Lighting maintenance is much more than just replacing burnt-out bulbs. Effective lighting maintenance includes a detailed written policy, proper training, management oversight and purchasing and inventory control. Proper lighting maintenance is necessary both to maximize energy savings and to maintain lighting efficiency. Poor lighting maintenance will result in visual degradation that can lower worker productivity and contribute to higher utility bills. Read more about the elements of an effective lighting maintenance policy and proper relamping and cleaning procedures.

Principles of Lighting Maintenance

• The light output of lighting systems decreases over time.
• Many lighting systems are over-designed to compensate for light loss over time.
• Improving maintenance practices can reduce light loss and allow reductions in energy use or improve light levels.
• Group maintenance practices save money.
• Proper maintenance is the most neglected, most cost-effective way of reducing overall cost of lighting.
• When maintenance is not performed, performance suffers gradually. The final result is a degraded lighting system performing as low as 50 percent of its capability.

Basic Maintenance Procedures
Light levels decrease over time because of aging lamps and dirt on fixtures, lamps, and room surfaces. Together, these factors can reduce total illumination by 50% or more, while lights continue drawing full power. The Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Network (EREN) suggests the following basic maintenance suggestions to help prevent this.

• Clean fixtures, lamps, and lenses every 6 to 24 months by wiping off the dust. However, never clean an incandescent bulb while it is turned on. The water's cooling effect will shatter the hot bulb.
• Replace lenses if they appear yellow.
• Clean or repaint small rooms every year and larger rooms every 2 to 3 years. Dirt collects on surfaces, which reduces the amount of light they reflect.
• Consider group relamping.

Replacing Lamps and Fixtures
Relamping means substituting one lamp for another to save energy. You can decide to make illumination higher or lower when relamping. But be sure that the new lamp's lumen output fits the tasks performed in the space and conforms to the fixture's specifications.

When relamping an entire store or office, first test the new lamps in a small area to ensure adequate illumination, occupant satisfaction, and compatibility of the new lamp and the old fixture.

Matching replacement lamps to existing fixtures and ballasts can be tricky, especially with older fixtures. Buying new fixtures made for new lamps produces superior energy savings, reliability, and longevity compared with relamping.

Relamping Incandescent Fixtures
Much has been learned about fixture design since the energy crises of the 1970s. Many indoor fixtures trap a significant portion of light inside the fixture, while many outdoor fixtures tend to disperse much of their light beyond the intended area, which causes light pollution.

New incandescent fixtures are designed to push all their light out into the room. Others use smaller tungsten halogen lamps. Advances in indoor fixture design include brighter reflectors and better reflecting geometry.

Many incandescent lamps are mismatched to their tasks. Some have excessive wattages - creating unnecessarily high illumination. This can be corrected by using lamps with smaller wattage.

Some existing incandescent lamps may not be the best type of lamp for their application. A-type light bulbs can often be replaced with improved lamp designs, such as reflectors or tungsten halogen lamps. And, for energy savings of 60% to 75%, many incandescent lamps can be replaced by CFLs.

When used in recessed fixtures, standard A-type lamps and reflector lamps waste energy - their light gets trapped. To save energy, you could replace a 150-watt standard reflector with a 75-watt ellipsoidal reflector (ER). Remember, though, that ER lamps are less efficient at delivering light from shallow fixtures, so use reflectors or parabolic reflectors for these purposes.

You can also replace standard A-type lamps with CFLs in spaces where lights are needed for long periods of time. A standard 18-watt CFL replaces a 75-watt A-type lamp. CFLs are also packaged in the same glass reflector lamps as incandescent lamps. Use CFLs packaged as ellipsoidal reflectors (type-ER) in recessed fixtures. Use reflector (R) or parabolic reflector (PAR) CFLs for flood and spotlighting. New CFL fixtures have built-in electronic ballasts and polished metal reflectors.

Relamping Fluorescent Fixtures
Although fluorescent lamps are generally energy efficient, there are new, even more efficient lamps that use better electrodes and coatings than do older fluorescent lamps. They produce about the same lumen output with substantially lower wattage.

Common 40-watt and 75-watt T12 lamps replaced with T8 lamps of 32 watts and 59 watts and electronic ballasts offer energy savings and improved light quality.

Electronic ballasts operate at a very high frequency that eliminates flickering and noise. They are even more efficient than improved electromagnetic ballasts. Some electronic ballasts even allow you to operate the fluorescent lamp on a dimmer switch, which usually is not recommended with most fluorescents.

Spot vs Group Relamping
In spot relamping, lights are replaced only as they burn out, whereas in group relamping, all lights are replaced simultaneously according to a maintenance schedule. Studies have shown that group relamping has higher lamp costs while spot relamping requires higher labor costs. Group relamping does have a few advantages over spot relamping that may make it beneficial in certain circumstances.

• Easier to schedule and oversee than spot relamping. Also this is an easy task to hire to outside contractors, potentially reducing the size and cost of in-house maintenance staff.
• Provides increased control over relamping. Reducing improper mixing of different types of lamps and insures that only the most efficient fixtures are used. Also insures efficiency by replacing all lamps before they begin to degenerate.
• Combine relamping with other maintenance activities such as ballast inspection and lens cleaning.

Training
Proper training is necessary for maintenance personnel to effectively operate an efficient lighting system. Training should include a thorough understanding of lighting maintenance procedures such as cleaning, lamp and fixture replacement, fixture inspection etc. Maintenance personnel should also be aware of the different types of lighting and the relative costs of each in a lighting system. Most importantly, training should include a detailed knowledge of the written lighting maintenance policy and each employee’s role within. Periodic retraining on an annual basis is essential to maintain knowledge of any new technologies or policy changes and to account for personnel changes.

Lighting Maintenance Policy
A written lighting maintenance policy can contribute to energy savings and increased lighting efficiency and should be a part of your building’s facility management guide or manual. A lighting maintenance policy should include the following basic elements.

• Blueprints of the facility.
• Fixture and lighting controls schedule.
• Specifications of all lighting equipment.
• Equipment and service provider sources and contacts (include utility contacts).
• Fixture cleaning and relamping schedule with service tracking log.
• Procedures for relamping, reballasting, and cleaning fixtures.
• Procedures for the adjustment of controls and occupancy sensors.
• Overview of proper lamp and ballast disposal.

Take the Next Step
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