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Residential spaces are the primary users of lamp post lights. Typically installed along a driveway or in the front yard of a home, these lights provide a small amount of illumination for people visiting a property. However, there are some areas where implementing a commercial solar lamp post light would be a better choice. Here are some of the reasons to utilize a solar lamp post light.
Residential Lamp Post Lights
Residential-style lights are generally controlled by either a photo sensor or a switch and operate only part of the night unless required by the project that they are illuminated all night. They provide light to a small area and are installed low to the ground, usually around 5-8' above grade. Smaller coach light systems for residential installations are usually found online or at big box stores and work best for these applications and are typically AC-powered.
DC-powered or solar-powered coach fixtures for residential applications are becoming more popular. These can be found online or at some home improvement stores. The lights will typically operate for a few hours each night and should have full access to sunlight during the day.
Commercial Lamp Post Lights
Commercial lamp post lights differ from residential-style lights in a couple of ways. They are installed much higher and require much more illumination for safety and security reasons. These lights provide additional safety by lighting entrances to buildings or commercial facilities, walkways along a building, city roundabout applications, and much more.
These larger-scale projects typically have one large post-top fixture powered by a commercially sized solar power assembly. The solar can be located on the same pole as the fixture, either above or below the fixture, or remotely on a separate pole nearby, like in the photo above.
These provide additional lighting that typically does not support the infrastructure of standard electricity. The lamp post solar lights provide enough lighting for traffic to see other vehicles or obstructions in the traffic circle. This was used in the project shown below since the roundabout was a new addition, and the city wanted to ensure there wouldn't be any issues with this new change in the traffic pattern.
Solar lighting for lamp posts has also been used in front of buildings in the roundabouts or entrances for pedestrian paths and drop-offs. The light fixtures provide a more decorative and architecturally blended fixture than most industrial fixtures. Like the project shown below, DePaul University used decorative post-top fixtures in their quad areas around campus. These had central solar power stations to illuminate multiple poles in the area.
New light post fixtures provide high-powered lighting using LED technology while keeping with the standard decorative styling. Multiple styles include coach, acorn, and globe fixtures, to intricate scrollwork fixtures, and modern-looking slide fixtures. All fixtures can easily be powered by solar on the same pole or multiple fixtures on a central power station that can be blended into the surrounding landscape.
Traditional solar lamp posts can come from many different companies; however, we are discussing commercially designed solar lamp post lights. These commercial systems are designed to meet the required power consumption and lighting and use a separate solar power assembly and no integrated panels in fixture heads, as these are not designed to meet any requirements.
