Whether your commercial office building is new, dated, large, or small, proper lighting is a vital component of a functional and efficient workplace. It’s no secret that dim lighting puts strain on the eyes and lowers productivity, and harsh lighting can trigger serious migraines. Aside from employee benefit, some light fixtures also serve as decoration or accent lighting to make your facility more attractive to tenants.
Finding the perfect replacement products for these fixtures can be a hassle – and determining how to retrofit these fixtures can be confusing.
So, we’ve put together a guide to common light bulbs found in commercial offices along with links to where you can buy the product or its appropriate LED upgrade. If you'd like to jump straight to a specific area of your building, use one of these links:
- Lobby lighting
- Hallway and office lighting
- Task lighting
- Mechanical and maintenance room lighting
- Parking garage lighting
- Exterior building lighting
Lobby lighting
Most of the fixtures found in a commercial office lobby include a variety – or combination – of cove lighting, recessed lighting, and track lighting.
Recessed cans are commonly used to illuminate a room in a way that makes the space feel larger. In lobbies with high ceilings, these fixtures most often use compact fluorescent bulbs, though it's not out of the question to see smaller HID bulbs.
Compact Fluorescent Bulbs
Technical Jargon:
- Shape: DD, DT, PL-T, etc.
- Base: 2-pin or 4-pin, many configurations
- Wattage: 13W, 26W, 32W, and 42W most common
What are you looking for?
Cove lighting is built into ledges or recesses in a ceiling and projects soft, indirect light into a space. This is also a common lighting technique for highlighting architectural elements like textured walls. Cove lighting commonly uses T8 bulbs.
Linear Fluorescent Tube (T8)
Technical Jargon:
- Shape: T8 (1" diameter)
- Base: Bi-pin (G13)
- Length: 1 foot to 4 foot
- Wattage: 13W to 32W, based on length
What are you looking for?
Track lighting is generally used for accents or to highlight artwork, and uses a type of reflector light bulb – MR16, PAR20, or PAR30. These bulbs give a focused beam of light to bring attention to important pieces in the room.
Common Accent Light Bulb (PAR30)
Technical Jargon:
- Shape: PAR30 (3 3/4" diameter)
- Base: Medium (E26)
- Wattage: 39W to 60W
What are you looking for?
The last fixture we commonly see in a commercial office lobby is a chandelier using a torpedo shaped light bulb such as a B10 or B11 with a candelabra base (E12 base).
Torpedo Light Bulb (B10 or B11)
Technical Jargon:
- Shape: B10 (1 1/4" diameter) or B11 (1 3/8" diameter)
- Base: Medium (E26) or Candelabra (E12)
- Wattage: 25W to 60W
- Finish: Frosted or Clear
What are you looking for?
Hallway and office lighting
Most of the lighting found in hallways and offices is overhead fluorescent lighting that consists of 2' x 4' or 2' x 2' troffers. These fixtures use linear fluorescent tubes – either T8s or T12s. In 2' x 2' troffers, it's also common to see a "bent" fluorescent tube in the share of a "U" or a large compact fluorescent called an FT40. Do note, however, that T12s are becoming more rare these days. There are several replacement options available, but T8s are the easiest fix.
Linear Fluorescent Tube (T8)
Technical Jargon:
- Shape: T8 (1" diameter)
- Base: Bi-pin (G13)
- Length: 2 foot to 4 foot
- Wattage: 17W to 32W, based on length
What are you looking for?
Task lighting
Typically, any lamp found on a desk – yes, especially the one that is strategically placed to highlight the framed photo of your dog – uses standard light bulbs (A19 shape) with a standard screw-in base (E26, medium, or “Edison” base). There are some exceptions with different sockets or specialty bulb shapes on certain desk lamps. Some commercial offices also have fixtures that require 2 or 3-foot fluorescent tubes for task lighting.
Standard Light Bulb (A19)
Technical Jargon:
- Shape: A19 (2 3/8" diameter)
- Base: Medium (E26)
- Wattage: 25W to 100W
- Finish: Frosted or Clear
What are you looking for?
Linear Fluorescent Tube (T8)
Technical Jargon:
- Shape: T8 (1" diameter)
- Base: Bi-pin (G13)
- Length: 1 foot to 4 foot
- Wattage: 13W to 32W, based on length
What are you looking for?
Mechanical and maintenance room lighting
Like hallways, maintenance rooms use overhead fluorescent lighting – 2' x 4' fluorescent strip fixtures with linear fluorescent tubes (either T8s or T12s). Again, with the phase-out of T12s, retrofitting is always an option. We have a full list of options discussed here.
Linear Fluorescent Tube (T8)
Technical Jargon:
- Shape: T8 (1" diameter)
- Base: Bi-pin (G13)
- Length: 2 foot to 4 foot
- Wattage: 17W to 32W, based on length
What are you looking for?
Parking garage lighting
A common light fixture we see in parking garages consists of 4’ vapor tight fixtures. Fluorescent tubes (typically T8s) are the bulbs used in this type of fixture.
Linear Fluorescent Tube (T8)
Technical Jargon:
- Shape: T8 (1" diameter)
- Base: Bi-pin (G13)
- Length: 4 foot
- Wattage: 28W to 32W
What are you looking for?
In some cases, parking garages also have fixtures that use HID bulbs (most commonly 175W). Again, there are several LED upgrade options available for parking garages. Typically, this lighting remains on 24/7, so this is the perfect place to install long-life lighting that is guaranteed to save energy – and money.
In this blog post, we discuss how a San Francisco bay area parking garage was looking to reduce energy costs by replacing their existing HID lamps with LEDs. They decided to go with a plug-and-play LED replacement. This retrofit saved the customer nearly $20,000 in energy costs.
HID Light Bulb
Technical Jargon:
- Shape: ED
- Base: Medium (E26) or Mogul (E39)
- Wattage: 175W
What are you looking for?
Exterior building lighting
Generally, the fixtures found on the exterior of the building are wall packs. These fixtures use HID bulbs, typically ranging from 100 to 400 watts. Wall packs provide illumination to ground areas frequently used by pedestrians and serve as an added layer of security.
HID Light Bulb
Technical Jargon:
- Shape: ED, ET, BT, etc.
- Base: Medium (E26) or Mogul (E39)
- Wattage: 100W, 175W, 250W, or 400W
What are you looking for?
For more guidance on lighting and how we can help make it easy, contact one of our lighting experts today for a free lighting consultation.
