Case
Study: Budget Challenges Montessori School Parking Lot Lighting Project.
This was a new construction project, with the majority of the parking mostly
in the front. The school wanted this parking lot to be well-lit because many
members of the faculty often worked past dark. The school’s exterior lighting
system would have to use a minimum amount of equipment and still fulfill a dual
function for both safety and security lighting.
Parking Lot
Lighting Challenges Client Was Facing
The first challenge the client faced was budget. As a private institution,
they had only a certain amount of money to work with. Added to that, there were
some city planning ordinances that had to be strictly followed. The school’s
parking lot lighting poles could be no more than 16’ in height, and required a
minimum of 1 foot candle at any point in the parking lot.
Design Considerations
To keep the number of light poles to a minimum and make the most of the
number of fixtures we would be using, we decided from the beginning that we
would use forward throw fixtures to concentrate as much of the light into the
parking lot for the purposes of visibility and security.
Photometric Analysis
Software
The school sent us a CAD file which provided us with the raw data necessary
to run a detailed photometric analysis of the facility. We were able to
conceptualize and render a number of hypothetical lighting systems for the
school by placing different types and intensities of fixtures at the proposed
pole locations and heights. We then sent the plan back to the client, who had
to in turn obtain approval from the city council.
Final Lighting System
Proposed
Meeting the unusual 16’ pole height requirement required some creativity on
our part. Custom manufacturing an odd size pole of this sort was bound to go
over the client’s budget. Shaving down a 25’ pole would cost almost as much.
We already knew the client could not afford either option, so what we ended up
doing was installing a 1’ base at the location of each pole, and then mounting a
15’ pole on the base.
This saved the school a
tremendous amount of money that would otherwise have had to pay for shaving down
25’ poles to 16’, or paying extra to custom order 16’ poles from the
manufacturer. This way, we met required pole heights and client budget with a
simple improvisation. We placed the lighting poles around the perimeter of the
school parking lot and installed 250W MH lighting fixtures on the poles. The
fixtures chosen featured forward throw design with Type IV optics intended to
contain lighting within the parking lot and avoid spilling light pollution into
the surrounding neighborhood.
Parking Lot Lighting
Benefits For Now And The Future
While there currently are no light trespass laws in the area surrounding
this school, it is very possible that in the next few years new legislation may
pass that would require restrict the types of fixtures we could install.
Because the client made it clear they wanted their school lighting system to
last as long as possible, we proactively worked to avert a potentially mandated
future retrofit by eliminating light spillage in the here and now.
RLLD Commercial Lighting carries a
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