Practical advice on commercial lighting from LED retrofits to lighting design.

How much energy does a light bulb use, and how does lighting affect your electricity bill? How much will a lighting retrofit save you? How do you begin to estimate the value of a potential lighting rebate?

There’s one common thread that runs through each of these questions: the difference between watts (W), kilowatts (kW), and kilowatt-hours (kWh). Calculating watts to kWh could help you understand the answers to the questions above.

Healthcare facilities spend an alarming amount of money. The total tops $8 billion in the U.S. every year.

A big reason for those costs – everything is constantly running. Lights and HVAC need to be on all day, every day. Patient safety and care is a top priority.

There are four ways to immediately reduce those high costs and improve the experience for patients and employees.

If you operate a large facility, you probably keep stock of fluorescent tubes so you can promptly replace any failed bulbs. Often times, we talk to customers who want to use up their existing fluorescent tube stock before they move forward with an LED upgrade.

This had us curious. What's the cost of waiting to switch to LED?

Energy is one of the fastest growing costs in the hotel industry. Think about it: there are now more electronics and perks expected in a hotel room than ever before. Energy Star estimates that hotels spend $2,196 per room every year on energy alone.

When is the right time to retrofit your HID lighting to LED? It can be an expensive project, and you're probably wondering if the energy savings are worth it.

HID (or high intensity discharge) replacement bulbs aren't the cheapest. Plus, because of their high light output, they're usually in hard-to-reach areas like stadiums, gyms, warehouses, and parking lots or garages. Even changing a light bulb can mean extra costs.

If you're new to commercial lighting, the concept of a ballast can be an odd one. You’re probably used to just screwing light bulbs into sockets and flipping switches. The transition to ballast-dependent lighting technology can be frustrating and confusing.

You might not realize it, but you interact with fluorescent lighting every day. Whether it’s in the office building or grocery store, fluorescent lamps are probably the most popular type of lighting.

Ready, set, here we go again. A new set of Title 24 restrictions go into effect January 1, 2020. This time, there are some big changes.

We've been diving head-first into Title 24 for years now, and one of the updates caught our eye. For the first time, healthcare facilities have to comply with California building code.

Have you ever heard a light bulb buzz? 

Technically, no. The buzzing you hear is coming from the ballast, not the bulb itself.

Nerdy lighting technicalities, I know. Ballasts, light bulbs – it's all the same, isn't it?

In the midst of the all of the light bulbs, projects, and phone calls, Regency has continued its humanitarian efforts in Haiti. Here's an update on the progress at the Regency Home.