The Brewery Square, developed in 2002, comprises 198 apartments in four blocks around a landscaped courtyard. It’s the site of the traditional Cannon Brewery that began operations in 1746. With six townhouses and a mix of commercial and retail premises, it is right in the creative heart of London’s Clerkenwell.
Unfortunately, when property manager Currell took over the site in 2014, it soon became apparent that there were going to be some problems. “I knew our lighting system had some pretty major flaws,” says property manager and company partner Elizabeth Hurry. We identified the key issues as:
- Light fittings failing regularly;
- Lengthy defects lists were being issued weekly;
- Huge maintenance bills were a regular occurrence; and
- Block lighting systems were outdated, costing too much money and not fulfilling their appropriate function.
The property manager was spending too much time spent dealing with tenant complaints and chasing repairs. “Just replacing high level or over-stair lights was tricky and caused us endless maintenance headaches,” Elizabeth explains.
Lighting specialist Future Lighting came highly recommended so Currell decided to take advantage of their free lighting audit service. Once this had been carried out, it highlighted a number of issues:
- Maintenance charges were running away with the budget;
- Numerous light fitting failures and repairs had caused long term system issues;
- Different fittings and components had caused inconsistent lighting levels and colours;
- The overall look was unappealing; and
- Energy use was high.
As a result of the audit findings, Future Lighting’s technical director Jordan Begg proposed and designed a lighting solution to meet Currell’s requirements and give resident’s the quality of lighting they deserved, while bringing maintenance costs back to an acceptable level.
The lobby areas had aesthetic problems. Fittings and design looked tired with unsightly black marks on the ceiling caused by excessive heat generation. In such a high specification development this was not an ideal advertisement for the apartments or an inviting environment for residents and their guests. As new managers, Currell wanted to make an immediate impact on the site and therefore the replacement of all lobby lighting with new LED lights was proposed. Lights were trialed until the correct solution was found. Residents were encouraged to comment – and often did!
In the corridors there were a number of additional factors to consider.These included finding a solution to prevent ceiling and/or overall cosmetic damage. In addition, attention was also paid to sizing, colour rendering and light output. Considerable time was spent ensuring that designing the most appropriate, durable and aesthetically pleasing solution would pay off.
As a result, overall lighting levels have been improved in entrance lobbies, corridors and utility areas together with:
- Consistent colour rendering throughout;
- Maintenance has been reduced to zero;
- Savings are being made on administration time and costs;
- Tenant satisfaction has improved; energy savings of 80% are being achieved; and
- All lights have a 5-year guarantee.
At Brewery Square both the residents and their property manager are pleased with the results of the lighting project which has ensured that service charge monies are not being wasted on outdated, low energy lights and fittings.
According to Jordan Begg, “At Future Lighting our philosophy is to create proactive, long term partnerships with our clients. Our audits, inventories and maintenance packages remove lighting maintenance hassle from any block manager’s ‘to do’ list as well as saving time, money and energy”.
As well as installing new solutions and retrofitting lighting systems, Future Lighting also offers a range of three different maintenance packages available to anyone who relies on their lighting system and needs a professional support team.
Available on an annual basis, all Future Lighting’s service contracts are available to both existing and new clients and individually negotiated to suit the particular requirements of each development.The company also offers a significantly reduced fee structure for large volume sites.
If you have a troublesome site,where maintaining the lighting has become a stressful and time consuming task,you can contact Future Lighting for details of their lighting audit.
