Situated in Leicester, De Montfort University is home to over 25,000 full and part-time students. Offering a range of different courses, the university is a diverse and supportive learning community dedicated to helping students achieve the life, career and great experiences they require.

The university runs DMU Works, an exciting careers programme to help students become work-ready through training, coaching and professional development. DMU Works aims to help students succeed in a competitive world and guarantees students professional work experience opportunities from getting business insights to placement and networking opportunities. These are designed to help students become professional, adaptable and business-aware.  Dextra Lighting has been a long-standing supplier to the university, working on several installation projects in the past and worked on this project alongside the main contractor, Mealey Electrical.

The latest investment by the university focused on LED upgrades as part of an overall plan to manage and reduce energy costs and to support the university’s Carbon Management Plan. All rooms needed to be upgraded whilst still occupied by students and staff in the Clephan, Hawthorn and Queen’s buildings.

Dextra was selected for the project, as the best value proposal in competition with other suppliers. This was due to Dextra’s ability to work closely with the electrical contractor completing the installation, coordinating deliveries products selected across the three building projects as well as recycling service for the existing fittings.

“I am pleased that this project is progressing extremely well with the replacement of lighting being completed in Hawthorn (completed August 2020) and advanced in Clephan (due to be completed in February 2021). The programme for each building has progressed quicker than planned despite the project being delivered within a pandemic. As a result, the university is also looking to bring forward the commencement of the replacement lighting in Queens by 6 months. The installation of Dextra fittings has improved the lighting levels and enhanced the teaching and learning environment for our students. When the project is completed in all three buildings there will be energy savings of approximately £85,000 per annum, CO2 savings of 150 tonnes per year and in addition reduced ongoing maintenance costs. The project forms part of the university Carbon Plan and our target of achieving net zero carbon by 2032.”
Jim Bowditch – Deputy Director of Estates and Facilities.

When the project is completed in all three buildings there will be energy savings of approximately £85,000 per annum, CO2 savings of 150 tonnes per year and in addition reduced ongoing maintenance costs. The project forms part of the university Carbon Plan and our target of achieving net zero carbon by 2032.

THE SOLUTION

The Dextra Lighting portfolio of products were used on this project.

For the staircases, the client wanted a product that was aesthetically different to a standard round bulkhead on the wall. The Discalo LED with blue halo was chosen so that there was all round illumination to the steps on the staircases and spacings could be extended to a maximum of 3 metres. The Discalo comes in four lumen package options and these were selected to suit the individual staircases depending on size, ranging from 1500 lumens up to 4000 lumens.

In the offices, the MODLED Office was installed to comply with the latest BSEN 12464 glare requirements for both the 3000 candelas per metre squared limit above 65 degrees and UGR19. The Rubix Linear was selected because of it’s attractive appearance and performance. The 6000 lumen option was chosen so that spacings between luminaires could be maximised.

During the brief it was explained that all services ran the length of the corridors but that void space would be very limited. Because of this, the MOD Edge was selected as it has a housing depth of only 8.5mm and complied to CIBSE recommendations for illumination of corridors.

The Graduate LED was suitable for a number of applications within DMU because of its versatility and its affordability within the University’s LED refurb project. It was installed into classrooms, offices, workshops, laboratories and some larger stores. Available in a number of lumen packages, it can even offer glare compliance less than UGR19 which is suitable for offices. The university wanted to standardise on a surface product throughout the workshops and laboratories and selected this product because it is offered up to 13200 lumens so a suitable lumen package was selected to suit the ceiling height and spacing required for any of the rooms that required relighting.

The Capo XL was selected for an old lecture theatre, situated in the Hawthorn Building. The old lighting was very traditional and used very much out of date technology. The lighting was also very inefficient producing over 150watts per lamp. The brief was to find a contemporary luminaire with good aesthetics that would also reduce energy consumption whilst increasing the lux levels which were currently 200lux with poor uniformity with the old lighting. Dextra supplied the Capo XL 48, running 76w each, giving a 50% saving on the energy and increasing the light level to 400lux.