When you’re considering upgrading your lighting system using energy efficient retrofits, there are a lot of things to keep in mind to avoid having problems with the changes you put into place. Retrofits offer a great chance to cut your business’ operating costs and improve lighting, but mistakes in your retrofit job can cost you more than your expected savings. By paying attention to the guidelines in this series, we can help you avoid the most common mistakes made in a lighting retrofit job.
Compatibility
When you’re dealing with a retrofit, you’re dealing with a lot more than just putting a few new items in place or repairing an old system. A new installation involves putting together components that are already designed to work well together. A repair job involves changing out an existing piece of the system for the same piece. When you’re putting in an energy efficient retrofit, you need to make sure all the components are compatible whether they’re the existing parts being reused or the new parts being installed. If they aren’t, it can cause a wide variety of costly problems.
Systematic Approach
Though it’s easy to get caught up in the individual components when looking at your options in an energy efficient lighting retrofit, it’s important to keep the whole picture in mind. Much like when doctors treat patients, they need to treat the entire system, not just the area that is having problems. By taking a systemic approach to the changes you need to make, your project can realize maximum savings while providing improved lighting quality.
Establish Objectives
The first step in designing a retrofit that meets all your needs while working well together involves setting up your lighting objectives. Just because you’ve used a particular lighting system for years or even decades in the past don’t mean that your lighting needs won’t change in the future. Building additional capacity into your lighting retrofit assures that you’ll be able to upgrade or otherwise change your lighting when you need to instead of having to make additional investments in your system.
Change it Up
But what about your existing lighting needs? If your current lighting system was designed when your lighting needs were not as they are now, your employees may have become used to dealing with substandard lighting on the production floor, in the warehouse or in your office spaces. If the work being performed in your space has changed over the years, an energy efficient lighting retrofit is the perfect opportunity to change your business’ lighting environment to increase, or in some cases, decreasing lighting to meet your needs.
What do You Need?
But what if you’re considering changing up your building’s lighting production? How do you determine what you should put into place? If you’re just not sure what your lighting requirements are for your business’ specific needs, you do have resources available to review while you make your decision. The Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) regularly publishes guidelines for recommended light levels that cover virtually every kind of application, helping you make your decision by following expert advice.
While you’re working out your lighting retrofit needs, we know you’ll have questions about the best possible approach to get the job done right. Now that you’ve had a chance to consider the compatibility of your current lighting needs versus what your energy efficient lighting retrofit will do for your facility, why not ask them? At Retro-Tech Systems, we’re happy to help you through your lighting retrofit process – just contact us for more details!