Imagine you live in the heart of Queen Anne. You spend half your income on rent to live in one of Seattle’s hottest neighborhoods. During winter’s dreary days, you leave for work in the dark and get home in the dark. The last thing you need is to get off the elevator, to walk down a dimly lit hallway, and to struggle to unlock your ap
artment door because half of the lights are burnt out.
The Greater Seattle Area is full of mid-rise apartment buildings, averaging 5 floors, all lined with rows of recess cans in the hallways and common areas. If a building was built or upgraded over 5 years ago, we can almost guarantee that those recess cans have a 18W-26W CFL plug in lamps that are connected to a ballast. While this technology was considered “the best” a decade ago, it’s now a maintenance person’s nightmare. Not only do the CFLs burn out regularly but the ballasts inside those small recess cans can melt to the metal and can be challenging to replace. We consistently receive calls from building owners and property managers asking for a better solution.
In December Urban Energy Group found one of its Queen Anne customers just that: a solution that looked better, created uniformity, increased safety, and cut energy savings by two thirds. We replaced ninety 26W fixtures with new 9W recess cans. Our customer’s maintenance staff was ecstatic. They will no longer have to spend multiple hours per week changing light bulbs…at least not for another 10-15 years. On top of that, the Seattle City Light paid for over 60% of the project.
Project Highlights (includes garage fixtures as well):
- $8,019 saved/yr
- 100,284 kWh saved/yr
- 82% energy saved/yr
- 62% incentivized by Seattle City Light