Danesfield House
The Client
Danesfield House Hotel and Spa, located in the heart of the Chilterns, near Marlow, is a quintessentially British country house hotel. As would be expected of a hotel of this calibre, quality is everything. So, when an experiment was undertaken to replace existing lighting with LED equivalents, the hotel’s engineer and management needed convincing to make the switch. The result is a LED lighting refurbishment that not only saves the hotel £605 per year on its electricity bill, reduces lighting electricity consumption by 79% and has a payback time of only 24 months and provides a warm welcome to every guest.
Named after the Danish hill-fort encampment that was originally on the site, the striking Renaissance-style Danesfield House Hotel and Spa was built as a county house in 1901. Turned into a luxury hotel in 1991, the hotel prides itself on offering guests the latest in 21st Century luxury, in historic surroundings.
David Spinks, hotel engineer at Danesfield House explains the challenges that the hotel’s historic credentials presented when thinking about making the switch to LED lighting: “I was very hesitant to introduce LED lighting at first, as this is a Grade II listed building that has a very traditional, luxurious look and feel to it. I just couldn’t see how such technology would fit in here. However, I was tempted by the idea of switching to LEDs, as one of my pet hates is visiting a venue and seeing blown light bulbs. It makes the place feel uncared for. So, to avoid this at Danesfield House, my maintenance team and I were doing a daily walk around of the hotel and replacing in the region of 30 light bulbs a day throughout.”
Put to the test
Following discussions with Paul Stearman at LED lighting specialists, Kosnic, David accepted a trial of LED lamps within Danesfield House’s public areas. Almost 100 incandescent and halogen lamps were taken out and replaced with Kosnic candle and halogen LED equivalents over the course of a weekend. However David and his team kept the original lamps, just in case there were complaints by the hotel’s guests or management!
David comments: “Although I wasn’t that confident about replacing the original incandescents and halogens with LEDs and was sceptical that the light output of 3W lamp could be as good as a 25W one, I have been proved wrong.”
Dramatic lighting and savings
The 18W lamps in the Minstrel Gallery and Reception chandeliers were also replaced with Kosnic’s warm white 3W sparkle LED clear candle lamps and Kosnic HaloLED 6W GU10 Powerspot LEDs and 7W LED PAR20 lamps were used throughout the reception area. The unique LED lens and COB (Chip-on-Board) of the HaloLED ensures that it delivers exactly the same ambience as a halogen lamp, whilst significantly reducing lighting energy costs.
To bring high quality LED lighting into Danesfield House’s Grand Hall, 48 Kosnic warm white (3,000k) 3W sparkle LED clear candle lamps, were chosen to replace the 18W originals in the two dramatic chandeliers. In addition, the 60W lamps within the room’s six uplighters were changed for Kosnic’s warm white (3,000k) 8W LED GLS equivalents.
Minimal maintenance
Since the installation of the Kosnic LED lamps over two years ago, not one of them has needed changing, thanks to their long, 30,000-hour lamp life. Because of this, David Spinks and his team have been able to refocus their efforts on other areas of maintenance. David concludes: “The fact that none of the lamps have blown over the past two years is a significant benefit to me and the team. In the past, I had created a bespoke tool to be able to reach and change the blown top lamps in the Grand Hall chandeliers and since the LED retrofit I haven’t had to use it once! Thanks to LEDs, lighting has become a much smaller part of my job.”
The end result is that Danesfield House Hotel and Spa now has the same quality of stunningly lit public areas, yet lighting maintenance has been dramatically reduced and money is being saved on the electricity bill as well. Due to the longevity, light quality and energy efficiency of Kosnic’s LED lighting, a refurbishment and replacement programme is now in place to transform the hotel’s private spaces with the latest in energy efficient lighting as well.
Fast Facts
Customer: Danesfield House and Spa
Location: Medmenham, near Marlow
Products used
48 x 3W LED candle lamp for the Grand Hall chandeliers
6 x 8W LED GLS for the Grand Hall uplighters
20 x 3W LED candle lamp for the Minstrel Gallery and Reception chandeliers
3 x 7W LED PAR20 lamp for the Reception
5 x Haloled 6W GU10 Powerspot for the Reception
