Longest Burning Bulb
April 26, 2008
Surprise ! The longest burning bulb is an Incandescent.
It was originally used as a nightlight over the fire trucks in a Livermore, CA fire station.
Installed in 1901, it’s life is so celebrated by it’s local fan club that it has acually been transported via police and fire truck escort.
It’s connected load is suprisingly only 4 watts! Not bad for an incandescent.
The attached video is a live web cam updated every 10 seconds.
for more info you can go to: www.centennialbulb.org
for the 2nd and 3rd runner up…. http://www.roadsideamerica.com/set/lightbulbs.html
Construction Dollars
April 13, 2008
Everyone has a limit to their lighting budget. It doesn’t matter if you’re spending thousands of dollars per square foot. I believe one of the best ways to ensure a successful outcome is to be pro-active about controlling lighting costs. I see it as an important part of my job as a lighting designer to help my clients achieve the best possible lighting within their budget.
This means that when I’m complete with designing a project, not only do I now how much light will be in a space; I also know, at what price, the product will or should bid.
The dynamic of this approach regularly shocks clients who have come to see designers as money spenders. They have been taught to give credence and put their faith in their selection of general contractor or project manager and let it all flow from there. Some clients have completely given up and the expression “lighting costs what it costs” summarizes the futility of their past efforts in cost control. To this I say No. It costs what you let them charge you.
What many owner/developers don’t realize is that many accomplished lighting designers have long standing relationships with manufacturers that are built on the common goal of achieving the most successful possible installation. That common ground creates a foundation of respect and trust in which information can be directly and candidly shared including information regarding pricing.
This can put the lighting designer in a tricky situation. Often behind the scenes is the most unbelievable buddy buddy network you could ever encounter. This is a fertile environment for profiteering where even competitors have found ways to come together in a win win. If this saved the client money, or brought a higher quality product to the job it would be a win win win. But that’s not what I’m getting at here.
The question is, how do you identify the game being played out on any particular job or in a particular area? Who is the trustworthy party? And is the trustworthy party on your project the one who actually knows what’s going on?
A proactive lighting designer must keep a vigilant eye and extend their solution oriented problem solving to a different realm. We hope to highlight the extent to which these problems exist in our industry and the various possible ways to address them. Keep in mind that lighting designers opinion and approach on this topic varies greatly, so if you’re shopping for a lighting designer include this line of questioning in your interview process.
Legislate this! please.
April 13, 2008
As a lighting designer I’m enticed by all the tools available to create great lighting experiences. All the light bulbs: I have thousands of dollars worth sitting in my garage so that any moment I can apply a full palette of options.
My confession is, despite this, I dread shopping the light bulb aisle at the big box retail stores: Lowes, Walmart, Home Depot, to name a few. Just yesterday I came home with the wrong bulb. Can you imagine? A near twenty year veteran of the lighting industry?
Not only that, I was shopping with a friend of mine who happens to be an experienced electrical contractor and I asked him – why do these boxes look different? At this point we were already standing at the check out and flipping between the boxes and their Spanish English text neither of us noticed the little L for long neck. Nor did we see the small font describing the neck amongst the flashy graphics of one of the boxes.
Shuffling amongst other items in our shopping cart we also didn’t note the slightly different box sizes. The boxes simply looked like different generations of packaging. The most prominent information on both was Halogen 50 watt. The actual bulb type PAR30 and PAR30 long neck was printed very very small. The wattage / lumen /hour summary at the bottom were identical.
When I got home I realized that one of the two blubs was a long neck. Upon further review of the actual lamp I realized that one had been stamped with the description wide flood. Both simply said flood on the box, one was a wide flood and the other a narrow flood. Where was this important differentiating information about this bulb type? The only place this information was displayed was printed on side of the bulb. I was actually wanting a WIDE flood. So this was good. But now I only had one. And to get back to the store to buy the second was about eight (8) dollars in gasoline round trip. Nice way to save energy. I would have especially loved to tell this story if I had been purchasing a compact fluorescent bulb.
The most prominent information on both of the boxes was in the form of two words – Two Year Bulb! Two year bulb? How is this measured? And why is it necessary to tout this when the hours are prominently displayed on the box? And what if the bulb is dimmed? What is the projected life then? Are the words Two Year Bulb an important piece of information that is valuable to the consumer in making the right lighting choice? Or is this something the marketing department determined would move this box off the shelf? Isn’t the clear display of rated life more valuable? How about the voltage of the bulb? This wasn’t displayed anywhere on the box.
What you see in the following photos is the impact of not having the best lamp for the job. The wide flood covers the entire work area. A little less bright but produces even illumination across the paper. The narrow flood concentrates the light in one spot, creating a harsh contrast between the lit and unlit paper.
Let’s not kid ourselves about our energy saving efforts when we leave issues like this unaddressed. How many consumers would go back and get a 75 watt lamp to fix this instead of the wide flood? Especially when the distribution of the bulb, which is the solution here, is not even displayed on the box?
I believe as we move forward in lighting we need to help the consumer make an educated choice. As lighting becomes more expensive to buy and run lighting decisions are becoming more important and we need to enable the consumer to make the best choice for them. This is quite a different approach than narrowing the choices of the consumer; which is the only legislation that I’m seeing. The lighting industry, consumer advocates and legislatures should look for opportunities to bring clarity, knowledge and product differentiation to the consumer.
Inspiration
April 8, 2008
“Inspiration is the feeling of beginning at the threshold where Silence and Light meet.” Louis I. Kahn
Lobell, John 1985 Between Slience and Light: Spirit in the Architecture of Louis I. Kahn.
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