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

Proper lighting is key in providing a positive tenant, guest, or shopper experience in any parking garage. In many respects, it's a first impression for the people visiting your facility and shouldn't be overlooked. 

This lighting typically remains on 24/7, so it’s important to have long-life bulbs to avoid burnouts at the wrong time. Additionally, these 24/7 burn-time light fixtures present a quick payback on energy-efficient LED upgrades.

Whether your commercial office building is new, dated, large, or small, proper lighting is a vital component of a functional and efficient workplace. It’s no secret that dim lighting puts strain on the eyes and lowers productivity, and harsh lighting can trigger serious migraines. Aside from employee benefit, some light fixtures also serve as decoration or accent lighting to make your facility more attractive to tenants.

Finding the perfect replacement products for these fixtures can be a hassle –– and determining how to retrofit these fixtures can be confusing.

Around this time last year, Philips Lighting and the City of Dubai jointly announced the development of "the world's most efficient light bulb," touting a new LED filament bulb that can reportedly produce up to 200 lumens per watt.

Solid State Lighting Design explained more about the lamps:

LED is an exciting technology, but completely changing the lighting in your building over to LED may not always be practical nor the best choice today. We still get a lot of questions from customers asking where in their buildings are the best places to convert to LED.

Oftentimes, the switch to energy efficient lighting takes place over a few phases. One section of the building is changed first. Then, when the energy savings from that kicks in, more money is allocated for similar projects. That's how one of our customers at a high-rise apartment building managed to retrofit every socket to top-of-the-line LED.

When making the decision to purchase a certain lighting product, are there any questions that matter more than price, availability, and timeline?

Perhaps that's the case with anything you order –– how much does it cost, is it in stock, and when am I going to get it? 

But the stakes can be pretty high when you're ordering lighting to get your building or store into shape before an executive visits or ahead of the holidays or when you're knee-deep in a national rollout schedule.

So, if you call Regency right now and purchase lighting, how long will it take to get your order?

Linear fluorescent lighting has for decades been the workhorse light source for so many applications, thanks to its long life ratings and relatively efficient use of energy. But the emergence of linear LED technology over the last decade or so has really changed the landscape, making buying decisions for linear applications more complex.

We get questions all the time about linear lighting. Is it risky to invest in LED lighting products? Are more fluorescent phaseouts ahead? What linear lighting products does Regency suggest?

Sometimes, customers hear the word "retrofit" and run. They want no part in another huge project and understandably so –– they've got enough going on with other upgrade projects around their building.

But if a retrofit ends up anything like what we helped the Franklin Templeton Investments (FTI) building in San Mateo, California to achieve in its two parking garages, there's nothing to fear.

Parking areas are one place where quick payback on an LED retrofit is almost guaranteed. The applications tend to be difficult to access, typically requiring special equipment like a lift or even closure, making coordination a total headache. And the cost of keeping a parking area lit all night with the correct amount of light is nothing to sneeze at, especially this time of year, when daylight is minimal.

The Galleria Towers in Dallas, Texas recently retrofitted the lighting in its 4,500-space parking garage to LED. The project was originally drawn up to increase security for the Galleria tenants who parked in the garage, as the previous lighting system left dark, dim spots throughout the garage.

"Our nearly 5,000 tenants love the new, brighter lighting in the garage," Galleria Chief Engineer Cliff McBryde said. "They no longer feel vulnerable, as the garage no longer has the dark, shadowy corners that were common under the old fluorescent lighting system."

While safety was achieved with the retrofit, so were big-time energy savings.

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.