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

If you've spent any time in construction, you've been in this scenario: you get plans for your next project and start the bid-gathering process. Most estimates come back within a typical range, but the bid for lighting is way out of budget. Other times, the lighting bid may look good, but there's a late-in-the-game surprise — a 12+ week lead time that's now throwing a wrench in your schedule.

Now what?

In situations like this, value engineering a lighting package tends to come up. We've value engineered countless projects, and we've also written about ways to avoid the value engineering crunch and still save money. There is value behind value engineering — when you do it the right way.

When you're working on a new construction project, value engineering and savings seem to go hand-in-hand. But we like to take a different approach to value engineering and saving our clients money.

Have you purchased an LED bulb only to be disappointed with the light output when you turn it on? Finding the right LED for your space can be tricky if you're moving from incandescent, halogen, or CFL products.

Last year, we helped the Staples Center in Los Angeles retrofit to LED lighting. Between that venue and the adjacent Microsoft Theater, the property manager retrofitted over 100 fixtures to LED, bringing the cost of energy down to 25 percent of what the venues used to pay, when they were using metal halide fixtures. Check out our case study here.

But their decision had more to do with maintenance than energy, which can be extremely difficult in hard-to-reach areas.

That brings us to our first reason why venues like the Staples Center and the Microsoft Theater are rapidly retrofitting to LED:

This weekend, many of us will be climbing ladders, scaling our roofs, and wrapping the inside and outside of our house with holiday lighting. Whether you prefer a few strands hung on the shrubs in the front of your house or a display straight out of Christmas Vacation, in the back of your head, there's always that question – "How much is this going to cost me?" 

If you haven't heard the latest buzz about street lighting, don't worry. The Lighting Insights Blog is here for you.

Earlier this month, The American Medical Association (AMA) adopted guidelines for communities to follow on selecting LED lighting options. The AMA stated that some solid-state lighting in street lamps can have harmful effects.

High-density LED lighting can emit a blue-rich light that creates a worse nighttime glare than those produced by conventional lighting technologies.

This blue-rich light appears white to the naked eye causing the glare and reduced visibility causing a safety hazard. 

These white LEDs also have an effect on disrupting our circadian sleep rhythm by more than five times compared to traditional lighting. This disruption to your sleep can reach much farther than you'd think. 

We try not to take ourselves too seriously here on the Lighting Insights Blog. 

Let's be real, when you talk about light emitting diodes and color rendering index and center beam candle power all day, it's nice to have a laugh now and again.

When you’re a photographer of Andrei Duman’s caliber, it’s easy to understand the need for extremely high-quality lighting.

Duman, a travel photographer who has made art from the scenery of over 70 countries, recently opened a gallery in North Los Angeles, and he wanted to illuminate his work as perfectly as possible. “The colors had to be rendered exactly,” according to Business Wire.

When New York-based Regency Lighting Specialist Chris Monteleone first heard of the legacy and work of Goodwill Rescue Mission earlier this year, he was eager to learn more and find some way to aid the work of the organization.