Cover Club Media - Lighting Layout Service

We have been very busy with the big box designs lately. Have a look at the 3 designs blow. If you're curious, on what these jobs are all we can say is, soft drinks, autos and lumber :)

When it comes to lighting a parking garage things tend to get really crazy with requirements and inspections. We always suggest a design for any parking space as it's just to risky when you're playing with such a low level of lighting. Safety is of paramount importance and our reports can give you the peace of mind going forward with any design.

When the weather gets hot so do our lighting layouts for Ice rinks this time of year. Every year we see the seasonal requests flow in. With our layouts we can make the planning stage a little more quick by providing you with measurements, heights and quantities required for any space.

Here are a couple recently completed projects. First lighting design is for a large ice rink. We designed the lighting to incorporate the white reflective ice and the tapered stands along with the gable roofing. Extra lighting also located around the nets.

The second design is a complete lighting project for a car dealership. The request was to circulate each car bay with task lighting while also providing a blanket of highbays at max height. This will ensure each car bar is well properly lit.

The showroom and offices were designed as bet fit for a thorough lighting average while maintaining a t-bar grid(2x4). When we do this sort of design the grid or placement tends to scatter around a bit more in order to get light in the harder to reach areas.

In both lighting projects we were able to increase light output while reducing energy costs substantially.

If you have a particular project that needs lighting design let us know.

We are offering a special to new customers. Please visit our website for 50% off your first design. Some restrictions apply.

http://www.lightinglayoutservice.com

I've had this question asked a lot, what makes a good light meter? Well first off, toss out any idea of using a light meter from your phone. I've never found them to work very well. Any stand alone version seems to work just fine, it's how you use them. A light meter that has a white globe to difuse direct lighting is why the stand alone units work the best. If the standalone unit is just a lens dont buy it. You can find these meters at your local electrical shop for around $100.

Ensure you're standing as far back as you can as you'll impact the light levels if you're in the way of the view. Most units have a nice cord length so you can step back. Don't buy one without this feature!

Take various samples and jot them down on your drawing in the location taken.

I hope this helps. leave a comment if you have any questions.

Being in the lighting service industry you'll notice there is a pile of terms and accronyms to know. Here is a list of very important ones you can get familiar with. https://www.lightinglayoutservice.com/lighting-terminology

A common issue we encounter when doing layouts is how to accurately know what the reflectance is in a building. The reflectivity of the surface is calculated by a numerical value 0.0 behind jet black(no reflectance) and 1.0 being as white(full reflectivity). It does not go beyond these values. Typical default values are 0.8(ceiling) 0.5(walls) 0.2(floor) which is like a dark grey concrete floor. The ceiling plays a very smaller role in boosting the overall lighting while the floor and walls are the most crucial.

It makes a big deal to change this value when it is appropriate. One of the easiest ways to figure out the reflectance is to take a picture of the inside of a building. Try and include the floor and walls if possible, take several pictures if you can't get it all in. A nice shiny floor in a retail shop can up the default value to .6 in some stores, that is going to amplify your lighting tremendously.

A warehouse is typically dirty and concrete floor so we often find these layouts require nothing more then a design. However, some concrete flooring is much lighter in some places, so keep that in mind.

Light Loss Factor or also known as LLF in short form is one of the hardest parts to remember in the lighting industry. Each fixture can have a different value and some are better designed to eliminate some of the common losses we encounter when doing a lighting design. Each manufaturer of fixture, or lamp would have it's own value to be totally accurate. The IES files provided to not include such light reductions so experience in this field is mandatory.

For example, a fluorescent fixture needs to be roughly around 0.7 to 0.8 LLF total which should include reductions due to ambient room temperature and ballast factor if it was not done already on an IES file. Some parts may be already done in the IES file so that makes having tools to read these files extremely important. LED's have come a long way and have far less light loss. Dirt and Dust play a part still as they'll always interfere with light output. We typically do not measure a design with dust and dirt in it so we leave that out. For LED we typically reduce the LLF to .95 or by 5% to simply add a little fudge factor to a layout.

It's always better to have a little more light in a layout to be safe.

FC or Lux - Which do you use?

In Canada we typically use FC(foot-candles). But on the odd occasion a Canadian company comes to us with a lux reading and prefer the layout done in that measurement. More often for the US we use lux but FC has been requested. Either way the difference is easily calculated by:

1FC = 10 Lux note: 0.0929030436 = 1 Lux to be exact.

Lux definition: A unit of illuminance equal to 1 lumen per square meter.

FC definition: A unit of measurement for the density of light as it reaches a surface. One foot-candle is equal to 1 lumen per square foot.