How Important Is Site Lighting To The Safety Of Your Employees?

Statistically, if you're like most people in business, you only half-think about the lighting outside your building... your 'Site Lighting'. During the summer, it's usually not that important because we have Daylight Saving Time and most businesses close by 5PM.

Now, winter's on it's way. Daylight Savings Time will end on November 6th this year, 2011. We are already feeling the effects with darkness arriving earlier and earlier each day. Even if you're not paying attention to the earlier drop in sunlight, it affects your mood. Worse yet, it affects your safety.

Soon, your employees will be leaving your building after dark. Do you have enough site lighting for them to leave feeling secure? Do you have enough well maintained site lighting for them to leave in a safe manner?

Do you have sufficient lighting to eliminate the shadows where danger may wait? Are your employees able to walk safely to their cars? Are they able to see the danger that could be just a raised piece of sidewalk or a pothole in the pavement, but might be as dangerous as someone lurking in the shadows?

A professionally designed site lighting installation, coupled with a good preventative maintenance program, will go a long way in protecting your most valuable assets, your employees. As lamps age and fixtures get dirty, the quality and quantity of the light emitted is drastically reduced, while your energy bills continue to rise. A lighting maintenance program that includes periodic lighting patrols and group fixture washing & re-lamping promises to keep your lighting system in tip-top shape, while reducing your energy and basic maintenance costs.

For years, the standard site lighting offerings were High Pressure Sodium, Mercury Vapor, or Metal Halide; all are classified as HID lighting. All of these need a ballast to operate, an added expense during maintenance. The average life spans of the lamps are MH- 10,000 to 15,000 hours, HPS 12,000 to 24,000 hours, and MV- 12,000 to 24,000 hours. Ambient temperatures usually don't affect the operation of these types of lamps. Each has some mercury in the lamp and the lamps have a procedure for safe disposal. They should not be thrown into the regular trash. None of these render colors as well as daylight, although this should not be a problem anyway.

Each of these are still available and a viable option for your site lighting. The options come when you are looking to reduce your operating expenses. Although quite efficient, they could use some improvement. In addition to the replacement costs, the operating costs are higher on HID fixtures.

As far as new technology replacements, compact fluorescents will not provide enough light to work efficiently in site lighting. The new addition to site lighting is LED. They offer energy saving optical performance, while maintaining safety and security and enhancing aesthetic appeal to the property. Not only does the parking area require proper illumination for safety and security, the fixtures and poles must be aesthetically pleasing during the day and not detract from the property's overall aesthetics. There are many styles of fixtures and adapters so the LED fixtures being offered today can be used to replace the existing fixtures you have, without changing the poles or feed wiring.

LED lamps last an average of 50,000 to 100,000 hours and render colors much better. The light patterns are almost identical to your existing HID fixtures and the coloring is much whiter.

Well positioned and well maintained site lighting is the answer for your Peace of Mind.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6669667

How Important Is Site Lighting To The Safety Of Your Employees?

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