How to choose the best lighting for your building project

Achieving an ideal lighting design means putting light where it’s wanted and needed, and reducing or eliminating where its least needed.

One way to achieve this is to design the building to not require any electric lighting during daylight hours. Location, orientation and size of the home come into play but every consideration should be given to minimize reliance on electric lighting during daylight hours. This is called Daylighting.

Another approach is to plan lighting to complement the user lifestyle. Consider the activities that would occur in each room, the atmosphere you want to create and the decorative elements you want to highlight. Note areas that serve more than one purpose and require more than one style of lighting (e.g. relaxed entertaining, media viewing, reading/writing, general activity).

Use separate lighting solutions and circuits for each function rather than integrating them into a single circuit. Lights may need to be on separate switches, and/or dimmers to create the desired effect.

The material and color of lights you select also play a role in proper lighting, since small changes in lighting can make room colors appear very vibrant or quite dull. Bedrooms usually look good in warm-white lights, while offices, factories, workstations go with cool-white. The higher the CCT(correlated colour temperature) of your light bulb, the brighter.

Finally, proper switches and controls are important to regulate time of use, hours of use, and occupancy in the building. Switches and controls can be a very effective method of providing lighting only when and where it is required. Always ensure to:

• Provide multiple switches to control different lighting elements in a room where all may not be required all the time.
• If possible, adopt smart light switches and fittings with movement/daylight sensors to turn lights on and off automatically. They are most suitable in buildings used frequently where lights may be left on (for very long times) by mistake or in security points, stairs, multi-housing estates.
• Consider using solar powered lighting for garden and sensor security lights.
• Modern dimmer controls save energy and also increase life span of lighting installation.

For inquiries on POP surface, panel and down lights, solar streetlights, floodlights and lighting fittings for your building projects, please call 08150906094 or email info@energymall.ng