Keeping your lighting shipshape in Spring; Greenlite's essential maintenance explainer

Maintaining lights properly saves time, cash, pleases staff and lends commercial confidence. Here are 5 shining examples of how to do it right

Regular cleaning

Cleaning might seem almost too simple to mention. But in truth, dust, grease, and other dirt accumulations on lamps, lenses, globes, and reflecting surfaces of the fixture can reduce light output by as much as 30%.

This can impact on safety and productivity in the workplace, and can be easily avoided. What's more, dirt on lenses could potentially impact on heat levels and light cooling, so it's essential to prevent the issue, with a regular cleaning programme.

Bulk relamping

This is a practice that's becoming more and more common in facilities with a large number of ceiling lights.

Bulk, or group relamping, involves replacing all lamps in one programme of work near the end of their useful lives. Group relamping can effectively cut replacement labour costs in half when done well by a competent team going from fixture to fixture. Moreover, it can of course assure proper light levels and avoid dangerous failures.

By carrying out this maintenance programme, firms can also upgrade to the latest energy efficient LED technologies. These will save cash on energy bills. The Carbon Trust advises up to 40% of a building's electricity use is accounted for by lighting, so there big wins available.

The right level and the right quality of light improves the alertness and accuracy of those working in it. So installing the kinder, modern light offered by LEDs brings in productivity and happier workers too.

Regular preventative maintenance

Another obvious but crucial element is premption and prevention. Planning, scheduling and implementing preventative, not reactive maintenance, means that issues are spotted before they become failures. Failures can lead to downtime which is very costly, but this can be easily avoided.

It is important to consider, can your firm genuinely afford the downtime that will result from a lighting system failure? For example, in the event that an ageing lighting installation located above a vital piece of factory equipment fails, hours or even days of valuable working time could be lost whilst a replacement is arranged.

Lost staffing time too needs to be factored in, as does the impact on production of products required by customers to strict order schedules. The harm to all these elements can be avoided by a preventative approach to keeping lights in top condition.

Emergency callouts

If the very worst does happen, for example in the event of lamp failure, being signed up to a reactive lighting maintenance programme such as Greenlite's means we will guarantee to respond within 4 hours; reducing the impact of costly downtime.

Compliance with regulations

Never forget the crucial role of the law. Having a trusted lighting maintenance partner, like Greenlite, means we can advise you, and keep you compliant on a number of health and safety regulations such as maintaining standard light levels, and complying with emergency lighting regulations.

This will avoid any fines and keep your workplace safe and productive now and into the future. Maintenance is not just about keeping lights working, you need to maintain your compliance on issues surrounding lights too.