quality. For example, installing light sensors in every light fixture means the data quality is high (1:1 ratio). High quality data is more useful for current purposes as well as for planning future changes. You want the data to contain a high level of detail and you want the ability to act on the information after collection.
  • Optimize the Network Lighting System. You want your smart lighting system to do more than turn the lights on/off. Look for a smart lighting system that can control the HVAC system, security system, and provide access control to restricted areas of your facility. A smart system can monitor how and where and when people move throughout the facility. This feature will provide security information with respect to visitors whose access you want to restrict to certain areas of the facility. The system can limit energy use in those rooms with little activity, like large conference rooms. And, in emergencies, the system sensors can locate employees and visitors within the facility.
  • Select a System Now That Can Adapt into the Future. When you compare the systems on the market today, remember that you want something that you can adapt to future changes in technology. A wireless system, for example, will make it easier to install now and when you redesign spaces. Selecting a system now that anticipates future technology will save headaches later.