When Maranatha Assembly of God in Forest Lake, Minnesota learned that they could lower their energy bill through their energy provider Xcel Energy’s “Smarter Lighting for Less” rebate program, they jumped at the opportunity to upgrade to LED house lighting. Continue Reading →
In this church energy series, we’ve been covering ways to get fast return on investment with upgrades to energy efficient lighting. Upgrading lighting at your church can be one of the quickest bang for your buck items to get instant energy savings. Today we look at a fixture that is prevalent in many church auxiliary rooms, halls, classrooms, hallways, bathrooms, and some sanctuaries: fluorescent tubes. Continue Reading →
Continuing in our church energy series, we’ve been taking a look at lighting upgrades as a relatively quick and effective way to reduce energy usage and operational costs. In this post, we turn to the high bay gym style fixtures that are often used as house lights. Continue Reading →
Last time we compared the difference in church energy savings achieved if your church switched to CFLs or LEDs. Today we take a look at another simple example: Replacing incandescent bulbs in recessed pot lights with LED bulbs. Continue Reading →
Last time we discussed why your church should switch to CFL, LED, and/or Induction lighting ASAP to get fast church energy savings. Just how fast will upgrading pay you back? Today we take a look at two examples. Continue Reading →
Last time we discussed how the Church Energy Audit can help you track down the biggest energy wasters at your church facility. Now that you have a better idea of where you power is going (or not going) the next step in restoring your church’s use of energy is to set some energy savings goals.
Unless you plan on taking your church off the grid it is unrealistic to think you will be able to reach 100% energy efficient. It is mighty noble to say “we want to reduce our church’s energy consumption by 30%,” but you have to determine where you will find savings. Be specific. Look at each system and get estimates on energy savings and initial costs for upgrades/replacements. Start with the smallest culprits and work your way up.
House Lighting: Expect to save 75%-80% when switching from traditional incandescents to CFL’s or LED’s. Changing out old school gym lights (400W metal halides) will give you the biggest bang for your buck at 50%-70% if you switch to LEP (light emitting plasma). Depending on the size of your facility, upgrading your lighting fixtures could be your least expensive expenditure. If it looks like it would be too costly to upgrade all lighting at once, consider doing it in phases. Upgrading one zone per year or 6 months as you are able until the whole building is done. Consider that the savings cost you can achieve in just a few months may amount to thousands of dollars. Upgrading might just pay for itself!
AV & Stage Lighting: One of the biggest energy culprits in AV are likely to be audio amplifiers. If you still have a few remnants from last century’s workhorse amps in your AV rack it’s likely they not very energy efficient. For example the CROWN MICROTECH amplifiers produced in the 90’s and early 2000’s needed 11-26 amps where as a modern day Crown iTech amplifiers requires just 5-8 amps during a program or as little as 0.8amps in sleep mode (sleep mode is actually a recent addition to pro audio applications). That upgrade alone is a savings of 45%-70%. 93% savings when in sleep mode. Large format projectors also require a lot of power. Dimmer units are also big energy consumers. If your AV upgrade schedule includes audio amplifiers, projectors, or conversion to LED stage lighting fixtures, or LED Video walls, make sure you include considerations for energy efficiency in your specifications. There is significant energy savings to be had with upgrades. If replacing these AVL components all at once isn’t practical for your church, consider phasing the old workhorses out over time.
HVAC/Water: As you pinpoint your largest consumers within your facility by reviewing your church energy audit, the HVAC and water systems will likely be one of your biggest energy offenders. Your discussions with facility managers, leaders and consultants may tend to start here. Upgrading or replacing HVAC and Water systems can be quite a daunting task especially if your systems are 30+ years old. Unless it’s a matter of a smart thermostat or installing a digital water heater manager, you will probably be talking MAJOR INFRASTRUCTURE changes. The high costs associated with this level of upgrades can send sticker shock through your leadership. Still, there are energy savings to be had with upgrades to HVAC and water. Talk through this process with a qualified consultant to set an appropriate energy savings goal here.
Next time we will take a look at how churches can use automation for more smart energy savings.
2013 was different for me around Christmas time. I had just landed in Chicago only 3 months prior and God hooked me up with a new gig at a great church. Turns out, the media team (creative/tech) including myself were all mostly new to the church as well and we were tasked with quickly piecing together a Christmas production for the church unlike anything they had ever seen. Needless to say, we jumped in head first. Now that we have emerged from the craziness of Christmas production world, I have three takeaways to share that will save us all a few headaches during Easter/Christmas 2014 productions. Without further ado, here are the takeaways:
1. Go Big, Be Flexible
Anytime to you sit down with creative people, once they get inspired, ideas flow like water. Our pin boards were stuffed with ideas. Luckily for me, our creative director is actually very technical and he understands exactly what it takes to pull off each idea. Some of these ideas looked completely impossible. Tech gurus like … and … have written about the tendency for tech team members to say no by default to these ideas. While we would love to see these crazy ideas come to life, in the back of our head, we calculate the amount time, money, and crew it will take to actually pull them off. In those program meetings, you do not want to be Donny or Debby Downer. Instead of shooting down ideas left and right like target practice, try visualizing alternative methods to accomplish the heart of the original idea. This Christmas I found myself shooting down a doable idea that turned out to be the hit of the event. I’m so glad I was out voted on that one.
2. Tweak it Until It’s Right
I don’t buy into this idea that every showing of the production has to be exactly identical. If your Christmas production is shown several times, making small changes is crucial in my opinion. Especially if something is just wrong for the production. Why repeat bad? If something can be done better, why not make slight improvements along the way. We all try to get to the issues before hand in tech and dress rehearsals, but realistically, at curtain call, things are different. There is an audience out there. They may respond differently to things in ways you didn’t anticipate. Don’t be afraid to jump in there and make the small tweaks or the large deviations. Don’t live with bad. Eliminate dead space. Build in better cues. Sacrifice good for great.
3. Keep Your Family First
Long hours at the church does not just take a hefty toll on you, but on your loved ones as well. Do not give away all of your capacity to the church and leave your family with leftover exhaustion and frustration. Anticipate the amount of hours you will be away from your family, communicate it to them but also plan to have an incredible Christmas at your house as well. If you have services on Christmas Eve or Christmas day, move up Christmas dinner, gift exchange, and family gatherings. Push yourself to be intentional about thinking through and communicating what Christmas at you house will look like. You can still keep your family first even through the craziness that is church Christmas production.
If you are a portable church, or an established church running a portable setup, you are probably familiar with the challenges that time constraints place on setup. If you are regularly in the trenches, you probably have a six sense of the clock ticking away in your subconscious. I recently volunteered at a portable church that struggled with consistency in setup. As a result, this church experienced a variety of “technical difficulties” during services. Occasionally delays in setup led to delaying the start of service all together. Technical difficulties are often distracting to the audience, worship leaders, and speakers. So how do you combat the tech diff plague? Below are my five tips for getting consistent setups.
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