Exterior Parking Lot Lighting Poles

When commercial light poles become weathered and outdated, any number of problems can quickly result when a business, city government, school, or non-profit organization deliberately chooses to delay replacing them. Once commercial lighting poles become weather beaten, they begin to lose their finish and become an eyesore to the public. This diminishes an organization’s public image, and it works against corporate branding. If light poles in commercial parking lots are faulty, and lighting levels are insufficient or inadequate, this also creates safety hazards and possible legal issues. Lighting regulations require 3-4 foot candles to be evenly distributed throughout every parking lot, regardless of the type of organization it services. Many business owners and facilities managers are unaware of this, and allow commercial light poles that begin to intermittently fail to continue deteriorating until they finally burn out.

If an accident or criminal mischief occurs in such an environment, the organization could very well face a third party lawsuit for negligence. It could also be fined by the government for failure to comply with lighting regulatory codes. While investing in new commercial light poles may represent a price point that many organizations—especially educational, non-profits, and municipalities---initially fear to make in the midst of a recession, the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages when one considers the many financial pitfalls that procrastination and negligence can ultimately lead to. Upgrading commercial parking lot light poles also helps improve security, as more evenly distributed lighting dispels shadows and leaves less opportunity for criminal invasion, vandalism, or violent attack.

Wind load capacitance is another critical factor to address when assessing the stability and viability of existing commercial lighting poles. Local governing codes mandate pole height and wind resistance minimums specific to certain areas. In many western states, high velocity winds can turn dust and rocks into small projectiles that damage both light pole and light fixtures. Worn or damaged poles will automatically fail to meet with current regulatory codes, and lamps stand a good chance of becoming damaged in high winds. You can easily see how a single storm in one of these areas can end up costing your clients more than the purchase and installation of brand new commercial lighting poles.

Newer lighting steel poles available through standard and specification grade distributors like RLLD Commercial Lighting speak to all of these needs with superior material builds, a variety of designs and pole heights, and special glass fixtures that protect minimum glare halide bulbs from heavy winds and particle impact. The efficiency of commercial light pole design has improved so much over recent years that even models measuring only 25 feet in height can now 2500 square feet of height each when fitted with the proper lamps and reflectors. Other factors such as energy efficiency and lamp life are also affected by the quality of commercial light poles.

When you show your clients these facts and figures, you can help them understand that procurement of standard or specification grade commercial lighting poles carries with it certain intrinsic returns on investment. By minimizing replacement costs, power consumption, and liability resulting from accidents, clients of site planners and general contractors can recover their funding through a number of revenue streams that flow back toward them from a newer, more improved-looking facility.

RLLD Commercial Lighting carries a wide variety of industrial & commercial lighting fixtures. If you can not find what you are looking for contact us toll free at 1-866-654-3961 and we will find it for you.

Our home office is located in Houston, Texas with warehouses located throughout the United States that enable us to service all 50 states including Scottsdale, Arizona, Seattle, Washington (SEA), Los Angeles, CA (LAX) Boston, Massachusetts (BOS), Princeton, NJ (EWR), Philadelphia, PA (PHL), Dallas, Texas (DWF), Chicago, IL (ORD), Baltimore, MD (BWI), and Minneapolis, MN (MSP). We also service clients internationally, with lighting representatives working out of Canada, Mexico, Central America, and South America. ALBQ, NYC, LA, MPLS.

Commercial Retail Lighting Fixtures

Interior and exterior commercial retail lighting play a pivotal role in a store’s ultimate success. Exterior lights help locate the store, brand the establishment, and attract visitors. Interior lights provide general lighting and basic visibility, and they also determine the quality of color and specific levels of light people will see inside a particular store. When carefully selected and correctly installed, interior ambient and accent lighting enhance the marketability of products, and increase sales.

Read more about commercial retail lighting fixtures:

Decorative Commercial Lighting
Commercial Landscape Lighting
Commercial Parking Lot Lighting
Commercial Warehouse Lighting
Commercial Fluorescent Lighting
Commercial Exterior Lighting
Commercial Gooseneck Lights
Commercial Electric Lighting
Commercial Lighting Fixtures
Commercial Sign Lighting
Commercial Indoor Lighting
Commercial Lighting Pole Installation
Commercial Lighting Systems
Dark Sky Lighting Regulations
Metal Halide High Bay Lighting
High Bay Lighting

Because profit margins on all but the most high-end of products are often marginal, overhead is the retailer’s biggest enemy. Always try to combine energy efficiency with superior luminance output and lifespan when installing lights for your retail clients. Taking the time to comprehensively develop a multi-layered lighting system will immediately differentiate your clients—and your work—from that of lesser, competing lighting design firms.

Exterior Commercial Lighting
Aesthetics play a very important role in commercial exterior retail lighting. Clients often judge the type of experience they will have inside a store by the appearance of the building and the lighting around the store. Sign lighting is therefore a must for any retail establishment. Goosenecks are very good fixtures to use for this effect, and many architectural building lights can also be adapted to illuminate lettering on the sides of walls or above door entrances.

If the store is a standalone structure, it will need both building lights and canopy lights to properly illuminate its form and entrance ways. Fluorescents are generally the best choices for exterior retail lights because of their longer lamp life and high energy efficiency ratings. Your clients will pay less per month for their use and pay less frequently on maintenance and replacement costs.

Parking lot lighting can be either general or decorative, depending on the nature of the establishment. In addition to making certain you meet with mandatory foot candle requirements, pay close attention as well to the contrast of light and shadow that your lighting system establishes. This is actually a more critical factor to safety than foot candle density, and something that you may want to strongly consider having a photometric analysis conducted.

Interior Lighting – Ambient
Ambient lighting is another term for general lighting. The level of ambient light in a store is determined by two things. First, the physical size of the structure has to be factored into the photometric analysis. Extremely large wholesale and grocery stores with high ceilings will need either high bay or low bay lights. The newer pulse start metal halide lights feature superior energy ratings than their probe start predecessors and make for very good retail lights in very large stores. For retailers on a budget, or for ceilings under 25’ in height, fluorescent low bay lights offer excellent color rendering and energy efficiency.

Department stores, clothing stores, and smaller food stores can also be lit very effectively with parabolic troffer fluorescent lights. Retail discounts stores can use a series of parabolic fluorescents for general overhead lighting, and then sparingly use accent lighting to showcase items on sale or merchandise of special value.

Interior Lighting – Accent
Accent lighting sets products apart. Because of this, accent retail lighting matters to all retail establishments to a certain extent. Accent lighting helps showcase special areas where products on display need special attention and a sense of being set apart from the surrounding environment.

Generally, the lower the ambient and the brighter the accent light, the more removed an object appears from general reality. Jewelers and designer clothing retailers use extreme contrasts between accent lighting to give a surreal appearance to merchandise that is either very expensive or very unique in origin.

A wide variety of recessed lights can be used for retail accent lighting fixtures. Adjustable fixtures are better because they allow store managers to periodically change displays and readjust the lights to compliment the new setting. Pendants are also very good retail lights to use over any display that is fixed in a central position within a store.

Interior Lighting – Designer
Special display lights are often needed in shelves and display cases. Linear strip lights for retail lighting are superb for jewelry, accessories, and specialty item displays. They can be mounted to the interiors of specialty display cases, or they can be mounted to the under surfaces of shelves.

All retail lights sold by RLLD Commercial Lighting are made here in the United States and come backed up with a full written manufacturer’s warranty. All commercial lighting products are drop shipped directly to your client’s store, and turnkey installation services are available for selective outdoor retail lighting luminaires. Ask and RLLD Commercial Lighting specialist for more details.

RLLD Commercial Lighting carries a wide variety of industrial & commercial lighting fixtures. If you can not find what you are looking for call us toll free at 1-866-654-3961 and we will find it for you. Our home office is located in Houston, Texas with warehouses located throughout the United States that enable us to service all 50 states including San Juan, PR (SJU), Isla De Vieques, PR (VQS), Fajardo, PR (X95), Erie, PA (ERI), Killeen, TX (ILE), Sheridan, WY (SHR), Casper, WY (CPR), Parkersburg, WV (PKB), and Escanaba, MI (ESC). We also service clients internationally, with lighting manufacturer representatives working out of Canada, Mexico, Central America, and South America. ALBQ, NYC, LA, MPLS.

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Pulse Start Commercial HID Lighting

Pulse-start metal halide lamps are more than worth the higher front end costs they present to you and your clients. Their improved efficiency and performance result in a superior energy saving light source and reduction in energy costs that translate down the line to a return on investment. Pulse-start metal halides also last a great deal longer than their probe-start standard equivalents. This creates even more savings that you can pass on to your client, because replacing standard MH HID fixtures represents both equipment costs and labor costs your clients simply do not want to pay in times of a recession.

Pulse-start metal halides, like their standard predecessors, fall into the category of High Intensity Discharge lamps, also known as HID lamps. On the average, a standard HID lamp performs with approximately 3 times the efficiency as an incandescent lamp. You can expect even better results from pulse-start MH fixtures, which in spite of their approximately 20% higher front-end cost, more than pay for themselves over the course of a life span. Here are just a few of the pulse start commercial lighting lighting fixture types we carry:

Parking Lot Lighting
Parking Garage Lighting
Car Dealership Parking Lot Lighting
Mall Parking Lot Lighting
Business Building Lighting
Park Lighting
Outdoor Landscape Lighting
Tree Lighting
Wall Pack Light Fixtures
Wall Mounted Lighting
Commercial Vandal Proof Light Fixtures
Outdoor Accent Lighting

Increased lumen efficacy (lumens per watt) by as much as 24%
While probe-start Metal Halides lead many sectors of the site lighting industry in the arena of LPW, it may very well serve both you and your clients to increase this efficiency by up to 24% by investing in pulse-start metal halides.

This may actually become the winning element of your bid if you are proposing an area lighting source in a major city such as Houston, TX where LPW efficiency regulations have recently change to 1 lumen per .05 watts. The power savings, plus the increase lighting output, could potentially represent an irresistible line item on your next proposal.

Higher light output per unit of electric power Pulse-start lamps produce more mean lumens per watt of electricity.

Improved lumen maintenance by as much as 15%
Pulse-start metal halides offer further competitive advantage over standard MH lamps by increasing lumens maintenance by as much as 15%. As standard HIDs age, they begin to produce less light. To compensate for this phenomenon, known as lumen depreciation, contractors will often slightly oversell the number of lamps so the overall lighting system will maintain the desired lighting output for the duration of its lifespan. This, of course, costs the client more money.

If you really want to be competitive with your proposal, show your clients how pulse-start metal halides are 6-15% better and reducing lumens depreciation—then show them a proposal with fewer fixtures for less front end purchase costs than your rivals are bidding.

Extended lamp life
Many of the latest, US-manufactured pulse-start metal halide lamps can last as long as 15,000 hours. This is 5,000 hours longer than the estimated 10,000-hour life span of a probe-start lamp of the same wattage.

Appeal to your clients not only on the basis of a longer lasting light source, but on the money they will avoid spending on expensive labor fees to replace burned out lamps.

Superior Color Rendering, Warm Up Time, and Re-Strike Time
As MH lamps age, their CRI (color rendering index) depreciates as well. Pulse-start MH lamps, however, maintain a consistently higher CRI than probe-start equivalents. They require only 2 minutes to warm up, and in the event of a power failure, normally re-strike in 4 or 5 minutes---much better for security lighting than standard MH lamps that take around 12 minutes to re-strike.

Pulse-start Metal Halides Work Best with Pulse-start Fixtures and Electronic Ballasts
Every contractor knows it is seldom a good idea to mix newer lamp technology with old technology. Pulse-start lamps should be fitted to pulse-start fixtures and operated with electronic ballasts for maximum energy savings. Since your clients will be spending more money on the equipment itself, it will be necessary to show them some math to justify the added expense, and to promise them a return on investment.

RLLD Commercial Lighting will help you do this in a number of ways. To begin with, we help you determine just how much power your client will be saving and estimate an adjustment in their lighting bill by showing you lighting examples. We will help you estimate a reduction in labor costs associated with replacements if your client will provide us with previous expenses paid along these lines. Last, and most significantly, we will give you a photometric lighting analysis of your client’s site showing the exact nature, number and position of your pulse-start metal halide fixtures. This directly relates to a previous point we made about other contractors overselling fixtures to compensate for lumen depreciation. With our advance lighting design software, we can publish a schematic you can hand to your client that proves how less is literally more.

All pulse-start MH fixtures, ballasts, and lamps are made here in the United States by leading HID manufacturers. RLLD Commercial Lighting is a full service lighting design and domestic equipment vendor offering adjunct lighting design support to all clients who make a purchase and adjunct design services for a reasonable fee to information seekers.

RLLD Commercial Lighting carries a wide variety of industrial & commercial lighting fixtures. If you can not find what you are looking for contact us toll free at 1-866-654-3961 and we will find it for you. Check out our glossary of lighting terms and commercial lighting blog for answers and tips to many lighting issues.

Our home office is located in Houston, Texas with warehouses located throughout the United States that enable us to service all 50 states including Sault Ste Marie, MI (CIU), Cleveland, OH, (CLE), College Station, TX (CLL), Port Angeles, WA (CLM), Charlotte, NC (CLT), Columbus, OH (CMH), Champaign, IL (CMI), Hancock, MI (CMX), Cody, WY (COD) and Colorado Springs, CO (COS).

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