Studies show the quality of light affects people in many different ways. For example, office worker satisfaction and productivity can be positively affected by well-designed illumination. The first step to a successful lighting upgrade is the lighting survey or audit. In this stage, which is essential to proper planning, the lighting manager gathers and organizes information about the existing lighting system and how it is used.

There are many ways to improve your existing lighting. But before that you must get a lighting audit done at your enterprise.

A lighting audit can help you to 

• Adopt the right kind of light for specific application / work
• Choose the right Lighting color to help keep a safe and healthy workplace.
• Incorporate available natural light while designing for overhead lighting and task lighting.
• Reduce shadows by using multiple lights & specific overhead light fixtures.
• Choose the right level of lighting according to the task involved since different levels of light is another important aspect to consider. Warehouses / common areas etc may require minimal lighting while other tasks require more intense lighting.
• Reduce costs and enhance performance through the application of good lighting. It’s no secret that people are attracted to well-lighted public facilities, commercial shopping districts and parks.

“Lighting is critical to wakefulness and productivity in your office or commercial building. It can even influence customer shopping habits. It’s also a health and safety issue though.”

If you are ready to improve your lighting, talk to FIVE STAR . We can study your existing installation, and suggest ideas to improve the quality of lighting that you have, which may be more productive & budget friendly. Or we can completely redesign a new lighting design for your enterprise.

A lighting audit typically goes like this :-

General Information

We collect floorplans or reflected ceiling plans for the facility that show fixture locations and room dimensions . We are sensitive to the fact that renovation work may have been performed over the years that has changed the original floorplans and/or reflected ceiling plans. If not available, we create using graph paper.

We label each area (rooms, hallways, etc.) for future identification with sets of data that will be collected. We also label each area with a generic description (private office #2, lavatory #1, etc.). It may be desirable to put a sticker on each door hinge during the room-by-room survey that bears its identity that corresponds with the floorplan.

We also gather as much information as possible about the building and its history; try to determine what future plans there are if any for the building.

Collect Occupant Information

A good way to learn about how occupants feel about their lighting system is with a survey, which can asks questions such as, “Do you have trouble with light reflecting off your computer screen?” 

Should this path be taken, however, we have caution in evaluating the answers; since the occupants know little about lighting – – in fact, they rarely notice it unless something goes wrong. For example, an occupant saying there is too much light in an area probably is saying that it is too bright, which is an issue of glare, not quantity of LUX .

Collect Lighting Information

For each area, we identify:

• Hours of operation
• Type and size of fixtures
• Number of fixtures (hand-held mechanical counters can help)
• Number of lamps per fixture
• Type of lamps / ballasts
• Specify reflectors if already installed
• Fixture condition
• Availability of daylight
• Use of partitions
• Unique fixture types or physical features
• Area dimensions
• Height of the tasks
• Fixture mounting height
• Room surface reflectances and colors of major objects and room surfaces

We then come up with a comprehensive report with recommendations to equip you to have the right information for going forward .