September tease: How many electrical engineers does it take to change a light bulb?
Facilities Factoid (clip and save for valuable future reference):
PebbleCreek is saving energy, manpower and money by replacing an estimated 15,000 light bulbs with LEDs. Though initially more expensive, LED’s come with a three-year guarantee and a 60% rebate from APS.
This month’s high maintenance tale:
It doesn’t take any electrical engineers to change a light bulb — if they simply redefine darkness as the industry standard! And darkness might become the standard if our PebbleCreek maintenance team didn’t spend a lot of time replacing bulbs.
With an estimated 15,000 light bulbs in our buildings and sports facilities, Ken Sergio, PebbleCreek Golf Resort Facilities Manager, reports that these days, when his team replaces a burned out bulb, they replace it with an LED bulb. Swapping out incandescent light bulbs for LEDs has several benefits: saving money on our electric bill which we might change provider for through services similar to Usave (https://usave.co.uk/energy/), superior light quality, less impact on the environment and replacing bulbs once every decade or two instead of every few months.
“LED” stands for “light-emitting diode.” While Ken didn’t get into the nitty-gritty about how they work, he did say LEDs are vastly different from incandescent bulbs in terms of the light output compared with the heat produced. LED technology converts 95 percent of the energy to light and only five percent is wasted as heat. Incandescents are pretty much the opposite. They convert only 10 percent of the energy into light, while 90 percent is wasted as heat.
Ken calculates that switching just one bulb from incandescent to an LED reduces energy consumption between 70 to 90 percent. We’re saving so much energy in fact, that last year APS honored PebbleCreek with an award for our “steps to reduce energy use.” So next time you see one of Ken’s team replacing a light bulb, you know they’re not just changing a light bulb, they’re helping us save money and energy!
PebbleCreek’s Facilities Department is responsible for the maintenance and repair of all PebbleCreek-owned building facilities, common areas, streets, street lights, property block walls, tennis, basketball, Pickleball and bocce ball courts, fitness centers, swimming pools, parks, spa and softball field. Led by Director Ken Sergio, the department includes an administrator, 11 housekeepers and 12 maintenance staffers. The Facilities Department has staff working 24/7. Office telephone: 623-935-6755.