If you're looking for lighting recommendations for your warehouse, you can jump to our industrial lighting catalogue here.
Upgrading your warehouse lighting to LED provides a number of benefits for both business owners and workers.
Not only do LED's provide a well-lit, brighter and cooler space (temperature wise), but they immensely improve workplace safety for employees by reducing potential heavy equipment accidents, losses and damages to the property.
LED lighting is also an incredibly efficient and low cost choice, especially since lighting makes up the biggest portion of warehouse energy, accounting for a significant portion of its electricity usage.
For more details, check out the 1 minute explainer video for a deeper dive into the benefits of LED in warehouses.
Getting Ready to Retrofit
So, you know the benefits of LED lighting (and probably have for quite some time), and now you may be considering retrofitting your warehouse.
While there are a lot of factors to consider when planning an LED retrofit, it really comes down to understanding the requirements of your space & the appropriate lighting to use in a large spaces.
Below are some of the most important things to consider when planning your warehouse lighting retrofit.
What are the most common fixtures for warehouse lighting?
The most common category of fixtures is High Bay Lighting, which come in the form of Linear High Bays or round/UFO style Lighting.
You can find a selection of High Bay options in our Online Catalogue.
Some other options for warehouses include: 4ft & 8ft Strip/Shop lights, Vapour Tights, & Low Bay lighting, but these will be largely dependent on the size of your space and ceiling height.
What wattage is best for warehouse lighting?
With LED lighting, watts are no longer a reliable metric for energy usage and brightness, since LED can product more light at lower wattage levels.
Instead, focus on lumens as a way of measuring light output.
If for example, you were using 250W Metal Halide's previously, an equivalent LED replacement would be between 80-100W with 11,000 - 14,000 lumens.
Generally speaking, higher ceiling heights will require fixtures with more power and lumen output, so the fixtures you choose will largely depend on the size of your warehouse.
The chart below provides a general summary of the recommended lighting specs dependent on your warehouses ceiling height:
How far apart should my fixtures be?
The spacing of your fixtures is incredibly important. If they are too close together, you'll experience hot spots and/or glare where the lighting fixtures overlap. If they are too far apart, you'll experience dark spots or illumination "drop offs"
Once you have a good idea of the lighting specs and ideal positioning, the next step would be to bring in a Lighting Consultant to help you correctly map out your lighting.
What colour temperature should I choose?
Finding the right balance is key; you want your warehouse to be bright, but not so much so that it causes discomfort for those working in it.
Most commonly, it is recommended that High Bay fixtures for warehouses are within the 4000K - 5000K range.
This range is ideal because it emits a cool white light that's slightly bluish, which has been proven to help reduce eyestrain and headaches, and helps to create a well-lit space to encourage employee productivity and safety.
The scale below provides a comparison of all the different colour temperatures, ranging from 1000K (traditional lighting) all the way up to 10,000K.
Other Considerations
Occupancy and vacancy sensors are great upgrades to include during an lighting retrofit. These types of sensors can turn lights on automatically when someone is in the space, and turns them off after periods of no activity.
This is great from both an energy saving perspective and a safety/productivity perspective.
Once you have a general idea of how you'd like to plan out your warehouse lighting upgrade, feel free to reach out to our team of Lighting Specialists. We'll start with a site visit, then we'll prepare an energy audit to show you how much you'll save cost and energy-wise by switching to LED Lighting.
