The team at Zano Controls provide us with more detail on how its products assisted a recent project in Cheltenham.
Case Study: Battledown, Harp Hill, Cheltenham
Name: Dan Roberts
Company: Roberts & Sons
Bio: An electrician since leaving college at 18, Dan went straight into an electrical apprenticeship where he completed his training. With an entrepreneurial attitude and a desire to work for himself, Dan started his own electrical contracting business at age 23.
The job
New build projects can sometimes be a daunting prospect for contractors, especially when the property has a large design and a layout that requires complex electrical systems.
When Dan Roberts, of Roberts & Sons was tasked with designing a bespoke lighting system for a private house in Cheltenham – he could have easily had his work cut out for him. With 17 rooms in the property, comprised of 5 large bedrooms and 5 bathrooms and an open plan living style that spanned the communal areas of the property, designing a lighting system to fulfil customer expectations, was by no means a simple task. However, with a customer open to suggestion and only a very skeletal idea of what they wanted, it presented the perfect opportunity for Dan to put his skills, and product knowledge to the test.
The homeowner had a dreamlike idea of what he wanted from the finished results, but he didn’t know exactly what he wanted from the onset of the project, the homeowner was happy to leave the lighting design to Dan – so combining previous experience with a little bit of additional googling, Dan was able to design and create a lighting solution for the new build property that ticked all the boxes in terms of quality, practicality and longevity.
The planning phase
When it came to planning the project, Dan was in his element. With free reign over the lighting design, the only request his customer (the homeowner) had within the initial stages, was that they wanted the final aesthetic of the lighting system to have retractive switching – rotary lighting control at this point was a no-go.
Having used Zano products before Dan knew from the outset that in order to provide retractive switching for his customer he would need the ZBARLED remote dimming pack, what’s more, Dan was able to upsell the ZBARLED to his customer as he knew that the product was ideal for multi-point dimming control.
With 28 circuits spanning the entire house, to provide retractive switching Dan knew he needed 28 ZBARLEDs, 26 of these Dan decided could be the 0-300W/VA version due to the size of the room but in two instances (specifically the open plan hallway and kitchen) the ZBARLED1000 would be required.
Choosing the Aurora range of Trimless downlights at 8.5W each – a downlight that Dan knew worked well with the Zano range of products – he had 8 downlights per circuit, and a total of 23 in the kitchen for the ceiling lighting. In addition, spanning the entire ground floor of the property, across the open plan rooms and the 2 open landings were a variety of decorative wall LEDs and fittings that were for everyday use and required dimming capability. Low level lighting was crucial for this property as mood lighting was imperative to the finished result.
Where to install 28 ZBARLED remote dimming packs?
Within the property was a plant room that housed the audio visual and internet racks, and one of the property’s many fuse boards. This room in question had enough space to fit the majority of the Zano ZBARLED remote dimming packs – and would make an ideal place to install them as it would provide the homeowner clear and labelled insight into what ZBARLED remote dimming pack controlled each circuit within the property. Any future additions to the lighting within the property would also be easy to undertake as Dan ensured each ZBARLED was clearly labelled within the plant room to specify which room/circuit of lighting was being controlled.
The upstairs floors had a separate fuse board housed in a different location to the downstairs so for ease of wiring and functionality – the additional ZBARLEDs were installed there.
Noise interference
Following the installation of the 28 ZBARLEDs, Dan encountered issues with the powering up of the ZBAR which would faulter and cut out.
Dan contacted the Zano technical team to talk through the issue – explaining that there were at least 3 circuits within each room – along with the Zano Technical Team’s help, Dan uncovered that the issue stemmed from the longer runs of the cable which produced a voltage noise on the circuit and caused interference.
A simple fix presented itself in terms of a noise suppressor that Zano provided at no extra cost. The smart and creative lighting design that fed back to the plant room and fuse board cupboard meant that Dan did not have to delay the project’s completion by removing the switch plates in the newly decorated rooms to fit the noise suppressors. He was able to install the noise suppressors to sit across the switches, as the ZBARLED remote dimming packs were connected behind the individual blank plates located in the fuse board cupboards.
Fantastic results
The end results were flawless. Despite the flexibility in lighting design – the customer was very specific in that they did not want the traditional rotary dimming switch, and they wanted to choose their own switches. In addition, the customer wanted to be able to set the lights to a low level and not have to keep adjusting the lighting level every time the lights were turned on – and Dan’s solution worked perfectly for this.
Dan was able to set the minimum and maximum light levels of the LED circuits when he installed the ZBARLED remote dimming packs and this was key to customer satisfaction. What’s more, the fact that the downstairs, open plan wall lighting design used a total of 6 different LED types across different wattages and brands, could all be controlled by one switch to create perfect mood lighting – and worked exceptionally – was a fantastic result for Dan.
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