There is project where the only exterior lighting is two ceiling recessed downlighting fixtures installed at the outdoor canopy of the main entrance. According to the BUG method, B (backlight) and U (uplight) would already be 0. Not only are they downlighhts but they are flushed no less than 1.25" inward, how would that affect the G (glare) part of the BUG rating for these fixtures. The cutsheet does not provude a BUG rating, but I would assume it would be B=0 U=0 G=0. Would this method work to comply with the Light Pollution Reduction credit?
Sr. Electrical Engineer
Integrated Design Solutions
LEEDuser Expert
516 thumbs up
Tue, 11/07/2023 - 18:47
Acuity brand has this free tool for getting an BUG rating from any IES file. Either look up one of theirs or upload your saved file from "My Computer". https://www.visual-3d.com/tools/photometricviewer/ Make sure the 'LCS Table' is on in the options so you can see the BUG rating. Default was off for some reason. The first downlight I quickly checked had B2, U0, G0. This makes sense since the "back" half of a fixture has stricter limits than the front half. And the downlight is uniform on all sides. But don't worry. The B rating is not applicable to building mounted fixtures.