If your building is often used after-hours, either by late shifts or by
maintenance personnel, consider developing a lighting schedule that tells people which
lights should be on or off at certain times. All too often, the cleaning crew
turns on all lights in a space, even though just one or two are needed. In
some cases it may be worthwhile to color code various switches, so people know that
switches painted a certain color should not be activated after a certain time.
Post a Schedule
|
Area
|
Day 9-5
|
Evening 5-12
|
Night 12-6
|
Morning 6-9
|
|
A
|
ON
|
ON
|
OFF
|
ON
|
|
B
|
ON
|
OFF
|
OFF
|
OFF
|
|
C
|
ON
|
OFF
|
ON
|
OFF
|
|
D
|
OFF
|
ON
|
ON
|
ON
|
|
E
|
OFF
|
OFF
|
OFF
|
ON
|
There may be times when employees must work in an area but the public isn't there. A good example is a restaurant before and after it is open to customers, when food is prepared, supplies are stocked, and cleaning is done. Employees may need to move freely and safely through the entire area, but full lighting is not needed.
If you have enough control of lights with a bank of switches, you may be able to turn on half the lights and provide enough light throughout the area. To estimate the potential lighting energy savings, just compute the cost of running the lights the way you do now for the total hours of this kind of use per year, and divide by two.
Cleaning hours are often evening hours, when lights are turned on only for this purpose. Sometimes, because of the wiring and switches, a very large area or perhaps an entire floor must be lighted even though only part of it is being cleaned at a time. Try to reschedule evening cleaning to times when the lights are on anyway because the area is in use, or to daylight times, such as a weekend day, when the area is unoccupied. Alert all pertinent personnel to the importance of turning off lights when they're not needed. Employee involvement and incentives often works wonders.
See if evening meetings or other activities can be rescheduled to daytime. Usually, the best that can be done is to conduct the evening activity is in an area of the right size or in a larger area where the lights can be controlled so that only those needed are used.
