Crystal chandeliers have come a long way from the days as traditional, stately pieces only enjoyed in the most formal of spaces and positioned to impress guests in the dining room or the foyer. Crystal’s are found in various lighting applications of all shapes and sizes and their sparkling, elegant affect is energizing areas of the home from powder room and office to kitchen and bath.

More crystal means more cleaning, but it does not have to be too taxing. A few simple guidelines will help to keep your crystal chandeliers looking their best.

How to clean it

If you do not wish to remove the crystal components from the piece, you can use a spray. After the piece is sprayed, wipe off the solution with white cotton gloves. Crystal chandelier manufacturer Schonbek recommends a solution of one part isopropyl alcohol to three parts distilled water, while Waterford’’s chief lighting designer Billy Canning says hot soapy water will do the trick. Both agree that special cleaning formulas aren’’t needed.

“A real no-no in the area of cleaning chandeliers: …If the chandelier is adorned with a traditional polished gold finish or polished silver finish but it i’s not stainless steel, people will use these sprays that you can buy,” says Eileen Schonbek Beer, Creative Director for Schonbek Worldwide Lighting. “Basically, what the manufacturers say is you spray the chandelier and let the stuff drip off, that cleans the crystal. But in fact what it does is ruin the frames of the chandelier.”

If more aggressive cleaning is needed, the crystal parts will need to be removed from the frame. The crystals can then be hand-washed in soapy water, rinsed clean and dried with a cloth. Schonbek provides trim diagrams that detail reassembly of the chandelier.

For dusting between cleanings, Schonbek recommends using a feather duster, lambswool duster or a make-up brush.

How often to clean it

In general, crystal should be cleaned every two to six months. The frequency of cleaning required depends on where it is used and how easy it is to get to the piece.  According to Canning, extremely large pieces like 20-foot chandeliers can get away with being cleaned only once a year.

Since crystal lighting is being featured in virtually every room of the house these days, some pieces may need more frequent cleanings based on their location. Chandeliers used in kitchens will need more detailed cleaning due to oil and grease buildup, as well as dust sticking to the components due to moisture from sinks and stoves.

“The beauty of crystal, of course, is the prismatic refraction of the light passing through the crystal ornament,” says Beer. “So the minute it’s got any kind of residue of dust or even moisture — like in moist climates in Florida — the humidity will cause dust to adhere to the crystal and the salt in the air will kind of make it cloudy. So you actually have to clean crystal pretty regularly.”

Maintaining a regular cleaning schedule for crystal will always keep it sparkling. Yet if a piece is neglected, all it takes is a little extra effort with the methods listed above to make it shine like new.

“In my personal experience, I have been asked by many auction houses to identify Waterford products many times,” says Canning. “In most cases the difficulty with identification would have been that the chandelier was allowed to get dirty and the crystal would appear dull. But in all cases, when properly cleaned, they can look as good as the day they were bought.”

For the Chore-Challenged

For customers who aren’t ready to get into the nitty gritty of cleaning their crystal by hand, suggest the Da Vinci chandelier from the Geometrix collection by Schonbek. The crystals stay attached to a stainless steel frame that can be placed directly in the dishwasher. The Da Vinci is available in a 10-inch or 36-inch diameter. The only Da Vinci that will not make it to the dishwasher is the dramatic 5-foot model.

We all know or at least heard that converting from Metal Halide (High Intensity Discharge) to LED will save you money.

But how much? Are there any other reasons or difference you should know about?

In this article, we break down all the factors that you should be aware of before making a decision to convert from Metal Halide to LED. Here are the 9 reasons we think LED wins over Metal Halide.

Let’s take a look at the information on a typical 400 watt metal halide bulb. While specifications may vary, a visit to a popular online website that sells Metal Halide bulbs shows that a brand new bulb has the following specifications:

We have just as many customers wanting to convert to LED because of maintenance savings as they do for energy savings. Think about what we discussed, over the life of the LED retrofit kit, a customer would have to do 5-6 Metal Halide replacements. The higher the installation height, the higher the cost of replacement. And if you have a facility loaded with lights, this becomes a significant budget amount every year that you must take into consideration. Now, we know that reduced maintenance time on lights does not translate into dollars saved because it is highly unlikely that people will lose their jobs over the fact there is much less work to do. However, these people will have time to now work on things that matter, like fixing the machines that make the company money instead on replacing lights that cost the company money.

When you take a measurement of light with a light meter, it reads lumens. And this measurement of all the lights that contribute to the light at that location creates a measurement called foot candles. But let’s think about that light that is being measured. Metal Halide creates all sorts of light, in all spectrum’s, visible or otherwise. This includes UV and IR spectrum’s, visible to the measuring device but not visible to the human eye. LED, on the other hand, does not produce UV and IR. Therefore, its readings using the same light meter is only picking up visible spectrum’s.

So there is a fun little test you can do. Have 2 light sources, LED and Metal Halide. And first ask, which one is brighter? And if the right LED source was selected, they should say LED. And then use a light meter, and the light meter may say the Metal Halide area is producing more foot candles. And so now you know part of the reason, but wait, there’s 2 other pieces of information you need to know.

Click here to see our infographic on Retrofitting vs Replacing.

Conclusion