Maspeth, NY – Davis & Warshow, an 87-year-old family-owned business and dealer of luxury kitchen and bath fixtures and plumbing materials, has converted its entire 209,000-sq.-ft. Queens distribution center from fluorescent tubes to LED lighting. In making the switch, the company can stake claim on having the largest single-facility LED tube installation with the most energy-efficient lighting in watts per-square-foot in the U.S. to date. Additionally, it is the country’s first facility to achieve net-zero lighting costs with LED tubes thanks to a rooftop solar array installed in 2011 that exceeds the 200,000 annual kWh to power the lighting.
Independence LED, aPennsylvania-based manufacturer, was the source for the more than two miles worth of LED tubes required for the Davis & Warshow retrofit. Prior to the conversion, lighting equaled nearly 65% of the structure’s total power usage, costing almost $50,000 per year. It now has decreased to less than 50% of the building’s total energy use and costs less than $20,000 per year to run – reducing the company’s lighting tab by 60% or nearly $40,000 a year.
According to Davis & Warshow president David Finkel, the company’s investment to convert to LED was more than $250,000. But, at a brief ceremony at the Maspeth headquarters, Con Edison executives presented Finkel with a check totaling $63,704. “The amount represented rebates we earned for the lighting conversion based on annual kWh saved using the made-in-America fixtures,” he said. “Moreover, in five years time our investment will have paid for itself, with the rebates we’ve earned and the overall energy savings.”
Both the installation of the solar array and the LED conversion are part of Davis & Warshow’s Practically Green program – a pragmatic, small-steps approach to going green that the company inaugurated in 2008.