Change More than Just a Bulb
Lighting efficiencies highlighted with use of LED technology
By Susan Azevedo
Light-emitting diode (LED) technology is revolutionizing the lighting industry. LED lights don’t waste energy by converting it to heat; they convert energy to light of a single color within the visible spectrum.
But it takes more than just a lightbulb to revolutionize jobsite lighting. Traditional temporary bulb-based string lights and highbays have multiple inefficiencies beyond simply using incandescent bulbs. In addition to wasting energy, traditional lights are associated with high material and labor costs.
LIGHTING THE JOBSITE
A typical jobsite uses a variety of temporary lighting products, many of which are labor-intensive to install and maintain. Often, the lighting may need to be repositioned as the project progresses, which is difficult to do with string lights or tower lights. The bulbs are fragile and need to be replaced quite frequently. A conservative estimate is that, on average, bulbs will either be broken or burn out at least once per year. At this rate of replacement, it is often necessary to maintain a stock of replacement bulbs and assign someone to replace broken or burned-out bulbs throughout the day.
These practical problems impact individual jobsites, but when viewed on a larger scale, there are also systemic problems. Because they are not durable, traditional jobsite lights can rarely be reused on multiple construction projects. Statistics show that less than 20 percent of temporary lighting is recovered and reused on another job. However, since temporary lighting is cheap compared to most jobsite investments—and since consumers tend to assign value based on an item’s price—jobsite lighting has come to be seen as a low quality, disposable product. A race-to-the-bottom cycle has therefore been established. The waste, inefficiency, and duplication associated with traditional lighting has been normalized…