Customer Spotlight – Samaritan Bethany

Published August 2019

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Samaritan Bethany is a senior care facility in Rochester, MN. Coming up on their 100th Anniversary, Samaritan Bethany continues to serve the residents of their community by making sure their needs are met as they age. With the goal of having their facility feel like home, they strive to make the environment as nice as possible as well as making it efficient.  To improve their energy efficiency, Samaritan Bethany decided to go forward with a interior lighting project with The Retrofit Companies, Inc.

 

Sue Knutson, Mission Leader at Samaritan Bethany, shared that their board was seeking opportunities to improve their lighting fixtures and save some money in the long run. They were concerned that their maintenance crew was spending a lot of hours maintaining their recessed lighting, along with fluorescent lighting fixtures falling down, and other issues influencing their decision to engage in this project. Carl Murray, Lighting and Energy Design Consultant for The Retrofit Companies, Inc., worked with Samaritan Bethany to establish their goals and priorities for this project. Carl guided them through this process by providing expertise and unique recommendations for their space.

Samaritan Bethany decided to go with the fixture solution because they wanted to solve all their problems at once and receive the best results. Sufficient lighting is very important to their residents, so they took this opportunity to create a bright and welcoming environment for everyone. The project came together quickly by using a turn-key approach and TRC ensured that the installation was done with no interruptions. With consideration of the resident’s homes, TRC maintained a clean environment throughout the process.

Hallways After
Hallways Before

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I think if you are going to tour a facility, you’re looking at where your parent or yourself is going to live and if you go into somewhere that is dark it would be very uninviting. So, it has been very nice to have brighter hallways and going into an apartment or resident’s home. It has been a real positive.” – Sue Knutson

After completing a major lighting upgrade project, the staff noticed the brighter lights immediately, especially when traveling from one neighborhood to another. Also, when families come to visit they notice the brighter atmosphere.

New Recessed Lighting

ENERGY SAVINGS

With the goal to improve their energy efficiency and save some money, this project has been very beneficial to Samaritan Bethany. From the start, they were looking for an opportunity to take advantage of utility rebates. The rebates for this project were over $80,000.00.  With the reimbursement system they have, they are now able to use their savings to spend on other areas that are important for the residents.

From the updates to this facility, Samaritan Bethany saved 109kW of energy annually. By switching to LED lighting and updated their fixtures, Samaritan Bethany will be saving over $58,000.00 annually, just in lighting, energy costs!

“I think anyone looking for energy-efficiency should be looking at their their lighting. I mean that’s a huge area. We have our lights on 24 hours a day in many of our areas, so taking that opportunity to be environmentally friendly and save some energy, why wouldn’t you do it? So, I would recommend anyone to look at TRC to take that opportunity to see what you would save and the rebates are like icing on the cake.” -Sue Knutson

By making the decision do improvements, and to be environmentally friendly, Samaritan Bethany looks forward to doing more projects to make a positive environmental impact in their community.