Dealing with Streetlights

Isn't is crazy they will go to such lengths but yet not replace the lighting system?
Is it that hard for them to do?

Streetlighting in some parts of Dublin is done differently to the rest of the country. Although the ESB are mostly on board around the country the councils have their own lighting engineers in Dublin. Things are happening in Fingal though. When a light needs replacing in an area that the ESB are contracted to do they will replace it with a curved glass luminaire.

There was a new street built to the back of my house last month
and when I saw the polls for the lights going up I said to my wife,
''well, it's looks like we will be moving sooner rather than later''
But..
They used the 'full cutoff' lights and I have to say I can't see any
real difference.

If they are still visible from your house then you wont notice a difference. Light trespass is still light trespass. If they are shining into your home garden then contact the council. Especially since they are new lights. Flat glass FCO lights really make the difference in terms of skyglow when seen from a distance.

Out of interest are these FCO lights or is there a slight curve to the glass? I'm just wondering as the ESB have said they are going to use curved glass that allows 1% of light above the horizon on streets. If Clare are using flat glass then that's great. ILPAC sent them advice about this a while ago but we didn't hear about any policy change. Though if it is flat glass it may be the NRA getting involved. Working out who is responsible for streetlighting in a given area is quite tricky - 5 yeas on and I still don't know who make the decisions in certain areas!

Cheers,
~Al

Out of interest are these FCO lights or is there a slight curve to the glass?

farm4.static.flickr.com/3172/2580906777_330e7f2778_o.jpg


There was a lot of work done recently bypassing Ennis and all the lighting seems to be FC.

This image shows the streetlights to the front and side of my house.
You can clearly see there is a decent cut off of light.
I placed the Moon and Jupiter so that they played off the artificial lights.
(there visual tricks such as the blade of grass 'pointing to Jupiter etc...)
and before you doubters go yeah yeah right you did.
Yes, I did.
Anyway,
All the same, I'd prefer if the the lights were not there but at least it's a start!

farm1.static.flickr.com/189/487369054_79f455eef2_o.jpg

Carl,
You should definitely do an article.
This way more people in the same situation can benefit from your experience.

This image shows the streetlights to the front and side of my house.
You can clearly see there is a decent cut off of light.

Yep that's as good as they get.

All the same, I'd prefer if the the lights were not there but at least it's a start!

I had a meeting with the ESB recently and one of the things that came up was a curfew on lighting. Obviously this is down to councils & gardai etc to decide on but we were discussing it from a technical perspective.

Each individual lamp is controlled by its light sensor. That's the thing on top of the light in your picture. Changing them is not a problem, it just involves someone going up a ladder on each light to switch the sensor. The problem is that every time you need to change the settings you need an engineer to climb up al the lights. On the plus side they are looking at systems which would allow all this to be controlled centrally. I was shown a demo of this in Slovenia where an engineer had access to the entire streetlight grid for a city from his laptop and was able to turn lights on and off at the click of a button. The couple of councillors I've spoken to about this idea were very concerned that they would need the ability to turn the lights back on immediately in order to get this passed even in trial areas. So for the time being it looks like you are stuck with the lights being on all night.

Hi all

Albert you will probably know the name of these lights on the M1 motorway just past the airport right up to the exit for donabate you don't even realise there on till you drive up to them. There great and I keep thinking to myself why don't they use these everywhere.

Frank I will do an article for the magazine.I fount it quite staggering the rights people have regarding light pollution and don't know it.As for the article when I was on to the county council I didn't mention Astronomy at all. I told them the light was coming in through my bed room window and I couldn't sleep and one thing lead to another and the job got done.

Albert you will probably know the name of these lights on the M1 motorway just past the airport right up to the exit for donabate you don't even realise there on till you drive up to them. There great and I keep thinking to myself why don't they use these everywhere.

Thats probably the WRTL Arc light with flat glass. I have a copy of the brochure here for that light, I can drop you up a photocopy if you need it. The web page for it has a lot less info www.wrtl.co.uk/html/cat-products/-01--road-arc-ip-66-2-5.htm

Basically the NRA are installing these on new roads and can design appropriately whereas on existing streets you need to work with the constraints of the existing poles. The ESB are using the same I think from now on but with the curved glass option. The reasons for not using FCO include that it apparently more aesthetically pleasing (!) but also on a practical level the ESB typically have to retrofit onto existing poles and adhere to guidelines and the curved glass is need to provide this. In some cases it's argued you might end up with needing brighter lights or more of them if you use FCO designs. Though other lighting engineers I've spoken to have said that this needs to be looked at on a case by case basis, the width of the road, trees, aility to slightly increase pole height etc. all contribute and it is often possible to use flat glass. And with improving technology the case for FCO's gets better and better.

While we are on about residential lighting the current lantern being trialled is also from WRTL, the 'Libra'. Its not FCO and has large enough bowl underneath it. Its got compact flourescent lamps which will look white, though uses less power than SOX. The figures put the upward light at ~1% from this luminaire so its better than the 15% from sox. If you see these installed somewhere please give the councils feedback on what you think of them.

Frank I will do an article for the magazine.

Great! And may I congratulate you on the article in advance! (Happy DG? ). Seriously though, if I can provide an info for you just give me a call.

Update since doing this article. The County Council have put like a black paint around the street lights.I just came home from work one day and there it was.Funny or what.

Carl