Let There be Light

St Aloysius Catholic Church in Perth was built in 1962. It features beautiful stained glass and attracts a sizable congregation. Lighting such an airy space has its challenges. The high ceiling is difficult to access. The light levels are also tricky considering that the parishioners on the pews far below need sufficient light for reading.

Dual intensity

The church installed Haneco’s dual intensity Tritone LED shoplight CENTAURI. These are biblically powerful, low profile luminaires that deliver roughly 2000 to 3000 lumens each depending on the intensity selected. You can choose to set the light for 20 watts or 30 watts, depending on what level of light you need. The efficiency gains of using LED are obvious – imagine trying to light a church back in the day with a series of 40-watt bulbs. Each CENTAURI gives greater light output than two 100-watt incandescent bulbs. Because the lux levels need to be as high as possible to make reading comfortable, the church have the lights switched to the highest intensity.

Tritone

The next choice they had to make was about colour temperature. The CENTAURI shoplights provide the option of warm white, neutral white or cool white. The parish chose to avoid the penetrating cool light of a shopping centre for the welcoming ambience of warm white. At any time in the future the CENTAURIs can be adjusted from the gold-tinged warm white to a reverential neutral white or a cleansing cool white.

Greatest benefit

Church services can also benefit from adjustments of light levels. The Haneco lights are dimmable so such tweaks are possible. But the greatest benefit from the new lights is their longevity. The church no longer has to regularly go to the expense and trouble of accessing its high ceiling to replace bulbs. These new lamps should last for at least ten years. St Aloysius Catholic Church has a bright future.