In order to replace old-fashioned, ordinary fluorescent bulbs and ceiling tubes in your home and office with Full Spectrum lighting, call Jan Dacri: 702-376-4727

Here’s why:

Choosing a Light Source – Healthy Lighting

H ave you ever noticed how much better you feel on bright, sunny days? Think of being outside under clear blue skies in the sunshine. Unfortunately, most of us spend at least 90% of our lives indoors, inside buildings, at work and at home. Have you ever considered how indoor lighting may be affecting you? This information may open your eyes.

What should I consider when choosing a light source (a bulb)?

Ambience, as we all know, effects how we feel. Our mood can influence buying behavior, mental clarity, work productivity and performance. Common yellow fluorescent lighting has been widely accepted up to this point in our lives as the only choice. Without realizing it, we have been subliminally influenced by dull, dreary and/or glaring light.

Recently, lighting technology has advanced, brightening up our indoor spaces. It is now possible to choose to use a light source that comes close to duplicating natural sunlight. It’s called Full Spectrum Lighting. As the term “Full Spectrum” implies, this lighting incorporates not just the yellow band in the center of the colors of the rainbow, but all colors in the spectrum including Red – Orange – Yellow – Green – Blue – Indigo – Violet – and Ultra-Violet! This new type of lighting may actually improve your outlook, reduce eye strain, and make you feel better (rather than worse) after working inside all day.

Color temperature (Kelvin Temperature) or Chromaticity

Chromaticity refers to the color appearance of the light that comes from a particular light source. This is an important performance characteristic to assess when evaluating lighting sources because chromaticity creates the mood of the space you are lighting.

Chromaticity is also referred to as Correlated Color Temperature (CCT). The apparent color of a light source is measured in Kelvin or "K". This terminology relates to the color appearance of the light generated from the bulb. The color temperature of natural outdoor light varies from day to day and season to season. 5500 degrees Kelvin has been specified as temperature of typical natural outdoor light.

Imagine a piece of iron (a horseshoe, for instance) in a fire. This will help you to visualize color temperature. Lamp types are designated as "warm" or "cool." At first the iron becomes "red-hot." Red is the color of light being generated by the metal at a certain degree of temperature. Continuing to heat the metal makes it become "white-hot". Heating it further causes it to become "blue-hot" (like flash bulbs or stars).

This is how color temperatures are described:

• A low color temperature corresponds to "warm" or a red-yellow appearance: incandescent lamps at 2700 Kelvin.
• Fluorescent lamps operating at 3500 K give off a "neutral" white light.
• "Cool" light comes from sources like cool white fluorescent lamps operating at 4100 K.
• 5500 K, once again, has been specified as temperature of typical natural outdoor light. The higher temperature is cooler (bluer) in appearance.

Full Spectrum Lighting from Excella brand bulbs delivers 5765K.

Color Rendering

Another key performance characteristic, color rendering, is the ability of a light source to brighten colors in objects.

The relative measure of this ability is the Color Rendering Index or CRI. Light sources are rated on a scale of 0 to 100. The higher the CRI, the more vibrant or close to natural, the colors of objects appear.

Light sources of 70 – 80 CRI are considered good; 80+ CRI is considered excellent for color rendering properties. *

"High quality light" is preferable because objects and people look more appealing, more natural. The retinal impression that the eye receives triggers a subliminal perception that everything is brighter which is naturally uplifting.

• In sales of goods, good Color Rendering is valuable for merchandise to look visually appealing.
• In restaurants, food looks more appetizing; in markets, fruits and vegetables look mouth-watering.
• In offices, schools, offices, and factories, High Color Rendering can increase visual clarity (reduce eye strain) and create a more relaxed, pleasant and productive work and study environment.

Full Spectrum Lighting that delivers the ideal quality light for how things look, how we feel, and how efficiently we can do our work will rate very high on the Chromatic Index. It is also ideal for the healthy growth and maintenance of indoor plantlife.

*For The Green Oasis Program, we have chosen Excella brand bulbs that have a Chromatic (Color Rendering) Index of 91.1%

Additional Articles to Read about Full Spectrum Lighting