Energy Saving Part 2

Just logged in to do another post and read what I have written about that hotael room before.

Forgot to add that it also turned off the outside light in front of the room, so if you came home after a few beers it was relativly difficult to get your key into the slot.

Energy Saving at what cost ??

I am currently in Melbourne for reasons that are far to messy to go in to.
I am in a lovely hotel room in Mornington (more about the room shortly), but it has one of the wierdest setups I have ever seen.

It has one of those 'put your room key in the slot to turn the lights on' things on the wall. Cool I'm fine with that.

But I also discovered that the rocket scientists who put it in wired the Alarm Clock to the same circuit, so when you leave the room the clock goes off, and when you come back you have to reset the time and alarm time on the clock....

There are also some bollard lights in the garden that seem to be on 24/7. So they make up for all the power saved by turning the clocks in the rooms off.

Very Odd.

Hotel Toasters – hands off the knobs !

You know the little motorised conveyer belt that takes a piece of bread and moves it over a heater element? Ok people, don’t fiddle with the knobs. If I wanted charcoal I would put it though twice. Old people seem the worst for this. Also young kids seem to think it’s some kind of game to play. Lets make the cranky man cranky by making him eat charcoal. Ha ha. I laugh inside, but outside I am all anger.

Lighting in Hotel Rooms

I mentioned before about the room lit by a 60w lightbulb. One thing that gives me the poops are when the hotel management do there bit for the planet by replacing all the light bulbs in the room with energy saving lamps that are the horrible cool white. It’s like being in a waiting room. A hotel room should be a sanctuary from the world – a place to relax and unwind. Cool White flouros are not the answer people !! They come in Warm White now. Give them a go.

Hotel Bathrooms

Showers in cupboards, noisy extractor fans, dodgy plumbing. I really have a thing about hotel bathrooms. I like two things in a bathroom. Multiple light sources, ideally of different colour temperatures (bit of a snob that way), and ideally a window to the outside world. It is very rare to get the second thing. Bathrooms by there very nature tend to be close to the core of the building where all the services are.

I have stayed in hotels with both, indeed I had a great hotel in the UK once where you could lie in the bath and look out the window to the beach below. Might have freaked a few tourist out though…

The multiple light source thing is a redundancy issue as I always seem to get the room where all the light bulbs are about to blow. I also like to be able to see to shave. Is it too much to ask ?? Note to the hotel designers out there. Lights above the sink, and general room lighting please.

If there must be an extractor fan can it not sound like an airliner taking off? Also please don’t make the fan start auto-magically when it detects a certain amount of moisture in the air. That always scares the poo out of me.

Light levels in public spaces – Full On or Full Off

Recently I have been on the road for work and spent a lot of time in hotels and conference centres. This also means a lot of cafes, restaurants and bars. Why does it seem modern interior design either wants you to function in an over lit space or in the dark?

I had a hotel room lit by a single 60w globe on a 3m ceiling. A colleague of mine fell up the stairs at a large big-brand hotel in Perth when she couldn’t see the brown carpet in the badly under-lit stairwell. This was a venue that had recently gone through a massive re-development.

I thought it might just be because I work in the Lighting industry that I notice these things, but a quick round table with some chums after work one day came to the same conclusion.

It also seems the more it costs to eat or stay somewhere the better the lighting is.

Admittedly as places are refitted and upgraded the lighting is getting better, but have a look around the next time you are out and about. I guarantee you will find examples of bad lighting in public spaces.