LED Lighting Upgrades & Energy Saving
Surveyed and measured before anything is quoted, for commercial buildings across the South East
We survey your building for free and show you what switching to LED would save. On most commercial sites it pays for itself inside five years. The Lake Electrical team then designs, installs and certifies the upgrade, in schools, churches, universities, offices, warehouses and sports halls.
NICEIC approved contractor. SafeContractor accredited. DBS-checked engineers. Trading since 2008.
LED lighting upgrades and commercial LED lighting across the South East
We are an electrical contractor based in Battle in East Sussex, carrying out commercial lighting upgrades across Kent, East Sussex, Surrey and the wider South East, with projects reaching sites such as Chichester. Most of it is in buildings that are expensive to light and awkward to close: office floors where the tenant pays the bill, schools and academies working inside a holiday, churches, university buildings, and the high bays of an industrial site nobody wants to reach twice. The rest of our work sits across our services.
The free survey and the savings calculation
The survey is free, and it comes first. One of us walks the building with you, measures the light levels room by room, records the fittings and the load they draw, and asks what each room is used for now rather than what it was built for.
You then get a calculation in writing: what the lighting costs to run today, what a specified LED replacement would draw, what the work would cost, and the annual saving and payback period. On most commercial sites the upgrade pays for itself inside five years, and where yours would not, we say so.
The figure has measurements behind it, so a bursar can put it to a governing body and a churchwarden to a PCC meeting. There is no obligation and no charge.
The like-for-like swap, and an upgrade that is designed
The common version of this work is a like-for-like swap. The tubes come out, LED equivalents go in, nothing else changes. The light is cold and glaring where it used to be soft, the levels are wrong for the work being done in the room, the old emergency lighting stays as it was, and half the new units flicker on a dimming circuit never designed for LED. The bill comes down by a fraction of what it should have.
A designed upgrade starts with measurement. We work out what each room needs for the work carried out in it, then specify the output and colour temperature to suit: warm and dimmable in a nave, even over a floor of desks, hard wearing above a warehouse aisle. Fewer fittings in better positions often do more than a one-for-one replacement, and controls go in where a room sits empty half the day.
What a designed upgrade is like to live with
A school hall comes up to full output as soon as somebody presses the switch, instead of taking twenty minutes while assembly starts in the gloom. A church nave comes down for an evening service and back up for the flower rota, with nobody standing at a dimmer. An office floor with no dark patches to sit under. Lower bills, and a lot less time up a ladder changing tubes.
What an LED lighting upgrade with us includes
A tired lighting installation is often the first thing an EICR turns up, so if an inspection is due, take both together. Where the distribution board cannot take the change, that panel and distribution work is priced on its own. It sits inside our commercial electrical installations work, and the audio visual side is handled by our sister company, OBAV.
Carbon targets and funding applications
Where a building carries an energy or carbon reduction target, the survey figures are what the reporting needs: measured existing consumption, the specified replacement and the projected annual saving. A grant application asks for the same figures. That matters to churches and houses of worship, where a faculty application has to be right months ahead, and to university estates teams reporting against a campus target.
Accredited and experienced on commercial lighting upgrades
NICEIC approved contractor, SafeContractor accredited, and every engineer DBS-checked, which matters on a school or university site. Our engineers have all been with us at least two years, so the engineer who surveyed your building is very likely the one who installs it.
Recent work
What clients say
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Why clients choose the Lake Electrical team
Trading since 2008, family run and owner led. The owners run the jobs themselves, so the person walking your building at the survey is the one who prices it and the one answerable for it. Call in working hours and you get a person in the office, not a voicemail, which matters when a committee meets on a fixed date.
We are straight about what a building needs, including the parts that can wait a year. We are not the cheapest, and we are straight about that. What you pay for is a survey that measures rather than estimates, and an installation certified to BS 7671.
LED lighting upgrade questions answered
What the free survey involves
One of us visits, measures the existing light levels, records the fittings and the load, and establishes the run hours. You then get the calculation in writing, with no charge and no obligation. Plenty of clients take the figures away and come back a budget cycle later.
What an LED lighting upgrade costs and how payback works
The cost depends on the number of fittings, the mounting height and access, the controls and the finish, so we price it after the survey rather than off a rate card. The payback is the cost of the work divided by the annual saving, and that saving comes from the load and run hours we measured. On most commercial sites it falls inside five years, and we show the workings.
Can the work be done without closing the building
Almost always, yes. Lighting is one of the easier upgrades to phase, so we take a floor, a wing or a block at a time, work evenings and weekends in an office, and get the bulk of school work done inside a holiday. Where a room must be out of use for a day, you know which room and which day beforehand.
Can LED go into the existing fittings
Sometimes, and the survey decides. Some fittings are sound and can take an LED conversion with new gear, which keeps cost and disruption down, and in a listed church that may be the only acceptable answer. Elsewhere they are at the end of their life or so inefficient that keeping them throws away most of the saving. We tell you which, room by room.
If the heating is the bigger cost
Lighting is often the quickest saving in a building that costs too much to run, and not always the biggest. If the real problem is heating a hall or a church, our electric heating work covers radiant heaters that warm a sports hall from the ceiling, and heated pews that warm the person the way a car seat does, rather than the whole church.
Book your free survey
The survey is free and the calculation is written down, so there is nothing to commit to until you have seen both. A few details is enough for us to come back with a price, usually the same day.
Want to know what you would save? Book a free survey. Prefer a chat first? Get in touch, or call [[NAP: phone number]], Mon to Fri, 8am to 5pm.
We carry out LED lighting upgrades across Kent, East Sussex, Surrey and the wider South East.