Eason Enterprises -- EasonOKC.com

Optimize Your Workspace Lighting to Improve Safety, Worker Health and Reduce Costs

Eason Enterprises has been installing office, business, commercial, outdoor, security and warehouse lighting systems since 1982. We can perform any lighting related work you may require, including design and installation of new lighting systems, electrical conduits, circuits, power boxes, circuit breakers or fuses, and wall switches or controls.

Many consumers, businesses, schools, universities and governmental agencies are converting  older incandescent bulbs and circuits to more modern florescent tubes, compact fluorescents, or even the very new LED (light emitting diode)  systems and directed, task oriented, or spot lighting installations.

Converting an older lighting system into a more modern system can result in major cost reductions and savings that positively affect the corporate bottom line. Here is a look at general power consumption of various lighting types:

Comparison of Power vs. Light Output by Types of Lighting — All Approximately Equal in Light Output

Appropriate Lighting for Each Type of Activity

Research indicates that appropriate lighting levels should average about 500 lux for incidental lighting, and about 800 lux for general office use, or up to 1,600 lux for special purpose use such as microchip etching quality control and other intense manufacturing purposes.

Dramatic cost reductions can result when lighting is reduced to these levels for each kind of commercial activity. Eason can test your work spaces to see what the levels are at present, and make recommendations about how to modify your lighting to achieve the recommended levels.

In most cases, especially for buildings designed and built prior to the mid-1990s, work spaces will suffer from too much installed lighting. In a few cases, a site lighting survey will suggest increasing lighting to enhance job safety and productivity. When increased lighting is needed, the costs of installation will generally be offset over time by reductions in accidents, as well as improved productivity levels.

Many office, commercial, military or business areas suffer from problems with too much installed lighting. When this over-lighting exists, workers can suffer from headaches, increased stress levels, eye-strain, and other health issues. Over time, these health problems can result in major expenses in lost productivity, employee absenses from work, increased health insurance costs, and employee out-of-pocket copay expenses. Additionally, the mood and employee work attitudes suffer due to the increased stress levels resulting from too high ambient work space lighting.

And, of course, too much lighting results in dramatic and unnecessary costs in power consumption. Many office spaces can improve productivity, employee job satisfaction, retention levels, and safety by actually reducing lighting levels. This can be accomplished by several means:

1. Surveying the spaces to determine existing lighting levels

2. Designing new lighting systems that enable reducing lighting to proper levels that maintain adequate light for safety and productivity while reducing eye strain, stress, and optimizing power consumption.

3. Enabling automatic switching of power by time of day, motion detection, and work-space activities.

4. Enabling natural solar environmental lighting where possible by installation of skylights, fiber optic outdoor source lighting systems, and adding new windows where possible to existing buildings.

5. Coordinating all of these modifications with added electrical conduits, wiring, control switches and new, more efficient lighting mounting, reflectors and arrays.

Advantages to Proper Lighting Levels

1. Reduced Power Consumption Costs — up to 80% or more.
2. Improved work safety, fewer accidents.
3. Improved job satisfaction, worker attitudes and productivity.
4. Reduced health costs due to lower stress and strain.
5. Lower insurance costs and work compensation fees.

Efficiency of Incandescent vs. Compact Fluorescent Lighting

For a given light output, compact fluorescent lamps or CFLs use 20 to 33 percent of the power of equivalent incandescent lamps. Since lighting accounted for approximately 9% of household electricity usage in the United States in 2001, widespread use of CFLs could save as much as 7% of total US household usage.

Efficacy and efficiency

A typical CFL is in the range of 17 to 21% efficient at converting electric power to radiant power based on 60 to 72 lumens per watt source efficacy, and 347 lumens per radiant watt luminous efficacy of radiation for a tri-phosphor spectrum. Because the eye’s sensitivity changes with the wavelength, the output of lamps is commonly measured in lumens, a measure that accounts for the effect of the source’s spectrum on the eye. The luminous efficacy of CFL sources is typically 60 to 72 lumens per watt, versus 8 to 17 lm/W for incandescent lamps.

Cost Comparison: Compact Fluorescent vs. Incandescent

Residential – While the purchase price of an integrated CFL is typically 3 to 10 times greater than that of an equivalent incandescent lamp, the extended lifetime and lower energy use will more than compensate for the higher initial cost.  A US article stated “A household that invested $90 in changing 30 fixtures to CFLs would save $440 to $1,500 over the five-year life of the bulbs, depending on your cost of electricity. Look at your utility bill and imagine a 12% discount to estimate the savings.”

Commercial & Industrial — CFLs are extremely cost-effective in commercial buildings when used to replace incandescent lamps. Using average U.S. commercial electricity and gas rates for 2006, a 2008 article found that replacing each 75 W incandescent lamp with a CFL resulted in yearly savings of $22 in energy usage, reduced HVAC cost, and reduced labor to change lamps. The incremental capital investment of $2 per fixture is typically paid back in about one month. Savings are greater and payback periods shorter in regions with higher electric rates and, to a lesser extent, also in regions with higher than U.S. average cooling requirements.

Contact Eason Enterprises for a site lighting survey and proposal today:

Eason Enterprises, LLC
P.O. Box 15161
Dell City, OK 73155

Phone: 405-677-6431        ::        Fax: 406-677-1205
Hours: 8am – 5pm, Monday to Friday

- – - – -

More information on lighting and cost savings of fluorescent vs. incandescent lighting can be found at the Wikipedia lighting pages.