Light it Right- Lighting best practices

Outdoor Best Practices

Field Adjustable

Field adjustable color and wattage are helpful for in-the-field changes.

Consider warm color temperatures like 3000K for residential interior and exterior lighting. It is more visually comfortable.

Area lights can often be spaced at 4X the pole height and meet uniformity targets.

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Outdoor Best Practices (cont’d)

Check local ordinances for outdoor lighting projects. Use fully shielded lighting to reduce glare for the neighbors and light pollution for the Earth.

Wireless lighting controls are a smart choice for both retrofits and new construction.

Controls Best Practices

Lighting Controls

Adding motion sensors saves energy and improves payback for your customer.

Passive Infrared (PIR) sensors are best for most applications. Ultrasonic are good for stairwells, and microwave sensors are good for high mounting heights.

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Indoor Best Practices

Architectural

Use louvers on linear pendants for conference rooms to reduce reflections on wall-mounted screens.

Panels

When budgeting for commercial oÿce or warehouse lighting, use on-center spacing equal to the mounting height for uniform lighting. Use spacing tables or calculations to confirm the specific wattage and spacing.

Downlights

Know your plenum depth when choosing a downlight. Deeper cones give better cuto° and visual comfort. Wafers are a viable choice when there is little plenum depth available.

Lamps

Single Lamp Replacement - Ideal when the fixture is in good shape, decorative, or hard to uninstall. Make sure to match the color temperature for a more consistent look.

Retrofit Fixtures - Saves the e°ort of opening the ceiling or running new conduit and often outperforms retrofit lamp solutions to save more energy.

Full Lamp Replacement - When several existing lamps or ballasts fail, recommend a full lamp replacement. Consider using ballast bypass lamps.

Fixture Replacement - Gives you more options and will yield the best results and longest life. Make sure the footprint of the new fixture will cover the shadows left by the previous fi xture.

Field Adjustable

Always plan wire gauge and breakers using the maximum wattage of wattage-adjustable lights.

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Indoor Best Practices (cont’d)

Exit and Emergency (Local codes may vary. Always consult local regulations to ensure compliance.)

• Rely on the architect or code consultant to provide paths of egress.
• Identify if an egress area will be considered a place of assembly.
• Check if emergency lighting will be provided by emergency lighting units, architectural lights with emergency batteries, or generator-backed circuits.
• All exit doors and doors that lead to an exit.
• Corridors and hallways that lead to an exit and at every junction or turn.
• Stairwells leading to an exit on each floor.
• Large open spaces must have signs visible from everywhere.
• Wherever elevators are present.
• High-occupancy areas such as theatres and meeting rooms.
• Each floor of a multi-story building.

Warehouse Best Practices

Highbay lighting can typically be spaced at 1.2× the mounting height of the luminaire.

For warehouses aisles, consider networked controls so that a highbay on either side of an aisle turns on the full aisle.

When racking is added to a warehouse, it reduces the overall light levels. If you don’t have a racking plan, use highbays with at least 10ft whips to allow future relocation and set to medium output so that the lumen package can be raised later if racking is added.

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Additional Resources: RAB Lighting o°ers several services to help you complete lighting projects faster.

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