Lighting Services Blog

    Keeping your emergency and exit lights ready for the worst is an important part of maintaining any building, and conserving the lights' backup batteries are a big part of that job. Doing it effectively, fortunately, is fairly easy once you understand the basics of emergency light batteries.

    You might have seen trucks at various work sites that had an arm with a bucket attached to the top of it. This arm extends far above the truck, and people can ride up in it and stand in the bucket while working. As you may have guessed, these are called bucket trucks, or occasionally, cherry pickers.  The original version was indeed used to pick cherries and other fruits in orchards at harvest time.  It had a platform that could be moved up and down and a worker would stand on the platform.  Not only did using a cherry picker provide more safety than using a ladder but it also eliminated damage to trees from ladders being placed against the trunks and branches.  Today the modern cherry picker, the bucket truck, is used in many industries. Particularly, electrical companies like to use them. There are a couple of reasons that an electrical company would prefer to use bucket trucks instead of making their electricians shimmy up poles or ladders to do the job.  

Regulations require your commercial building to have illuminated exit signs that will work even when the power goes out. This is an important regulation that has saved countless lives over the decades. But why stop there? With the same reliable and safe LED lights and the same (or additional) emergency power system, you can provide your employees with more than just strategically placed exit signs to get them out of the building in an emergency.

Outdoor lighting is something that businesses invest in selectively. Some businesses go all-out and you can see their buildings glittering in the evening like a magical corporate wonderland. Of course, it's just LEDs on brick and plant life, but it looks incredible and the image stands out in the mind when people drive by during the day.

     Everywhere that buildings exist, there exist standards for keeping the people using them safe in an emergency. In America, the standards that government entities reference is called the NFPA 101, or the Life Safety Code. At least 43 states have adopted it as their official standard for creating and maintaining safe buildings, and all states at least base their building safety codes on it. So what is this Life Safety Code, and how does it affect you?

You know that your emergency lighting needs to comply with certain codes, but do you realize it may also be time for your non-emergency lighting to get checked?

Electrical safety should never be undervalued, especially for businesses and commercial properties that can have dozens to hundreds of lights in a property. Lighting inspections go beyond basic electrical safety, ensuring that you have full satisfactory illumination for indoor, outdoor, and emergency lights throughout the building and grounds. 

In addition to ensuring that each light fixture is safely and correctly installed, it's also important to perform regular light inspections. While many businesses overlook the importance of lighting inspections because lights are considered an integral and ignorable part of the building, responsible maintenance means knowing when a new lighting inspection is an important part of your process.

    When you are responsible for the safety of a commercial establishment and everyone that works inside it, you have a lot to remember. There are tests that need to be performed to make sure your emergency equipment works properly. There are standards your business has to comply with. Fortunately, you don't have to face these tasks alone, and it is better to rely on lighting professionals to ensure that your place is safe. They have three advantages.

    School administration is a tricky business. Balancing competing demands, along with keeping the curriculum great and the hallways supervised, makes it easy to forget something such as lighting. However, the type of lighting a school uses is important, and it may be time to look into what type your institution is using. If your school is using incandescent or fluorescent lights, it is probably time to upgrade to LED lights. There are several reasons for this. 

      Every business wants to know what OSHA standards apply to them because those rules give a good idea of what will keep employees and customers safe. For instance, the rule that every exit route must be clear of obstruction and that the exit door can't have decorations or signs that hide the door is a great guideline for ensuring that your exit is usable in an emergency situation. As you can imagine, OSHA saves a lot of their rules for how exit areas are illuminated, and you will want to keep abreast of their requirements. Fortunately, OSHA has written out some clear guidelines in this. The following questions are some that you, the business owner, need to ask.

Owners of commercial properties across the country recognize that LED lighting is superior to traditional commercial lighting in terms of light quality and color rendering, and they are retrofitting LED lighting and reaping the benefits. LED lights are energy efficient and long-lasting, very affordable and emit very little heat, which in turn reduces HVAC loads. LED lighting upgrades and installations improve work-space and transitional lighting across a variety of commercial industries.