We’re partnering with the Red Cross to collect donations and help save lives, reduce injuries, and cut down on needless losses caused by home fires.

Each year, 12,600 people are injured and 2,500 die as a result of home fires in the United States. Property loss as a result of this is estimated to be at $7.3 billion, making a devastating impact on the wellbeing of families around the US.

By donating you are providing the Red Cross with the resources it needs to provide critical services for people who have been impacted by home fires. They will also provide lifesaving tools, such as smoke detectors, and information to help support efforts for prevention of home fires, allowing families to stay safe and ensure that they are doing everything in their hands to avoid this catastrophe.

Help support us as we help provide families with the help that they need to rebuild their lives.

The costs of lighting changes from year to year. As technology gets better and demand increases, prices drop, effcicieny increases, and everyone is in a win-win situation. With this ever changing landscape comes misinformation, which is why we have put together this post.

This post is going to lay out the true tennis court lighting costs for 2017. On top of that, we are going to go over some tips and things to be on the look out for in regards to choosing the best light fixture for your tennis court that will save you money and produce the best illumination possible.

This post will be broken into two parts; the average costs that are associated with the actual light fixtures themselves and the costs associated with them. Then, the average costs of powering your lights and how to achieve a higher return on investment by being a smart buyer.

Let’s start off with defining what exactly tennis court lighting is, and why it matters.

For starters, tennis court lighting is the application term for high mast lighting. High masts are the other technical terms, there are many that go far beyond the scope of this post. But, we think you should know the definition of lumens as we use it quite often. Technically, a lumen is the SI unit of luminous flux. Although that doesn’t say much, just know that lumens, in simple terms, is the amount of light being emitted by a given fixture. The more lumens, the more light you will have being output.

Now that we have a basic understanding of what tennis court lights actually are, we can get into the real costs of tennis court lights. Hopefully, these costs allow you to be aware of all the options and give you a better understanding on how to go about selecting the proper lighting technology for your court.

The costs associated with your tennis court / retrofit kits are typically much cheaper)

4. Quantity of fixtures needed

5. Your tennis court lux requirements or desires

As with any industry, what brand you buy from and what technology you buy is going to be the biggest cost variable. The most important thing to keep in mind is not only the initial costs of a fixture, but also the costs of running such fixtures over the span of it’s lifetime.

If, for example, you have one light that consumes 1000 watts of light and another that consumes 400 watts but the first one was only $500 and the second one was $1,000, which would you buy all else equal? Well, assuming they both output the same amount of light it actually makese sense to go with the second light, even though it costs twice as much.

Why you ask?

Because the cost to operate the 1000 watt light is more than double that of the 400 watt light, which over the lights lifespan can actually end up costing you much more to run the 1000w light.

These numbers aren’t entirely fictionary either, in fact; they are very close to real life examples we have seen when other tennis courts convert to LED technology from metal halide or HPS. What we haven’t described in the above example though is other cost saving benefits that LED has besides just being more efficient; but we will get to that later.

As for actual costs, they can vary far too greatly for us to list here. It all depends on what lighting technology you choose (think LED, metal halide, etc), which company you buy from, the quantity you need, if you are retrofitting or fully replacing your fixture, and what your lumen output requirements are.

A quick note on retrofitting or replacing in simple terms; retrofitting is typically cheaper for a couple of reasons. Retrofitting in short, is the process of replacing only the luminaire source from your fixture, instead of the entire fixture itself. LED vs metal halide cost to run in our example, the cost analysis can be run between any technologies in the same way. As you will see though after comparing metal halide’s  cost to run vs LED, that LED is far more efficient and costs significantly less to run.

Let’s get into the example:

Let us assume you have 10 lights. Currently, your high masts are metal halide and use 1,000 watts per fixture. Now, let’s assume you are looking for a more efficient technology and you come across LED high mast lights. You find a comparable light which will output the same amount of light (or lumens), but only consumes 400 watts per fixture.

In total, the metal halide lights are consuming 10,000 watts (assuming you have 10 lights) and the LEDs would be using only 4,000 watts if installed. That is 2.5 times less energy being consumed, which can visibility lead to huge savings.

This reduction from 1,000 watts to 400 watts per fixture in the metal halide to LED conversion in exactly why sports field, including tennis courts, are converting to LED.

Extra Tips for Reducing Costs

Conclusion

Hopefully the explainations of where the cost of tennis court lights are in 2017 have been thorough. While it’s impossible to give exact prices for every scenario, we hope this has been a starting point to your tennis courts lighting system.

A good number of the calls I get during an average day at work fall into two categories;   customers who call to have something installed in their electrical system, and customers who tried to install it themselves and are calling me to come and fix the mistakes they made.  There’s certainly nothing wrong with trying to perform basic electrical work yourself if you have a good grasp on proper electrical safety techniques and what you’re doing.  On the other hand, there’s nothing wrong with calling a top Dallas electrician to do the work for you either.  The best way to ensure the job is done right every time is to hire an honest, hardworking professional electrician who’ll stand behind his work.

Even tasks that can seem quite simple can be treacherous if you’re not sure what you’re doing.  This comes into play a lot when a homeowner is trying to perform a three-way switch installation.  It seems a lot easier to install than it really is; I generally recommend homeowners not attempt to install three-way switches without at least a electrician on the phone to walk you through the process.  Keep the following in mind:

There are tasks well suited for the do-it-yourself minded homeowner, though.  The easiest is wall outlet replacement, which is usually a very simple, straightforward procedure.   That doesn’t mean the haystack isn’t free of the odd needle that you can hurt yourself on, though.  Here are some of the more common problems I run into, along with some typical solutions or hints to keep them from happening to you: 

For many people the basement is a place of escape and for others it is simply a place for storage. With all the room underneath you, you don’t want it to go to waste. Renovating your basement can greatly increase the value of your home if it is unfinished or in need of an update. One important point to remember is the electrical wiring hiding behind the walls.

If you bought your home and it was already finished, that work could have been done many years ago and you might be thinking it is time to update fixtures, paint, and maybe evening moving a wall. When you begin pulling things apart, be careful for loose or old wires. If the electrical work was not done right, there could be loose electrical wires that were not tied in properly.  The wiring can also be old and out of date. If you are moving walls or replacing fixtures and you are worried about the age of the wiring, have a licenced electrician come to inspect your wiring. If you are going to go through the effort of redoing your basement you want to make sure it is done right.

For those who have an unfinished basement you have a clean slate to work from. Once you start putting up the framing for rooms, you can start on the electrical rough in. This is the foundation for the electrical wires, which includes drilling holes in the framing and running the wires to where they need to go. If this is not done correctly it could leave you with a significant headache once your drywall is up and you have to punch a hole in the brand new wall.

When you are planning out your new layout, make not of where each outlet, light switch, and light fixture will be placed. This will help you plan out the electrical rough-in. If you have reached this point in your basement renovation and don’t know where to go from there – contact Expert Electric. Our electricians can help you with the planning and running the wires through your basement.

Most electrical panels are located in the basement. Prior to your renovation, you probably could easily access the panel. When you are putting up framing and drywall, be sure to leave enough room around the panel for it to easily open. You also want to make sure not to cover it with furniture that could prevent you from accessing it quickly. In the event that you need to turn on a tripped breaker or even turn off a circuit in an emergency, you don’t want to be struggling with furniture to get the panel open.

Before you renovate your basement, have a plan and be prepared.

We’re barely a week into fall and the temperatures are already dropping and the stormy season is upon us. Here in Virginia, we’re bound to get our fair share of severe thunderstorms, which always carry the potential of a power outage. Because September is National Preparedness Month, we thought we would help you prepare ahead of time for a power outage, should one happen in your neighborhood.