Commercial Office Lighting
As a business owner, you are obligated to provide your employees with a comfortable and productive place to work. This is why it is important to carefully choose the lights under which they work. The wrong commercial office lighting can have a detrimental effect. If you have installed lighting in the past, you already know that every project is different, and general advice can only go so far. You will still need to consult with an expert concerning the finer specifics of your commercial fluorescent office lighting project. Then you can decide if you want to follow these general tips to choose and install the lighting yourself, or if you will need to hire an electrical contractor.
In the past, working in an office was often very tiring, even before doing any work. People in waiting rooms have experienced eye strain and fatigue just from sitting underneath older generation indoor fluorescent lights. This resulted from the poor power control of older magnetic ballasts in these antiquated commercial office lighting fixtures. It would produce a barely audible humming sound as well as a discernible flickering. Additionally, the bulbs in those fixtures had a mixture of gases and metals which cast a slightly yellowish glow, which leads to eyestrain. Can you image how much worse it is for your employees, who also have the added stress of their work with which to deal? Since fluorescent lamps have such a long life, you might still have some of these older bulbs in your older lighting fixtures. If your lights are older than ten years, you will need to install a new commercial office lighting control system for the betterment of your employees.
Things to look for in commercial office lighting fixtures are those which offer easy access to the bulbs and ballasts for quick replacements. Your choices will most likely lean toward dimming fluorescent light fixtures. These energy efficient lamps are easy to install and save on operating costs by requiring less electricity to light and fewer bulb replacements than incandescents. The most commonly seen are ceiling mounted, either flush or atop, lamps. These will use the traditional tube shaped fluorescent lights. Today's fluorescent wall mounted lights have better color rendering than those of the past. No longer will your employees have a yellowish look to their skin. Eyestrain from that yellow light is also reduced. The brightness of the lights will also help them to work more productively.
If you do not want to install tube fluorescent lighting fixtures for your commercial office lighting, but you still want the energy efficiency of fluorescent bulbs, you could have traditional lights that require a screw-in bulb such as an incandescent. By replacing these incandescents with compact fluorescent bulbs, you can lower your energy costs, and, depending upon the number of lights you replace, lower the temperature in your office. This is because incandescent lighting waste much of the energy they use in producing heat. This can affect the air conditioner thermostat and make the cooling system run needlessly.
Energy savings will be very important when you are choosing your commercial chandelier office lighting. You need the brightest of lights for the least amount of energy used. Finding this combination only benefits you and your employees.
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