Is it too bright? How delamping reduces your lighting bills

There may be some areas of your business where the lighting levels are too bright. You can lower the lighting levels by removing some of the lights. This is called ‘delamping’:

• Delamping saves money on powering your lights.
• It cuts the cost of replacing lights.
• Less lights mean less heat, so delamping also saves money on air-conditioning costs.
• Excessive lighting can affect concentration, cause eye strain, and affect productivity.

The process of delamping is easy

• If an area is too brightly lit, find a light fitting that contains two fluorescent tubes and take one out. If the lighting level is still adequate afterwards, you’ve instantly halved the running cost of that light fitting. For more information on lighting levels, check out ‘What are the recommended minimum light levels for your business?’ later in this chapter.
• After you have removed the second tube, if the lighting level is not quite bright enough, you can get your electrician to add a reflector above the single tube. This can boost the brightness of that delamped light fitting by up to 30–40%.^[1]
• When you delamp, make sure that you clean the remaining light and fitting.

What are the best areas for delamping?

The areas near windows are a good place to start as they have lots more natural light. Other places are kitchens, bathrooms, storerooms, coolrooms, stairwells, corridors and meeting rooms.

When you’ve removed a light, put stickers or labels next to the fitting so people know the light has been deliberately delamped.

Save the bulbs or lighting tubes you’ve removed for later use. This will save you the cost of buying replacements when the other lights reach the end of their life.