Page 12 - School Planning & Management, April/May 2019

FACILITIES NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES
appearance of the light to communicate activity changes and expected mood. Anecdotal research suggests there may be an influence on learning outcomes. In one study, a fifth-grade classroom in Carrollton, Texas, installed tunable-white lighting at the start of the 2016 school year and saw an improvement over the previous year’s scores in the annual state examination.”
For energy conservation the way we control lighting can be just as important
as the type of lighting we use. School staff members and students are notorious
for leaving lights on when spaces are unoccupied. It is quite common in schools for lighting in corridors, restrooms, and entranceways to be controlled at the breaker panel. In most cases, if we could rely on teachers, custodians, cafeteria workers, etc.,
to turn off the lights when they are no longer needed, we could consistently generate significant energy savings. Unfortunately, what we experience is quite the opposite. Craig DiLouie advises, “The baseline approach to lighting control is compliance with commercial building energy codes, which focus on energy-efficient design. The classroom should feature manual control, vacancy sensing, and daylight-responsive controls.”
School districts have grown accustomed to the use of motion detectors, light sensors, time clocks, and most recently, digital controls. Although, complexity can often yield unintended consequences. With frequent staff turnovers, custodians or administrative personnel can lose track of switch locations. When building managers are asked, they often recount having worked in a building for several years, and in that timeframe the lights in certain areas of
the building have never been turned off! A follow-up investigation by maintenance staff in those cases typically uncovers a breaker panel hiding behind a bookshelf or pins missing from a long-forgotten time clock.
Maintenance staff and custodians will see additional benefits from the shift to
new lighting technology. Over the years, fluorescent lighting has required significant attention in the procurement, storage,
and disposal of inoperable bulbs and ballasts. Many light fixtures are difficult to access, requiring various types of ladders, scaffolding, or lift equipment. As fluorescent lighting begins to be replaced in school buildings, there should be a decrease in
the level of involvement of custodians and maintenance crews. LEDs are much easier to maintain since there are no bulbs or ballasts to replace. Since LED retrofits have occurred over a relatively short period of time, it will be important for facilities administrators
to have reliable information as to what to expect in the future.
Ward Norris, vice president of Specialty Lighting LLC, in North Carolina, states, “Heat dissipation is the number one goal of a good engineer, and if you keep the
Lighting upgrades in existing school facilities will still likely be driven by energy conservation.
LED chip under control at a reasonable ambient temperature, that chip will last 15 to 20 years. What is more likely to cause inoperable lighting is the driver. There
is a cap inside of these drivers that is the weak link and it will fail at around 50,000 hours. Part of the education for facilities managers is what they will need to know when LED lighting issues start showing
up in about five years. It typically doesn’t mean you have to replace the entire fixture. The driver will fail long before the diode fails and/or goes below 70 percent of its design output. Repairs may be as simple as popping in a replacement driver.” Again, as staff turns over, this is information that will be important to share.
In the foreseeable future, lighting upgrades in existing school facilities
will still likely be driven by energy conservation. But while existing hardware, wiring, and switches may be used for economy, that course of action does not take advantage of the inherent flexibility of electronic lighting and digital control systems. The appropriate placement and control of lighting can be a significant enhancement to the learning environment offering educators and students more control and flexibility than ever before. SPM
>> Andrew LaRowe is president of EduCon Energy Inc. located in Winston Salem, N.C.
He can be reached at alarowe@educonenergy. com. Mike Raible is founder and CEO of The School Solutions Group in Charlotte, N.C. and the author of “Creating Academic Momentum: Realizing the Promise of Performance-Based Education” He can be reached at mkraible@ theschoolsolutionsgroup.com.
In control. Lighting controls should no longer be simply limited to wall-mounted light switches that are on or off. Innovative school architects are making creative choices as to the positioning of school buildings and the placement of windows to capture more natural lighting in the classroom. It follows that there should also be a higher-level flexibility of controls to balance natural and arti- ficial lighting to enhance the variety of activities, (often occurring simultaneously) throughout the space. Special consideration must be given to adjusting room light to optimize visibility of pro- jected images on promethean boards, computer screens, and other surfaces.
12 SCHOOL PLANNING & MANAGEMENT / APRIL/MAY 2019
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IMAGE COURTESY OF HUBBELL LIGHTING