Lighting Maintenance

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, lighting accounts for an estimated 20 percent of the total energy used in commercial buildings. A large part of reducing energy use is proper lighting maintenance. More often than not, many buildings do not have detailed lighting maintenance policy other then replacing burned-out bulbs. Poor lighting maintenance can lead to visual degradation, reduce worker productivity, and contributes to higher energy costs. Having an effective lighting maintenance schedule can include many things including scheduling, policies, and inventory control.

Principles of Lighting Maintenance

Your business should practice basic maintenance strategies between professional visits including:

• Cleaning dust off fixtures, lamps, and lenses every 6 to 24 months. Tip: Never clean an incandescent bulb while it is turned on. If the cloth is damp, the cooling effect of the liquid may shatter the hot bulb.
• Replace lenses if they appear yellow.
• Clean or repaint small rooms every year and larger rooms every 2-3 years because the dirt collected on these surfaces could reduce the amount of light they reflect.
• Consider group light replacement. Common lamps lose up to 30 percent of light output over their service life. Replacing all the lamps in a lighting system at the same time saves labor, keeps illumination high, and avoids stressing ballasts with dying lamps.

Lighting Maintenance Policies

A lighting maintenance policy is a set of written procedures designed to serve as a guideline, not only for everyday maintenance practices, but for optimizing lighting systems on a year-round basis.

Elements of an effective maintenance policy include:

• Blueprints of the facility
• Fixture and lighting controls schedule
• Equipment and service provider sources and contacts, including utility contacts
• Fixture cleaning and relamping schedule with service tracking log
• Procedures for relamping, reballasting, and cleaning fixtures
• Procedures for the adjustment of controls and occupancy sensors
• An overview of proper lamp and ballast disposal

Replacing Lights and Fixtures

Replacing lights and fixtures is an essential part of lighting system maintenance. There are two types of replacement: spot and group replacement. Spot replacement is replacing lamps as they burn out, and is the most commonly used technique in traditional maintenance programs. Group replacement is replacing a set of lamps all at once.

Whether you are an operations manager or facility manager who has preventative maintenance, design, testing, or documentation requirements that staff personnel are unable to complete in addition to their day-to-day duties, or a property manager seeking routine or specialized services, Worldwide Energy has a solution that can be customized specifically for your requirements.

Worldwide Energy can provide maintenance support on electrical systems, refrigerated cases, interior and exterior lighting, mechanical systems, and on-premise signs. Whether you need filter changes, seasonal service, re-lamping, recycling, preventative maintenance, or electrical system trouble-shooting, one call gets it all.  Call our offices today at 913.310.0705 to see how our experts can help you with your facility maintenance needs.