Mazuma Credit Union headquarters

Credit union headquarters

A commercial LED retrofit of the credit union's headquarters building — around 400 recessed can lights replaced with LED across the building, designed and installed by ThreeCo.

What ThreeCo did

• Around 400 recessed can lights replaced with LED
• Designed and installed by ThreeCo

At the Mazuma Credit Union headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas, ThreeCo did a commercial LED retrofit of the building: around 400 recessed can lights replaced with LED across the building, designed and installed by ThreeCo. It is the office retrofit we point to for anyone weighing new lighting in an office, bank or credit union building on the Kansas side of the metro, and this page explains what a can light retrofit of that size involves.

Why recessed can lights are worth retrofitting

Recessed cans are everywhere in office and financial buildings: lobbies, corridors, teller lines, conference rooms and private offices. Older cans usually hold compact fluorescent, halogen or incandescent lamps. Those use far more power than LED for the same light, run hot in the ceiling, and burn out often enough that somebody is always on a ladder in a lobby.

An LED retrofit deals with all three at once. The light is steadier and the color can be matched across the whole building, so one corridor no longer looks warmer than the next. And in a building with hundreds of cans, lamps that last far longer mean far fewer trips up a ladder.

What retrofitting a can light involves

There are two usual ways to do it. Most cans can take an LED retrofit module that fits the existing housing, so the ceiling is not opened up and the light goes back in the same hole. Where a housing is damaged, the wrong size or not suited to an LED module, the housing itself is replaced. A large building often has some of each, which is why the choice is made opening by opening on the walk-through rather than assumed.

The details that decide whether a retrofit looks right are small ones: one color temperature throughout, trims that sit flush, and dimmers that work with the new drivers. An old dimmer paired with an LED it was not made for is the usual cause of flicker after a retrofit, so the switches are part of the design, not an afterthought.

Counting comes before a number

Cans are a common office fixture and a slow one to count. They hide in soffits, stairwells and closets, and the count on an old drawing is rarely the count in the ceiling. So a retrofit like this starts with a walk-through: we walk the building, count and identify the existing fixtures, and note the spaces that need more or less light than they have.

Every ThreeCo retrofit is then designed in-house by our CEO, Bob DeFries, whose background is in electrical engineering and architectural design. He specifies the replacement fixtures and any controls, and you get a written quote for the fixture list, the controls and the labor. A crew led by Jason Strange, our COO and Master Electrician, does the install.

Retrofitting a building people are working in

A headquarters does not close for its lighting. A retrofit of this kind is normally worked through the building area by area, so each part is out of use for as short a time as possible and the rest of the building carries on. We schedule the install with you before we start.

Lighting controls are looked at in the design, not added later: occupancy sensors in rooms that sit empty for much of the day, dimming where the light needs to change, and scheduling for common areas. Where controls go in, they are wired, programmed and tested before we leave. Every ThreeCo retrofit carries one year on workmanship, five years on materials.

Rebates for an Overland Park building

ThreeCo is an Evergy Trade Ally, and when a utility rebate program is open we file it as part of the project. Which Evergy program applies depends on the account the building's meter is on, and a building in Overland Park is on the Kansas side. Our Evergy business lighting rebates guide says where each side stood when we last checked; ask us before you count on a number.

Planning a lighting retrofit in an office or branch?

Tell Watt, our AI assistant, the address, the kind of building and roughly what is in the ceiling (the chat on this page), or call (816) 730-9100, and we will set up a walk-through. ThreeCo works on both the Missouri and Kansas sides of the Kansas City metro, for building owners, for tenants and as the electrical subcontractor for general contractors.