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Lighting Tips - Small Business - Ceiling Fluorescents

Install high efficiency lamps to replace standard ones
All major lighting manufacturers now offer energy-efficient fluorescents. While the newer lamps yield slightly less light, this may be perfectly acceptable since in many areas you may have more light than you need.

Installing energy-saving or higher efficiency fluorescent lamps is the easiest way to reduce energy consumption in ceiling lighting.

• T-12s
  Without changing the ballast, standard 4-foot, 40 watt rapid start lamps (F40) can be replaced with 32 or 34 watt T-12 lamps that save 12-17% in energy, with reduced light output of 13%. There are many energy-efficient replacements for 8-footers, too.
  
• T-8s
  At 32 watts, the most energy efficient of the 4-foot fluorescent tubes are the slimmer T-8s. However, they must be matched with appropriate high efficiency ballasts.
• T-10s
  These are higher efficiency 40-watt four-footers for use with existing ballasts. Their high lumen output makes them useful if you are de-lamping and want more light output from the fixture than the remaining standard lamps could yield.

A note about colour
Most fluorescent lamps come in many varieties of colour. They have a certain colour temperature, which will determine how your area looks (e.g., cool white versus warm white). They also have different colour rendition capabilities that affect how "true" colours of objects, skin, etc. will appear.

True colour rendition is especially important for merchandise displays (e.g., food and clothing) and for rendering hair colour and makeup in a salon.

Replace lamps even before they burn out!
If your fluorescents are used all day, all week, year-round, you may be able to justify installing the new lamps and throwing the old tubes out even if they still work!

The energy you save will soon offset the cost of the new lamps. This is true even if your present standard lamps are relatively new. The life of a fluorescent is as much as 20,000 hours, so it might take you 10 years to wear out a recently installed standard fluorescent. During that time, the energy you would save would be worth considerably more than the cost of a replacement lamp.

Consider "group relamping"
Group relamping refers to the replacement of all lamps in an area, near the end of their average rated life.

This concept pays off if you have a large number of ceiling lights since it can cut replacement labour costs in half. It also assures consistent lumen output, since the output of fluorescent lamps decreases as they age. Group relamping also helps prevent unwanted work interruptions.

Why it pays to replace lamps that still work

Net savings if electricity costs:
@9 ¢/kWh
$5.85 - 1.50* = $4.35 per lamp over 5 years
*1/2 cost of new lamp; assumes lamp lasts 20,000 hours, or 10 years. In addition, you may save demand charges on your electric bill.

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