Multifamily LED Lighting

Most energy work in an occupied building runs into the split incentive problem. The owner pays for the insulation, and the tenant who pays the heat bill sees the benefit. Common-area lighting is the exception. Corridor, stairwell, garage, laundry, and exterior fixtures are almost always on the house meter, so a reduction in draw lands on the bill the owner actually pays.

The second reason it comes first is run time. A corridor fixture is typically energized every hour of the year, and a wall pack sits on a photocell. Those are also the fixtures that drive relamping trips, because a burned-out lamp in a corridor or a stairwell gets reported rather than tolerated.

• Corridors and interior hallways, typically the highest run-time fixtures in the building
• Stairwells and egress paths, where code sets a minimum light level, so those fixtures cannot simply be switched off
• Parking garages and covered parking, often HID fixtures energized around the clock
• Exterior wall packs, canopies, and pole lights on photocells or time clocks
• Lobbies, mail rooms, laundry, fitness, and community rooms
• Basements, mechanical rooms, storage, and service corridors that get relamped rarely
• Exit signs and emergency egress fixtures, which run continuously and are usually on unswitched or emergency circuits

The assessment starts as an inventory, not a proposal. An analyst walks the common areas in scope and records fixture type and housing, lamp type and count per fixture, ballast or driver type, mounting height, controls, and available operating-hour information. Mounting height matters because a fixture high in an atrium changes the equipment choice, labor, and access equipment required.

Where light levels need review, readings may be taken in garages, stairs, egress paths, or other areas in scope. Lighting verification uses fixture and light-level records, not blower-door testing, which may be used for envelope diagnostics when appropriate.

There are three ways to convert an existing fixture and they are not interchangeable. Which one fits depends on the condition of the housing, not on preference.

Controls are usually the second half of the project, and they are the part most lighting quotes leave out.

• Lamp-only retrofit: an LED tube in the existing housing. Fastest and least disruptive. The ballast either stays in the circuit as a remaining failure point, or it comes out and the fixture is rewired and relabeled so the next electrician knows what is inside it.
• Retrofit kit: new internal gear, optics, and driver installed inside a housing that is still sound.
• Full fixture replacement: the right call when the housing is corroded, water damaged, or throwing light in the wrong distribution for the space. Costs the most and resets the whole fixture.
• Controls: occupancy and vacancy sensors in laundry rooms, storage, and service corridors
• Controls: bi-level fixtures in stairwells and garages that step down to a lower output instead of going dark, so the egress path keeps light on it
• Controls: photocells or an astronomic time clock on exterior fixtures so nothing burns at noon
• Products: chosen from the qualified products list the program requires on the day of install, with color temperature selected per space rather than one number for the whole building
• Disposal: old fluorescent lamps handled as universal waste under Illinois rules, and ballasts manufactured before 1979 treated as PCB containing unless they are labeled otherwise

This is one of the few upgrades that usually needs no entry into an occupied apartment. The scope is common areas, so the work happens in corridors, stairwells, garages, and outside. Crews typically take a floor or a wing at a time during business hours, run temporary work lighting when a circuit is off, and bring the area back up before they leave it. Duration tracks fixture count and mounting height rather than unit count, so a garage that needs a lift can take longer than three floors of corridor. If in-unit fixtures are in scope, that changes, and access notices go out through your management office.

What we need from you is short but real.

• Access to electrical rooms, and panel schedules if they exist
• A contact who can approve de-energizing circuits, and a window to do it
• Staging or parking for a lift where fixtures are high
• The ability to close one garage aisle or bay at a time
• Utility account information and a signed program application, because the program contracts with the account holder, not with us
• Resident notices posted through your office if any in-unit fixtures are included

Lighting is an electric measure, so it generally runs through the ComEd Energy Efficiency Program rather than the gas-side weatherization programs that fund insulation and air sealing. Building Energy Experts is authorized for the ComEd, Nicor Gas, Peoples Gas, and North Shore Gas programs. Naming those programs identifies who we work with. It is not an endorsement, and it does not decide whether a specific property qualifies.

Sequencing matters more here than anything else on this page. Multifamily and commercial lighting incentives are usually prescriptive, paid per piece of qualifying equipment, and they usually require pre-approval before the equipment goes in. A building that installs first and applies afterward can lose the incentive entirely, no matter how good the project was. Equipment normally has to sit on the program's qualified products list on the day it is installed, not the day it was quoted. The paperwork. We file it, from pre-approval through final submission. What a program pays depends on the program and the address.

You get a fixture schedule. It is the record of what is actually in the building, and older buildings often do not have one on file. It lists every common-area fixture location, what was there, its wattage and lamp type, what replaced it, and what control was added. Keep it. It is the reference for future relamping, for capital planning, and for the next contractor who asks what is in the garage.

• Spec sheets and qualified-products listings for every product installed
• Manufacturer warranty documentation for fixtures, lamps, drivers, and controls
• Light-level readings before and after for any space we metered
• Disposal records for the old lamps and ballasts
• A copy of the complete utility program file, pre-approval through final submission

Lighting is not always the right place to spend, and we say so on the walkthrough when it is not. If the corridors were converted within the last several years, a second retrofit usually has little left to capture, and the money is better spent on controls or on the envelope. If the complaint that started the conversation is cold units, drafts, or a high gas bill, lighting will not touch it, because heat leaves through the envelope and the heating plant, not the corridor fixtures.

If fixtures keep failing because of water coming through a garage deck or because the housings are corroded, a lamp swap hides a fixture problem that will come back. If the panel is at capacity, wiring is damaged, or the emergency circuit does not test correctly, electrical repair comes first. Finding that out is the point of the walkthrough. The assessment covers lighting alongside the envelope and the mechanical systems, and the report says which one to fund first. For qualifying properties that assessment is available at no cost.