Adequacy level of artificial lighting in the households at Vavuniya city

Abstract

Light is important for human to see things and perform activities at different places and scales. The way we see things depends on how things are lighted. Artificial lighting is needed to provide adequate visual environment to carryout tasks when natural light is inadequate or not available. Intensity of light levels is essential as it affects human beings psychologically and physiologically. The recommended intensity of light should be maintained specially in study area living room and kitchen in order to perform the tasks efficiently and avoid the ill effects such as eyestrain, headache and irritability. This study was conducted in order to assess whether the people using adequate intensity of light in study area living room and kitchen of their households in Vavuniya City. The study was carried out randomly selected 30 houses in Vavuniya City in 2017.The Intensity of artificial light measurement were taken during seven to nine post meridiem equipped with the help of Digital Lux meter (LUTRON LX – 101 A) with the accuracy of (5% +2d). The mean intensity of the artificial light in the study area, living room and kitchen were 49.83Lux, 44.80Lux and 42.40Lux respectively. Whereas recommended standards for intensity of light for study area, living room and kitchen are Lux 150 Lux and 300 Lux and 150 Lux respectively. The inadequacy of intensity of light was recorded in study area living room and kitchen of majority of houses in Vavuniya City. The most obvious reason for this is due to the attitude/intention of residents towards reduction of expenditure/cost for electricity consumption and lack of awareness about light intensity level in terms of efficient completion of tasks and physiological as well as psychological health. It was also observed that though certain houses have enough bulbs for lighting but they were fixed at very high, improperly located, low quality and low watt were used. It is also observed that people give priority for decorative bulbs rather using appropriate bulbs to maintain the sufficient intensity of light. Peoples should be given the awareness regarding the potential impacts due to the low intensity of artificial light in their residential areas. Further, more researches need to be done and published regarding the ill effects to the people working or living in areas with low intensity of light for the wealthy status of communities and the nation .