LED lighting brightens up school hall

Marl International has transformed the sports hall at one of the North of England’s most prestigious independent schools, Abbey Gate College. Marl installed LED lighting that improved the hall environment and provided much brighter and more even lighting that comes on instantly.

Marl replaced 16 SON 250 W sodium lamps with 32 145 W 774-series Bay Range three-way floodlights. Following the installation, light levels across the hall improved considerably and became much more even. Measured brightness was around 200 lux at 1 m from the wall with the old lighting and is now about 350 lux - a 75% improvement. In the centre of the hall, light levels have gone up by just over 20% from 350 to 450 lux.

Commenting on the installation of the LED lights, Abbey Gate Business Manager Andrew Bache said, “The real appeal of Marl LED lights for us is the convenience and improvement in the environment. Though the sodium lights were adequate for football and gymnastics, the hall is also used for examinations and social events. We were able to dramatically increase the light level in the hall, ensuring the corners as well as the central area are brightly lit. The LED lights are much whiter and very much more even, since the output of the sodium lamps degrades noticeably as they age.”

Karl Brooks, the Strategic Account Manager of Marl who managed the installation, said, “With the new lighting, the darkest areas of the hall are as brightly lit as the centre was previously and the centre is even brighter. There is also now relatively little difference between the edges and the centre.”

In addition to improving the appearance, the new lights offered cost savings in several areas. Bache explained, “The sodium lights took about 20 minutes to warm up, so were normally left on all day. Now we can just switch them on when we arrive and off when we leave.”

Bache concluded, “Marl’s help in sourcing a suitable light for our application was exceptional. Now the biggest problem we face is reminding staff to turn the lights off when they leave. Everyone notices the improvement in the hall environment. One of the most visible is the way people no longer appear ‘orange’ in photographs.”