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

This article has been updated with new information and new products. It was originally published in 2017.

If you still have T12s in your building and they run on magnetic ballasts, you may soon face a problem: what do you do when your ballasts die?

Francine Pitassi, one of Regency's Lighting Specialists, works with customers every day to find cost and energy saving lighting options for their applications. One topic she finds herself addressing often is that of lighting rebates. In this article, Francine helps answer some of the most common questions we receive centered around lighting rebates.

The impact of LED lighting on the seeming endless sea of options is greater than just a few new — significantly more efficient — options for a table lamp or track fixture. LED technology has brought plenty of new replacement products, but it has also introduced a whole new category of options: LED fixtures.

This is a question we commonly address: “I’d like to go with LED lighting, but how do I know if I should go with a screw-in replacement product or a new LED fixture?”

Of course, whether you're switching to an LED screw-in or a brand new LED fixture, you're probably well-acquainted with the lighting technology's many advantages. One important one to highlight here: the lumen output, or brightness, doesn't depreciate with LED like it does with fluorescent or HID technology. The lumen output will remain the same over the life of the product whether you go with a replacement lamp or fixture. 

If you’re looking for a way to upgrade from linear fluorescent to linear LED, one of the decisions you’ll have to make is whether it’s better to replace your existing fluorescent tubes with linear LED tubes or make the leap for a new LED fixture.

This decision is a little like the choice to either rebuild your car’s engine or trade it in for a newer model. Which is right depends on the shape that your car is in, if there are other problems with it, how much you’re spending on gas, how much you want the latest technology or model, and your budget.

If you're beginning to consider a linear fluorescent lamp retrofit, knowing where to begin can be overwhelming and unsettling. The lighting industry is packed full of information that's pulling you in multiple directions. But let's be honest – none of us have time for that. 

With my customers, I like to cut to the chase. I follow a simple decision path to find our customers exactly what they need and want.