Apartment Complex in College Town Switches to LED Lighting
As the original developer of all their residential properties, Kaiserman Properties knows each unit down to the stud. With a portfolio consisting of urban high-rise and suburban garden and townhome apartment units, Kaiserman caters to the housing needs of a wide variety of residents. Those who call their communities home—from established families to single graduate students to empty nesters – know they can rely on management and maintenance staff to ensure they have a quiet, comfortable, safe place to live. Their residential communities are created to provide the best value to the most discerning renters.
Radwyn Apartments in their extensive grounds in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, The complex recently changed its outdoor lighting to LED, resulting in cost and environmental savings. (Photo: Radwyn Apartments)
Kaiserman Properties are known for their desirable and convenient locations and appreciated for their beautiful grounds and common areas and recently renovated apartments. The Radwyn Apartments in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, are no different from the rest in that respect. But Radwyn is different in that they have just upgraded many outdoor lights to LED in an effort to save money and improve the community appearance all with one mighty blow.
The complex boasts many wonderful amenities, especially since the completion of their latest upgrades. Some of the sweeping changes that Radwyn has made include new fencing for better aesthetics, native and ecologically responsible landscaping, permanent community grills, a bus shelter and even a dog park for Fido to stretch his legs and burn off some steam safely and legally. The complex’s amenities now also include LED exterior lighting on the building facades, parking lots, entrances and common areas.
According to Joseph Cianfrani Jr., director of facilities at Radwyn, Kaiserman Company had several reasons for considering a lighting retrofit for the apartment complex. The reasons included their escalating high energy costs, their lighting maintenance costs and the need to improve the lighting environment for their apartment residents. The retrofit “more than satisfied” their requirements, Cianfrani said, it also contributes to their corporate commitment to lower their carbon footprint by reducing greenhouse gas emissions by more than 108,000 pounds. This, he points out, is equal to saving over 300 trees or taking over 250 cars off the road.
The lighting retrofit that Radwyn undertook included replacing the apartment complex’s 100-watt high pressure sodium outdoor flood lights with efficient 39-watt LED flood light fixtures. In addition, it included replacing interior entrance lamps that had previously been illuminated with 60-watt incandescent bulbs. Now these lamps are illuminated with 8-watt LED lamps that provide more lumens of more useful light than the old incandescent bulbs did. The project is projected to save the company over $8,000 per year in energy costs.
In addition to the energy savings, Stouch Lighting, the company that installed the new lighting, anticipates the retrofit will save Kaiserman Company an additional $4,800 in first-year lighting-maintenance related costs that would have been required for replacing failed lamps, ballasts and fixtures in the existing lighting, bringing the total savings from the LED lighting retrofit to over $12,800 in the first year alone.
The LED retrofit also entitled Kaiserman to receive utility rebates from the PECO Smart Ideas program, further adding to the savings and payback on the LED retrofit. But most importantly it created more useful, safer, and more attractive spaces in this community that hundreds of people call home – and maybe the energy savings will be trickle down with fewer rent increases in the future for these residents.
By: Brian Newman
