Not everyone knows how to calculate lighting maintenance factor for their businesses. There are a few things that go into the calculations. Luckily, electricians can help with this equation. But business owners know that understanding as much as possible is important.
How to Calculate Lighting Maintenance Factor for your Business
Business owners can learn how to calculate lighting maintenance factor for their businesses so that they make informed decisions. There is a lot that goes into understanding maintenance factors. But it is important to know what you’re calculating before you start calculating.
Maintenance factor refers to the lighting designs that result in the reduction of luminaries within the lighting installation. The goal is to ensure the fixture and placement will yield the most light in any given area. LED lighting can save businesses money, but installation can get costly.
Those costs will be returned in energy savings over time until they are paid off. But that means business owners should only be interested in doing the installation once and not needing more work to be done.
Factors of the Maintenance Factor
Maintenance factors have many varied factors that must be considered when calculating. For example, the elements will play a role depending on the location, the building itself, the fixtures chosen, and even bulb type. We already know the answers for bulb types, LEDs will always last longer than halogen, metal halide, fluorescent, and high-pressure sodium bulbs.
LEDs allow people to reach maintenance factors that are higher than ever, that is a good thing since we want our bulbs to provide us with lighting for as long as possible. But you wouldn’t want the same maintenance factor for an office building as you would for a warehouse.
The Equation Inputs
Here is where we will dive into a world where electricians are the best option. The equation to discover the maintenance factor requires you to know a few terms first. The lamp lumen factor (LLF) indicates a time-dependent decrease in flow of light from the lamp.
The lamp survival factor (LSF) is another factor that goes into the calculation. The LSF will indicate the failure status of the fixture but if the light can be replaced immediately then this factor is 1. Lighting fixture maintenance factor (LMF) shows us how pollution will affect the lighting produced by a fixture.
The room surface factor (RSF or RSMF) refers to the reflection value of the surfaces in the room. These are all the things that make up the equation that results in finding the lighting maintenance factor.
The Equation
You will need to learn what each of those values are in order to get your answer. The question is, why learn how to calculate lighting maintenance factor for your business? The answer is simple, unlike the equation. The lighting maintenance factor will let you meet any standards that are required in your area.
But also, learning the lighting maintenance factor can help you make a more informed decision when it comes to which fixtures to use, bulbs, and even how to install the fixtures for optimal performance. The equation is not easy, which is why a professional is suggested.
However, you may be able to learn all these things on your own. The equation is MF = LLMF x LSF x LMF x RMF.