Henry Charnock lecture theatre at Southampton University required energy saving, reduced maintenance dimmable lamps for a 5m high ceiling for their lecture theatre.

The lecture theatre had been built with traditional large compact fluorescent dimmable lights, which were extremely difficult to replace due to the height of the ceiling. Regular maintenance and lamp changing was not a simple routine operation. The University’s maintenance team had to use scissor lifts to gain access to change the lamps. The additional cost and significant disruption each time a lamp needed changing (the scissor lifts had to overcome various obstacles in order to gain access to the lecture room) resulted in the University looking for an alternative solution.

Spurlite were asked for an alternative to this maintenance issue. The University wanted a reliable a long lasting “maintenance free” luminaire, which would at least maintain, but ideally provide better light levels. Any new lighting solution would need to fit into the existing down light cut out, as the ceilings were plasterboard and due to budgetary constraints re-plastering was not an option. Finally, as with most large companies and Universities, Southampton wanted to reduce energy bills and saw the replacement of the old lights as an opportunity to improve their energy usage.

Spurlite recommended the high output 3000 lumen DOT9298 with Dali driver as this would exceed the lecture room’s existing lighting levels. The DOT range has various options, Spurlite suggested the lecture theatre would benefit from using the fitting in combination with a soft diffusion lens diffuser. This has provided a far greater colour rendering and greater “feel” and ambiance to the room.

Spurlite designed a bespoke pattress plate, to accommodate the current aperture in the ceiling from the existing lighting system. The DOT9298 as standard has a smaller diameter bezel than the cut out in the ceiling, but by making a larger plate to accommodate the new Spurlite lamps, the ceiling was left intact and did not require any re-plastering.

The DOT9298 lamp will provide great savings for the university and not just with the reduction in maintenance time and cost. The energy saving achieved per lamp fitted was significant.

The University of Southampton were extremely pleased with the result of the DOT9298 installation. The lamps had exceeded the team’s expectations, in terms of the energy savings, the lack of maintenance required and the finish of the design itself.