When Everything Old Is New Again-

Abstract

If you are like me with some gray showing around the
temples, then you may also recall what our industry was like in the
early 1980s. If any device consumed two watts of electricity we
looked for a way to get it reduced to one watt. ROI was our daily
war cry and we left no stones unturned in our search for projects
that would meet our internal company goal, typically a three-year
ROI.
We retrofitted fluorescent light fixtures with early and unrefined
polished reflectors so we could lamp down from four to two tubes.
The shadows were horrible and the rooms were dim, truly a poor
application unless the original fixture was a three tube and you had
an engineered reflector. Our bosses took their blows over this change
and of course handed same down to us, advising we had better come
up with better improvements fast.
We converted our T-12 lamps to T-8, a good move although the
T-8 of that day ran about 125% more in cost than did the T-12. So we
often waited to do the retrofit until a group relamping was due and
we could bury some of the retrofit cost in what would otherwise
have been spent on the relamping. And when we did relamp we in-
variably faced complaints about the new color rendition.
We converted from magnetic to electronic ballasts, almost cer-
tainly a bad move in the early days of humming and smoking elec-
tronic ballasts coming from a variety of backyard manufacturers.
Flicker and high infant mortality rates were the norm for these units,
and again the complaints filtered down. Confidence in conservation
measures took a solid hit.