And you get better lighting, too!!!

Research indicates that productivity in offices goes up when magnetic ballasts are changed out to electronic. This is probably because the 60 cycle flicker and hum go away. A small, one percent increase in office productivity is vastly more benefit, financially, than the 50% or so electricity savings.

The better phosphors in the T8 lamps create a higher color rendering….this means that the objects in the facility appear more as they would under natural sunlight. In warehouses and factories, this makes it easier on the workers. In retail, the merchandise looks better.

We encourage customers to use a higher Kelvin temperature lamp. Often retailers prefer the warm-white color, with T8 lamps this is the 3500 Kelvin temperature. But for offices, we like to use the cool white color, now named 4100 Kelvin. And for warehouses and factories, we strongly prefer to use the 5000 Kelvin color lamps. Research indicates that our eyes “see” with less light if that light is the 5000 Kelvin color. Basically, the higher the Kelvin temperature, the less light we need, therefore the easier it is for your employees to do their jobs.

• For rented spaces, brightening with new lighting can improve “rentability”.
• For retail, there definitely is a correlation of greater sales with improved lighting.
• Upgrading a building’s lighting has a positive effect on employees, visitors and customers.
• Good lighting enhances safety and security .

And more versatile

With the new technology, it is relatively easy to increase or decrease the existing light, by using different ballasts and lamps. Ballasts are available with standard power, low and high power outputs. Lamps, too, are available with higher and lower lumen outputs. And the number of lamps in a fixture can usually be increased or decreased with the fixture in-place.

Other benefits for building owners

• Reducing the operating cost of a building increases the building’s value. Using a capitalization rate of 10%, and assuming a slow 3 year payback on energy savings, the increase in value will be more than 3 times the cost of the retrofit.
• Retrofitting reduces the electric load, so that you can apply this elsewhere to accommodate growth.
• Maintenance costs are reduced.