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Safety. Adaptive. Dynamic. Prehistoric. Green. Environmentally friendly. Earth-borne. Photoluminescence.
Tritium free. Free. It’s FreeLite. You probably remember the glow in the dark toys. This is
a lot different than that. The FreeLite product is about 10 times more powerful and it also
lasts about 10 times longer. Photoluminescent means externally illuminated and that applies
to FreeLite technology because the signs require no additional power source than what’s existing
in your current building. The turning point for FreeLite technology was after 9/11. Some
of the survivors commented that they were guided out of the building by the glowing
stuff on the ground. Because of the visibility some very large retailers in the United States
looked at this and purchased thousands of exit signs with this technology. They wanted
to capture the energy savings that FreeLite technology offered as well as the lack of
maintenance involved in FreeLite technology. The single greatest advantage to FreeLite
technology in exit signs is it uses no power, no battery. So when the power and the lights
go out, it comes on, automatically. FreeLite technology is environmentally friendly because
of number one, there’s no power, there’s no emissions. It doesn’t use electricity.
There’s no batteries to use, buy, and dispose of. A lot of the manufacturing materials in
that are naturally-occurring elements that come from the earth and that can be returned
to the earth without creating any environmental problems. Primitive lights have been around
for quite some time. They are very efficient although they use Tritium gas, and that’s
very radioactive and it has to be controlled, identified, and disposed of properly. Photoluminescence
in FreeLite technology on the other hand, is a naturally occurring element. It’s not
radioactive and it is recyclable, and it is green, and it is very environmentally friendly.
When using FreeLite technology in your construction, your return on investment is immediate. No
conduits or wires to run, the labor involved in installing a FreeLite sign versus a conventional
exit sign is minimal. There’s no testing required as it is in a powered exit. Each
month, you’re supposed to test and ensure that the exit and emergency product performs
well and the battery is working properly. All you have to do with the FreeLite exits
is dust it occasionally to allow it to absorb the light and give that back as a nice glow
identifying lines of egress. The photoluminescent technology has improved to the point where
it meets or exceeds UL 924, which are the main standards for exits to be used in commercial
buildings. Not only does it meet that, it’s been adopted and accepted by local codes such
as in New York, such as the New York local 26 code and other national and international
codes. The applications for FreeLite technology are only limited by one’s imagination. We
can pretty much apply this technology to any product. You can use it as a sign, you can
use it as decorative, you can use it as functional for safety jackets, for fire people or street
people that are using safety signs. It is unending. All stages are dark most of the
time. The theater was not built with any kind of safety measure in mind concerning that.
So our doorways, our passageways were not marked with any kind of signage except for
the typical exit sign which you see in red. However finding the door is the problem because
there are no windows in here. The first semester when we opened I had three major accidents
in my theater. People coming in to see our shows and tripping and falling over our stepping.
I was charged with the responsibility of finding an answer to the problem. I searched on the
internet for a product that I thought might be feasible to us. One day I was introduced
to the product that is now inside our theater. I said “Ok, bring me in a sample.” They
did, they installed it, and we had not had an accident since then. FreeLite technology
can be applied to almost any building product and seamlessly fit your existing look. It
can be cast, it can be poured into mil shapes or routed shapes. If you have a marble or
tile walls, we can put "exit" right into that tile. The light never burns out. That’s
the main advantage of FreeLite. You don’t have to change a bulb, you don’t have to
climb a ladder to replace it. Once it’s up, it’s up forever. When you have a device
that for one, doesn’t use electricity, is there and it needs a minimum of five footcandles
during building occupancy, and it comes on when the lights go off, and it saves lives
and helps people safely evacuate buildings, what more could you ask for? The future of
FreeLite is essentially unlimited. It’s only limited by one’s imagination.