Packaging specialist factory, high bay lighting

About this project

A packaging specialist's newly built factory, steel frame with an insulated roof, still empty when we were in. Lighting an empty shell is easy to get wrong. There is nothing in it to block light yet, so a layout that looks fine on handover day can leave dark aisles once the racking and machines go in.

The roof runs high, around thirteen metres to the underside. At that height the spread of each fitting decides everything. Too narrow and you get bright pools under each light with gloom in between, which is the look most people recognise from an older factory. Fifteen UFO fittings, hung on drop wires off the purlins, spaced so the pools overlap instead of sitting apart.

The roof already has translucent skylight strips running the length of the bays, so during the day a lot of this space lights itself. We planned around that. The fittings sit between the skylight runs, where the daylight does not reach, so they are earning their keep instead of doubling up on light that is already free.

On the fitting itself we do not go cheap in a factory. Surge protection is the part people skip, and it is the part that matters most here. An industrial supply sees far more spikes than a house does, and a surge is the usual reason a driver dies long before its rated hours. Everything at this height goes up on a boom lift, so the lift and the downtime cost more than the light does. Spend a bit more on the fitting, go up once.

Outside we went a different way. Solar spotlights with motion sensors, so there is no cabling to trench across a finished compound and nothing added to the monthly bill. They sit dark until someone walks into range, which is what you actually want on a perimeter. Constant light all night gets ignored, light that comes on when something moves gets noticed.