Rank: Forum user 
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A quick google search shows a plethora of equipment for measuring light levels. It would appear that you can spend as little as £20 to over £200. I am looking for something that would give an indication of the light measurement at a reasonable cost if this showed a value of concern we would then pass this to H&S Team to investigate and get a more accurate reading from a calibrated monitor. As such the tool I am looking for the operational teams should be good value, robust and easy to use but doesn't necessarily need to be calibrated. Any ideas or recommendations would be much appreciated I have the guidance levels from the HSE etc this is more around toolkit to give initial assessment
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Rank: Forum user
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If you're seeking compliance to ISO 45001 then you'll need calibrated equipment.
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 1 user thanked UncleFester for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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It depends on what you want to do, if you just need an indicative result then go for a reasonably priced meter but if you are as others have stead assessing to the ISO standard then you do need calibrated equipment. I have been working on a lighting replacement project recently and have a small, cheap hand held meter, our contractor has a state of the art meter which is used on a tripod (so you don't cast a shadow on it). I used my meter to identify darker spots that we needed them to improve and he used his to provide data for the design work.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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It all depends on how accurate you want to measure. I’m not convinced we need every bit of kit we have, calibrated back to national standards (and the money it costs). I bought a cheap meter from Maplin a few years ago and does what I want. We generally have quite a wide tolerance of lighting levels. In discussion on this with a manager, I pushed the sensor from my meter across his desk with a pen (no shadow) and the levels altered considerably, but not to the point it was an issue. I think modern electronics are generally good in this day and age and even a cheap meter will have had a degree of verification, before put on sale. However, the level of accuracy is up to each depending on what they are doing, but I would say if you buy a cheap meter you can then compare it to the calibrated one you say the H&S people have. You say you only want an indication anyway, but you have the means to verify it against a calibrated one. In Quality it is perfectly acceptable to verify measuring equipment against a calibrated (certified item). When you think about it that is what is done with calibrated items anyway, the calibrated item is checked against something, which in turn is checked against something else all the way up to the national standard, but with an auditable trail. This view may not be popular on here. Chris
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2 users thanked chris42 for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user
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You only need calibrated equipment if you want something measured to a high degree of accuracy. The errors when measuring light levels for work activities, mean that the numbers are only ball park figures. If you decide that you need a Lux level of 300 for a particular workstation and it turns out to be only 280 Lux, you wouldn’t go out and try to install improved lighting (Well I wouldn’t). Somewhere in the depths of your welfare policy it might say that the temperature in offices is supposed to be 19 ⁰C+ 2 ⁰C. Are you telling me that each thermometer in each room is calibrated to make sure that that this temperature is being maintained?
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1 user thanked A Kurdziel for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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For an indication of levels there are some good Apps for smartphones, free and give a fair score for a decision on accurate measurements if needed.
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