Building Managers and Chamaeleon LED's - A five year love affair

What strata committees can learn from professional building operators when calculating ROI on LED lighting.

Most strata committees approach the calculation of payback on LED lights by looking at the cost of the lights, the installation cost per unit and the annual savings compared with the existing fluorescent lights which will be replaced. Yep, it is under 2 years ... so who needs government rebates? Let’s get these lights installed and beat the energy crisis.

Building managers and facilities managers bring a different perspective. They are the ones who see lights failing on a continual basis, batteries in emergency lights consistently dying, the need to re-order stock and get the electrician back onsite. ​

Also, when it comes to annual fire compliance time the building manager sees the results of the annual 90 minute test for battery backed up emergency lights and the number of lights which need to be replaced to get that compliance certificate.

These are two very different views of the world.

In stratas without an onsite building manager, the strata committee sees the pain of the fire compliance audit after the fact and thinks they are being rorted by the fire compliance company (which has been known to occur!). What can they do to negotiate down the cost of a fire audit?

• The human labour costs involved in a fire compliance audit can be reduced if emergency lights can automatically run a ‘self test’ without dropping power to the common areas
• avoid replacing lights entirely because of battery failure, when the rest of the unit is in perfectly good working order

So what made the Chamaeleon the building manager’s LED light of choice?

3 things come to mind.

• Building managers who are not qualified electricians can replace failed battery packs themselves, reducing maintenance costs compared with getting an electrician back onsite which is required with regular LED’s
• Similarly, faulty Chamaeleons can be detached from their brackets by a building manager, couriered back for replacement (whilst under warranty) and the replacement unit re-installed by the building manager, again without having to call the electrician
• The ‘self test’ function of the battery-backed up emergency Chamaeleons can be run without dropping power to the common areas by the building manager and non-compliance can be detected and rectified before a fire compliance audit occurs

These three things do not currently find their way into the payback calculations on LED lighting currently run by strata committees. Why can’t a strata committee member or cleaner do these things which building managers have been doing for the past 5 years?

Strata committees tend to adopt “short term thinking” and can learn from the building manager perspective. Quality LED lights should be an asset evaluated on their Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) over a period of 10 years….not just 18 months or 2 years.

After 1000 installation sites and 3 product generations, there are few LED lights which compare with the Australian-designed Chamaeleon, which was awarded Australian Energy Efficiency product of the year in 2016.

Brent Clark
Contributor, Strata Energy News