Know Yourself (and your lights): The Secrets to the Perfect Lighting Audit
Any business or building type that has electricity and a light switch can benefit from a lighting audit.
Having a detailed survey of your facility’s lighting system helps facility managers and business owners identify opportunities to make their facilities more energy efficient, reduce energy costs, and create a better atmosphere for occupants.
Before you upgrade the lighting in your facility, you will need a lighting audit.
What is a Lighting Audit?
A lighting audit is an evaluation of a facility’s lighting system. It involves taking an inventory of all light fixtures, lamps, and control devices in a building, including all interior and exterior lighting. In more detailed energy audits, HVAC and refrigeration systems may also be assessed.
The lighting audit is used as a tool to identify potential upgrades to the lighting system. It’s a detailed process that anyone can perform, but using a certified lighting expert is the best option.
These experts will not only perform the lighting audit, they’ll also identify areas of potential improvement and help create a plan to upgrade your lighting system according to your needs.
Why should I have a lighting audit performed at my building?
There are many reasons your business or facility should have a lighting audit performed:
- Your lights aren’t LED
- Your electric bill is too high
- Your employees are complaining of lights being too bright or too dim
- You’re interested in lighting controls and smart building technology
- You want to improve your space for customers
A lighting system is more complicated than most people realize, and without taking the proper steps, it can mean wasted time and money.
If your facility has many lights, going to the home improvement store or purchasing large quantities of lamps and fixtures online isn’t the answer — you need a professional lighting contractor. Without one, you’ll end up with replacement lights that 1) don’t provide the look and feel you want, 2) don’t save as much energy as you hoped, and 3) cost more money than you wanted to spend.
If you’re looking to upgrade your lighting, a lighting audit will give you what you need to get an estimate on a lighting retrofit, as well as an idea of potential ROI.
The data collected during the audit is designed to help decision-makers make informed operational and financial decisions about their lighting system and energy usage.
Download the Free Commercial Lighting Guide
Lighting Audit: Where to Begin
Depending on the size of your facility, it’s recommended to use a commercial lighting contractor, especially if the audit could disrupt your business operations. When professional lighting experts like FSG perform lighting audits, they break the process down into several calculated steps.
Lighting Audit Step 1: Know Your Objective
Your intentions. Your goals. Your objectives. Before you grab your calculator and start counting bulbs, it’s important to understand what you want out of your lighting system.
A lighting upgrade or retrofit can achieve lots of things, but the best retrofits have very specific goals, and the smartest business owners know what goals they want to accomplish before the project begins.
Some questions to consider:
- Do you want to save money on energy?
- Do you want to save money on maintenance?
- Is your light level too high or too low?
- Is the lighting quality adequate?
- Do you want to improve color rendering from your lights?
- Have you already upgraded to LED?
These are all concerns that can be addressed in any lighting project. Your first task is to decide which objectives you want to tackle.
Potential objectives:
- Energy Savings
- Maintenance Savings
- Light Level
- Light Quality
- Light Color
- Controllability
Take time to rank each objective in order of importance. Then consider the degree of change you want to see.
Detailing your needs like this will help you focus on what matters most to your project. It’s also an invaluable exercise to go through if you’re working with a professional lighting contractor.
By ranking your objectives, you’ll help your contractor understand your needs and create a detailed project scope and plan of action.
Lighting Audit Step 2: Collecting the Data
Now that you’ve established what you want to accomplish, it’s time to start collecting data. You’ll need some tools to properly perform the audit.
If you’re operating even a moderately-sized facility, using your fingers to count fixtures isn’t feasible. Likewise, relying on your memory to track the types of lights, their output, their location, or any obstructions simply isn’t an option.
Fortunately, your tool kit is fairly small. Here’s what you’ll need:
- Camera
- Tape Measure
- Digital Laser Measure (for ceiling height)
- Light Meter
- Audit Sheets
Download our sample audit sheets
A lighting auditor will have all of these tools on hand, as well as software to make capturing the data easier. However, if you choose to perform the audit yourself, those are the recommended tools.
The camera on your phone is more than adequate for capturing what you need. You’ll want photos of each fixture and lamp type, as well as multiple angles of the spaces where they’re located.
Close-up images of each fixture type serve as a record of your existing lights. Perspective shots of each room or floor will help with “before and after” comparisons.
A tape measure and digital laser are necessary for capturing dimensions, especially if you don’t have floor plans for your site. You’ll need to know the area (length x width) of every room and how high the lights are above the floor.
A light meter is used to take readings of your current light levels. This is important whether you wish to increase, decrease, or maintain those levels. Your light meter should read in “foot candles,” showing how much light falls at task height, usually on a desk or area where work is performed.
Finally, your audit sheet is your critical document for this project. In it, you’ll record information about the lighting system (including fixture counts by type), current and desired light levels, color readings, and anything else relevant to the project.
This data will help inventory all of your lighting and develop a project plan with a lighting contractor. An experienced contractor will take care of all these steps for you and have the software to capture everything efficiently.
You can download our audit sheets here.
If you’re using your own sheets, below is an example of the most important details you will need:
| LOCATION | QUANTITY | DESCRIPTION | LAMP DESCRIPTION |
| OFFICE | 2 | 2X4 3-Lamp Parabolic | 4′ 32W T8 |
The most important data when conducting a lighting audit is the correct fixture count and the correct lamp and wattage types inside each fixture. It’s also important to consider how often the lights are on in a given space. Don’t just consider business hours, consider whether cleaning crews are in the facility after hours and whether exterior lighting runs from dusk until dawn.
As you determine how many hours you use your lights, think carefully about actual usage patterns. Don’t simply multiply 9 hours a day by 5 days a week. Tally up (or estimate) how many hours the switches are actually flipped to “On” and base your figures on those patterns.
Other numbers and info you’ll want to take into account:
- Financial Information (especially your energy bills, both summer and winter)
- Building/Site Information (including floor plans, drawings, and locations of HVAC, controls, exits, and equipment rooms)
- Occupant Information (burn hours, potential problem areas, etc.)
The more quantifiable figures you have after your audit, the better off you’ll be. You’ll have all the information you need to improve your lights yourself, or you can hand it to an expert contractor to execute the project for you.
As a final touch, here’s a checklist of all the items you’ll want to account for in your lighting audit:
______ Hours of Operation
______ Burn Hours
______ Fixture Count
______ Method of Lighting Control for Area/Room
______ Fixture Voltage
______ Number of Lamps per Fixture
______ Number of Lamps per Ballast
______ Type of Lamps/Ballast
______ Reflectors, lenses, wire guards, emergency ballasts
______ Fixture condition, failed lamps, or systems (excessive dirt/dust)
______ Whether fixtures are air-handlers (plenum)
______ Availability of daylight
______ Tasks that are performed in the space (with light level targets)
______ Use of partitions
______ Unique fixture types or physical features
______ Ceiling type (sheetrock, lay-in, open, etc.)
______ Area dimensions, including ceiling height, and fur-downs
______ Height of the tasks
______ Obstructions (modular furniture, conveyors, racks, etc.)
______ Fixture mounting height, fixture mounting details (measurement, type)
______ Room surface reflectances and colors of major objects and room surfaces
Lighting Audit Step 3: Other Energy Efficiency Measures
While we’re focusing on lighting in this post, professional energy auditors can observe other energy-consuming systems in your business to find potential energy-saving opportunities.
Other areas that a professional auditor might look at include:
- HVAC
- Mechanical
- Refrigeration
- Plumbing
- Insulation
By measuring these other areas, an auditor can suggest more comprehensive energy efficiency solutions to help your business.
Step 4: Take Action!
Once your audit is complete, you can bring it to a qualified lighting and electrical contractor who can assess it and make project suggestions. However, they may still want to perform an audit themselves — which is why it’s recommended to use a professional from the start.
If you had a professional perform the audit, you can usually get an upfront cost estimate and a general scope of the project quickly, giving you a head start on determining your lighting project budget.
“With high-level information we can create a budget and ROI, but to actually create a firm price, a lighting contractor will need to walk the space.”
Bobby Graham, Chief Growth Officer
According to FSG’s Chief Growth Officer, Bobby Graham, “It’s extremely important to send the information to a qualified lighting contractor to confirm the details are correct. With this high-level information, we can confirm if there’s an opportunity at the location to be upgraded. In almost all cases, the answer is yes. With high-level information, we can create a budget and estimate ROI, but to actually create a firm price, a lighting contractor will need to walk the space.”
Audit Your Lighting Today
Now that you know how to perform a lighting audit and the secrets behind why it’s so important, you can audit your facility’s lighting and find opportunities for money-saving LED lighting upgrades.
Or, if you’d rather let a qualified lighting contractor handle your lighting audit and find the money-saving opportunities for you, contact FSG today. Expert lighting audits are a standard part of our turnkey lighting retrofits.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does a lighting audit usually take?
It depends on the size of the facility and the number of different fixture types involved, since the audit requires inventorying fixtures, documenting lamp and ballast details, and taking light level readings. FSG recommends using a professional for larger sites, especially if the audit could disrupt operations.
What information should I have ready before a lighting auditor visits my facility?
Having recent energy bills, floor plans if available, and information about operating hours — including after-hours usage like cleaning crews and exterior dusk-to-dawn lighting — helps the audit accurately determine burn hours and energy costs.
Do I need a light meter for a lighting audit, or can I just count the fixtures?
Counting fixtures alone isn’t enough if you’re trying to determine whether light levels are too high or too low. Using a light meter to measure current illumination in foot-candles at task height lets you accurately compare “before” and “after” performance.
What are the most common things people forget to document during a lighting audit?
The most common misses are underestimating actual burn hours, forgetting about after-hours staff, night shift crews, or exterior lighting runtimes, and failing to document critical fixture details like lamp wattage, ballast type, fixture condition, and control methods.
How do I use lighting audit results to decide whether an LED upgrade is worth it?
Audit data helps you estimate energy savings, maintenance savings, and ROI by capturing fixture counts, wattages, operating hours, and current light levels. The audit is specifically designed to help you make informed decisions before moving forward with a retrofit estimate.
