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Sustainability

The Biggest Mistake You Can Make With Your New Signage

Blaze Signs LED lights in a sign

If you are currently planning a new set of signage for your locations, we hope you have taken on board the excellent benefits of LED lighting provide. But if you are sticking with traditional fluorescent lighting tubes, or have yet to decide, you should be aware that you could be making a costly mistake – and creating far more work for yourself than necessary.

Fluorescent tubes have been with us since the Second World War, and were for much of the time the most popular method of providing large scale lighting in commercial and industrial areas. But their time is now coming to an end. This is chiefly due to their impact on the environment; the mercury, glass, surface coatings and various metals they contain are far from green. Every year, over 80 million fluorescent tubes are sent to landfill. And those tubes contain 4 tonnes of highly toxic mercury. So, 2023 will see the removal of fluorescent lights from sale in the UK and across Europe.

As the withdrawal is being phased during the year, here are the dates you should be aware of.

Blaze Signs fluorescent lighting bans 2023

The main date to be aware of is the 25th August. This is when tubes are officially banned from retailer’s shelves.  After that, you will have to work through the stock of tubes you may have or try to find remaining items stored by suppliers. As this is going to make keeping your signage properly lit increasingly hard, it makes sense to move your forthcoming signage to using LED right now.

 

Your Signage And The Cost Of Lighting

Fluorescent tubes were long regarded as a highly cost-effective way to light your signage. In reality this is far from the case. If your signs are illuminated for around 12 hours each day, every individual tube is costing your business £63 every year to power. And as even a modest sign can contain 27 tubes inside it, the result is your business is forking out nearly £1,800 each year just to keep the tubes in your sign lit up.

 

Reducing Your Signage Lighting Costs By 95%

If we continue using a small sign as an example, let’s look at the outcome when those 27 tubes are replaced with 91 LED modules. The power consumption of your sign will then dive from 2,268Watts to a relatively tiny 98Watts. The result is this sign, when lit for 12 hours per day, will cost around £77.26 each year. That’s a reduction of over £1,700.  And if your sign is lit up 24 hours per day, the saving doubles to over £3,400.

 

See Your Savings

To help give you a clearer idea how much cheaper LED modules are to light your signage, we have some simple tables below. The figures we include are for typical sizes of flex front signs and the lighting they would need to use. So you will find the spec and costs are either the identical to your usage or very close.

You will find three signage sizes with the following data to help you understand the savings.

  • The typical size of each size of sign
  • The number of tubes each sign size will use
  • The Wattage the tubes consume
  • The energy cost, set at £0.18 per Watt
  • The amount of time per day the sign is illuminated
  • The annual energy cost

 

Sign Size
(w x h)
No. tubes /
modules
Total Watts Rate per
KW
Annual working
time
(12/7)
Annual
Cost
Saving
4m x 2m 27 @70W 2,268 £0.18 4,380hrs £1,788.00
4m x 2m 91 Modules 98 £0.18 4,380hrs £77.26 £1,710.74
7m x 3m 56 @ 70W 4,704 £0.18 4,380hrs £3,708.00
7m x 3m 230 Modules 248 £0.18 4,380hrs £196.00 £3,512.00
10m x 4m 114 @ 70W 6,576 £0.18 4,380hrs £7,549.00
 10m x 4m 462 Modules 499 £0.18 4,380hrs £393.00 £7,156.00
Cost savings table for signs used 12 hours per day

Sign Size
(w x h)
No. tubes /
modules
Total Watts Rate per
KW
Annual working
time
(24/7)
Annual
Cost
Saving
4m x 2m 27 @70W 2,268 £0.18 8,760hrs £3,576.00
 4m x 2m 91 Modules 98 £0.18 8,760hrs £154.33 £3,421.67
7m x 3m 56 @70W 4,704 £0.18 8,760hrs £7,417.00
7m x 3m 230 Modules 248 £0.18 8,760hrs £391.00 £7,026.00
10m x 4m 114 @70W 6,576 £0.18 8,760hrs £15,099.00
10m x 4m 462 Modules 499 £0.18 8,760hrs £787.00 £14,312.00
Cost savings table for signs used 24 hours per day

 

Big Savings Throughout Your Signage Lifecycle

The cost savings don’t end with your energy bill. As LED technology can last up to 10 times longer than fluorescent tubes, the number of visits to replace broken fluorescent tubes is massively reduced too.

 

Change Your Signage Lighting Specification Now Before It’s Too Late

The energy cost and maintenance cost reductions are powerful reasons why you should make sure your new signage uses LED technology. They are also extremely good reasons for undertaking a upgrade programme across your legacy signage too. And the leading providers of signage services to retail, commercial and industrial businesses in the UK, we can help you create a signage strategy which delivers tangible benefits to the sustainability of your business. Which is a good reason to get in touch to discuss your plans for your signage and how we can help you slash their running costs.

LED lighting installed by Blaze Signs