How to do a basic room-by-room lighting audit

Depending on the size of your lighting set-up, you may want to engage a lighting expert to do an audit for you.

Alternatively, you could collect the basic information yourself, then take it to a specialist lighting shop and get replacement recommendations from the lighting expert there.

If you choose to collect the audit information yourself, go from room to room of your premises and do the following:

• Make a list of your existing lighting set-up

  Make a note of the types and number of lights that you have in each area, eg incandescent, halogen, T8/T5 fluorescent tubes, CFL globes, LED etc. You can use the worksheet in Appendix E of the ‘Energy Reduction Plan’ template to make your list. Download here: EnergyCut.info/erp-template

  In your list, make sure you write down the wattage level and the light type (CFL, incandescent etc) for each light (this tells you how much power it uses).

  A lighting expert can use this list to give you money-saving recommendations for more efficient lighting alternatives.

• Write down the current lighting level for each area

  To measure the lighting level for each area, you will need a ‘lux’ meter. Use this to measure the lux level reading for each room, then write this down on your floor plan.

  This will tell you whether each area is above or below the recommended Australian Standard lighting levels. These are detailed in the next point.