It’s not a bad idea, of course, to air on the side of caution when it comes to street lighting systems such as commercial luminaires and decorative lamp posts and signage systems such as traffic signs and custom aluminum street signs. And here at Brandon Industries, we take pride in providing communities with reliable, top-quality streetscape products at affordable prices.

But careful, accurate streetscape installations can save your community a bit of money that can be used elsewhere (say, on attractive courtyard lighting for a park or community space) — without sacrificing safety.

Our streetscape experts can help.

For example, how can your community decide exactly how many street lights (and what type of street lamps) are needed to keep your streets safe for pedestrians and drivers alike — without going overboard and ordering and installing extra lights that don’t actually enhance lighting coverage or aesthetic appeal. Each community has unique needs concerning streetlights, depending upon the landscape of the neighborhood and specific traffic patterns. So each community will require a unique streetscape solution.

Or, for another example, your community’s wayfinding sign needs and traffic sign needs will depend specifically on both local and state laws and regulations.

Here at Brandon Industries, we’ve been serving the streetscape needs of neighborhoods nationwide for nearly 25 years. So we have a highly refined, unmatched understanding of what is needed in most streetscape installations. But beyond our own experience and expertise, we also know when to ask for help — and when outside experts are needed (such as a local lighting engineer, city government officials or neighborhood association representatives). We can tell you who you need to check with concerning different installations, as well as how to find them.

But the first step is simply to contact us with any questions about what’s right for your neighborhood, business center, retail center, school, park or entertainment complex.

When it comes to planned communities, the difference between those that bloom and those that just sort of blend into obscurity is in the details: Inviting parks. Safe streets. Excellent schools. A cohesive, community oriented vibe and spirit.

Here at Brandon Industries, we take the same approach, and believe our carefully constructed, intricately designed streetscape products can provide communities with the high-quality “details” needed to thrive.

Take a look at our line of outdoor street lamps. They’re tough, durable, and constructed from high-quality materials like cast-aluminum parts with a polyester powder coat finish, and — like community lighthouses — will keep your community safe and illuminated in even the most blinding storms. But they’re also stately, elegant, and attractive, and full of little details that demonstrate a commitment to excellence. For example, several models of our line of commercial luminaires feature sophisticated gold oval bands. Our line of stately courtyard lamps feature intricate details like bevel glass lenses. And our comprehensive catalog of commercial streetlamp posts include more than six models of posts, each carefully crafted to anchor your community’s outdoor lighting system with class.

Similarly, we’re proud to offer a diverse range of decorative mailboxes that are built from cast-aluminum, blend traditional casting methods with today’s technology, and are eager to be the first thing many folks notice about your home. But they’re also stylish and evoke nostalgic feelings of yesteryear. In fact, cohesively themed mailboxes are a great way for your neighborhood to demonstrate community solidarity.

Our custom signage systems are also exactly the sort of details that stand out to visitors and residents alike. Acting almost as “the handshake” of your neighborhood, these long-lasting signs both provide the details — driving directions, community information, etc. — that make visitors feel at home, and look impressive and classy while doing so.

High-intensity discharge (HID) outdoor lighting lasts longer, uses less energy and requires less maintenance. So what exactly is this amazing miracle technology that shines brighter and can keep your community’s streets just a little bit safer—at a lower cost?

Let’s take a look:

Basically, HID light comes from an electric arc. Each HID arc-type light contains a tube that’s filled with gasses and metal salts. When the light is switched on, the gas sparks the arc’s initial strike, which heats up the metal salts, which forms a sort of brightly glowing plasma that amplifies the arc’s discharge. This process makes HID lights relatively slow to start shining (why it’s a good idea to use them in, say, street lamps, which are kept on for long periods of time). But once the HID lamps are turned on, the result is an unmatched luminous efficacy (light output per watt of electricity used).

For example, take a look at how much more efficient HID outdoor lamps are compared to fluorescent and incandescent lamps:

• While incandescent bulbs generally last between 750 and 1,000 hours, high-pressure sodium HID lights usually last 24,000 hours.

• While incandescent bulbs produce just 20 lumens of light per watt, high-pressure sodium lights produce nearly 120 lumens per watt.

Light quality isn’t truly problematic, either. Take the color rendering index (a 0-100 scale that compares the effect of a type of light on color), for example—metal halide bulbs produce light at a 70 CRI rating (better than most fluorescent lights).

The rugged, high-performance technology behind HID lighting has always been ideal for outdoor and industrial applications, where lighting large areas at as low a cost as possible is key. These days, you can find HID bulbs in everything from sports cars to decorative street lamps like ours.

Long days, warm nights, and big parties — summer is coming. At Brandon Industries, we can help your neighborhood prepare. Here are just a few possible streetscape solutions you might want to start thinking about before the summer months arrive:

Schools Out: Time to Play

Kids will soon be out of school, and the last thing you’ll want is for them to spend the summer cooped up around a video game system. But for the kids to have a summer full of healthy, memorable days climbing trees, playing sports, and running around outside, safety must take top priority.

The most obvious safety threat is traffic, because drivers won’t always be driving as carefully and cautiously as they could be. In other words, you want people to drive through your neighborhood expecting kids to be chasing a soccer ball out into the street from time to time.

We can help you build a signage system that encourages safe driving, both through a full catalog of regulatory and traffic signs, custom signs (“Caution: Kids Playing”), and extra efforts like radar driver feedback signs.

Warm Nights, Fun Under the Lights

Days are (finally) stretching long past dinner time, and nighttime temps are approaching the summery balm we all know and love. Especially once daytime temps approach unbearable, folks are going to start spending more and more time outdoors at night.

Effective outdoor lighting— along walkways and around public areas, as well as streets—is critical to keeping things safe and fostering a sense of community by encouraging people to gather and play. And you don’t need to sacrifice aesthetic quality to do all this—our attractive luminaires and courtyard lamps are stately, elegant, tasteful, and cohesive.

Time to Party

Summer is the season of carnivals, festivals, farmers markets, golf outings, outdoor concerts, garage sales, and all around outdoor merriment. In other words, it’s the time when many communities hold big parties and events partially designed to invite in friends and neighbors from other parts of the city.

This means regular bursts of first-time visitors will be coming to your neighborhood, which means two things:

• An effective network of custom wayfinding signs is key to getting folks where they’re going quickly and easily, minimizing traffic and keeping the streets safe for your kids.
• Attractive, comprehensive streetscape solutions and touches like decorative mailboxes and custom logo signs that impress visitors, highlight your community’s commitment to detail and excellence, and solidify your neighborhood’s reputation as a desirable one (which will eventually be reflected in higher home values).

Pick a random dot on the map, it seems, and you’re likely to find a town facing a budget crisis. We’re all having to tighten our belts a bit these days, and many communities are doing it the old fashioned way.

According to Greentech Media:

Colorado Springs, for instance, turned off one-third of its streetlights in 2010 to save $1.3 million, according to John Leavitt, a spokesperson for the city. In 2011, the city has turned the lights back on in neighborhoods, but will keep the high-wattage lights lining multi-lane traffic arteries off.

In Indiana, Muncie, Valparaiso, and Merrillville started curbing streetlights in 2009 due to budget woes, a situation which pitted Muncie’s mayor against the city council.

Santa Rosa, California, meanwhile, has implemented a program that will run through 2012 under which select lights are turned off and others are equipped with light sensors to cut about $400,000 from the city’s annual budget.

Unfortunately, while turning off the street lamps might be an obvious way to scratch out a little bit of savings, there can be serious downsides to doing just that. In many situations, effective outdoor lighting systems are more than just a pretty luxury. Simply put, our outdoor lights can be an invaluable investment in your community’s future. They boost long-term home values, and you just can’t put a price on safety.

So let’s review how our outdoor lights can help you avoid having to choose between a viable budget and a safe, thriving community:

Our outdoor lights are efficient:

The beautiful thing about energy efficiency is its dual function—it’s both good for the globe, and good for pocketbooks. So at Brandon Industries, we’re a little bit obsessed with making it easy for communities to become more energy efficient. With outdoor lighting, our high-pressure sodium HID street lamps boast high lumen-per-wat (LPW) efficacy, approaching 120 LPW (compared to just 20 LPW for incandescent bulbs).  You can imagine the savings this brings.

Our outdoor lights are durable:

At Brandon Industries, all of our products—from signage systems to traffic and wayfinding signs to decorative mailboxes to antique reproduction lamp posts—are built from tough, lightweight recyclable aluminum. They don’t rust, and we apply a durable powder-coat finish as a final, determined touch.

The result is attractive products that require fewer repairs and need to be replaced less often, saving your community money over the long-term.

Our outdoor lights are long-lasting:

Our high-pressure sodium high-intensity lamps (HID) will shine proudly for approximately 24,000 hours. In other words, they’ll last nearly 33 consecutive months if you run all day, every day (turn them off during the day, of course, and they’ll outlast even the most stubborn recession). Compare that to incandescent bulbs, which usually only last between 750 and 1,000 hours.

Our outdoor lights are backed by expertise:

A streetlight saved is a street light earned, right? When designing an outdoor lighting system, our Dallas streetscape experts can help you maximize the effectiveness of each lamp as way to avoid over-ordering and wasting a bunch of money on energy and light fixtures that don’t improve the overall system. This means smart design and installation, like understanding how to effectively avoid dark trouble spots.

Good outdoor lighting systems improve pedestrian visibility, driving safety, and personal security. But you can’t just haphazardly throw up a bunch lights and expect the system to work efficiently, and you don’t need to make your community as bright as the inside of a football stadium to get the job done.

Proper streetlight design and implementation, when done well, will save your community money by maximizing lighting efficiency and boosting home values—while still improving overall safety.

Here are three spots where some communities run into trouble:

1. Tree-Heavy Streets

Everyone wants a leafy community, but those pleasant avenues can be difficult to light effectively if you’re stuck with a bunch of towering, industrial-looking streetlights that will eventually find themselves on the outside looking in when the trees mature and bloom.

But you shouldn’t have to sacrifice the aesthetics that come with one of those gorgeous, tunnel-like tree-lined boulevards for the safety of well-lit streets and sidewalks.

For example, our comprehensive catalog (pdf) of street lights features a full range of pole heights and styles, usually ranging from 6′4″ to 15’ that allow the trees planted in your community to grow fully without concern of light blockage. And since we offer multiple options for attractive posts and luminaires, the lower, more abundant lights will only boost your streetscape’s overall curb appeal.

2. Crossings

Unfortunately, it’s just not possible to keep pedestrian paths and traffic-heavy streets separate all the time. But well-illuminated crossings serve two purposes: They, of course, provide well-lit routes that make it much easier for drivers to see pedestrians. And they also encourage pedestrians to cross at places where drivers are most likely to be alert, like intersections with stop signs and well-marked crosswalks, rather than at random places in the middle of streets. The effect is a safer, more orderly system that helps both drivers and pedestrians.

3. Dark Spots (and the Pesky Resilience of the Plague We Call ‘Night’)

The last thing you want to do is go overkill with outdoor lighting and try to stamp out darkness from every corner of your community—it’d be a quick way to see energy and installation costs soar. But if you plan effectively, and anticipate ahead of time where pedestrians are most likely to be at night, you can create well-lit, dedicated routes that maximize both safety, security, and energy efficiency.

This means routes to and from schools (early morning winter walks to school can be pretty dark, and there are lots of nighttime school-related activities). Around playgrounds. To and from community and recreation centers. Through parks. When done in conjunction with attractive, cohesive streetscapes, these smart, intuitive lighting systems provide the safe, pleasant walking routes that potential homeowners crave and use.

Similarly, for cars, a series of multiple, attractive lamp posts installed on both sides of wide streets can help more evenly eliminate dark spots more than a sporadic industrial-type floodlights, while still boosting curb appeal.

Part of the advantage of working with us at Brandon Industries is the sheer number of options we offer for ever catalog category, from poles to bases to luminaires to colors, custom logos, and traffic and street sign trims.

Just take a look at what we offer for outdoor lamp posts and decorative street lights alone:

14 Luminaires: Proud, ornate, and ready to light up your neighborhood. Our luminaires are the most immediately noticeable part of your outdoor lighting system, and offer the best chance to stand out or ornately compliment other parts of your streetscape.

11 Courtyard Lamp Poles Combinations: Stately, elegant, and durable. Our courtyard lamp poles and posts can form the backbone of your outdoor lighting system—both functionally and aesthetically.

5 Base Styles: Strong and understated. Our light pole bases form an attractive, handsome foundation for your outdoor lighting system.  It’s those little details that truly show your neighborhood’s commitment to class and excellence.

Our comprehensive catalog provides more than just the ability to mix and match. It gives your neighborhood, community, office park, or shopping center a chance to match your signage systems with its identity. Traditional, but modern. Understated, but ornate. Elegant and classy. Whatever the correct combination, we can help you achieve the look and feel your development desires.

It’s important to contact your local municipal authorities or neighborhood associations for signage requirements (concerning factors like color and trim-type) before deciding which look to implement. But beyond those guidelines, the choices are yours.

Dark, trash-strewn streets filled with white-collar criminals, anyone?

Communities around the country are going to some pretty extraordinary lengths in order to save a bit of dough in these cash-strapped times.

The city of Newark outsourced the jobs of nearly 230 garbage men. Mesa, Ariz. is asking for volunteer detectives to investigate non-violent crimes, and the state of Arizona itself sold its legislature building (and then promptly started leasing it back). And according to The Denver Post: “The city-run Colorado Springs Utilities will shut down 8,000 to 10,000 of more than 24,000 streetlights, to save $1.2 million in energy and bulb replacement.”

At Brandon Industries, one of our goals when developing products is to make an investment in a community streetscape or street lighting system help pay for itself through long-term savings factors like energy-efficiency, equipment durability, and engineering expertise.

Here are three ways our products can help your community keep the lights on:

Durability:

The main ingredient of all of our antique reproduction lamp posts, signage systems, traffic signs, wayfinding signs, and decorative mailboxes is aluminum—sturdy, reliable, recyclable, lightweight aluminum. It won’t rust, and includes a durable powder-coat finish, meaning you’ll have to repair and replace these streetscape fixtures less often. Also, our high-pressure sodium high-intensity lamps (HID) last approximately 24,000 hours (compared to just 750-1,000 hours for an incandescent bulb), which lowers maintenance and replacement costs.

Energy Efficiency:

We’re committed to energy-efficient lighting, both for the lessened environmental impacts, and in order to maximize long-term cost savings for our customers. For example, our high-pressure sodium HID street lamps boast high lumen-per-wat (LPW) efficacy, approaching 120 LPW (compared to just 20 LPW for incandescent bulbs). This saves significanly on energy costs.

Expertise:

Accuracy matters when designing a lighting system, and our staff can help you make sure that your streetscapes and public areas are safely lit at night. But we’ll also help you make sure you don’t overdo it, and waste a bunch of energy and equipment costs on light fixtures you don’t need.

Contact our streetscape experts for more information.

Environmentally Friendly HID Lighting

There’s going to be no shortage of environmental problems for us to face in the coming years, and therefore no shortage of environmental legislation attempting to deal with them. We’re proactive at Brandon Industries, both to maintain a sustainable future for our Dallas-area communities, and also so you won’t have to replace commercial streetscape equipment every time a new product hits the market or a new environmental legislation hits the books.

The Energy Independence Act of 2007 embodies just this. The law restricts the use of probe start ballasts for metal halide luminaires. Beginning last January, all 150W-500W metal halide luminaires were required to contain pulse start ballasts that met an 88 percent efficiency standard. Retrofitting existing probe start ballasts wasn’t required, but finding replace probe start lamps in the future is uncertain. So we’re jumping ahead of the game, and making compliant pulse start metal halide fixtures available now.

Our Pulse Start ballasts feature:

• 50 percent longer lamp life, compared to traditional metal halide lamps.
• 33 percent more lumen maintenance.
• Better cold starting capability, and shorter warm-up times.
• Faster re-strike capability.

In other words, it’s eco-friendly efficiency lighting that doesn’t sacrifice performance.

High Intensity Environmentalism

Our High Intensity Discharge Lighting products stack up to stringent environmental standards in several other ways. The lights — arc types developed for outdoor and industrial applications — boast long lives, reduced maintenance costs, and high energy efficiency.

This means:

Concerning lamplife: Up to 1,000 hours of life (i.e. before replacement) for incandescent lights, 10,000 hours for metal halide lights, and 24,000 hours for high pressure sodium lights.

Concerning efficacy: Up to 20 lumens per watt (LPW) for incandescent lights (higher = more efficient), 90 LPW for metal halide lights, and 120 LPW for high pressure sodium lights.

Contact our Streetscape experts for more information.

Courtyard Lighting by Brandon Industries

At Brandon Industries, we design and install custom streetscapes for towns and neighborhoods with a larger idea in mind. So how, exactly, do these courtyard lighting fixtures enhance landscape designs—and boost overall livability of your neighborhood?

Here are three ways:

– Building Consistent and Unique Personality

It’s all about character and identity. Featuring distinct, dynamic styles, our antique reproduction lightening systems provide a sense of coherency to our streetscapes. On a large, neighborhood-wide scale, this simply matters. Visual “togetherness” gives neighborhoods a sense of home and place, and reveal a commitment to thorough and thoughtful planning.

Our extensive catalog of outdoor lighting fixtures makes it easy for neighborhoods to mix and match luminaries, lamp poles and bases, providing both cohesion and variety, and making it easy for residents to stick within the theme on their own properties.

– Maintaining Cohesion for Historic Areas

This sense of congruency matters even more for older neighborhoods. Our antique reproduction lighting allows neighborhoods to install modern, effective lighting schemes without distracting from the historic feel of the surrounding houses, parks and buildings.

There’s nothing worse for historic than modern touches stick out like sore, poorly-planned thumbs (we’re talking to you, satellite dishes). Contact us if you’re looking to modernize your neighborhood without undermining its charm. We’ll show you how.

– Boosting Safety

Effective street and yard lighting both deters crime and improves traffic safety—but there’s no reason to drown your yard in flood lights. Our antique reproduction luminaires effectively provide that extra element of safety to your property, and make it easy for police and neighbors to spot illegal activity—without turning your yard into an eyesore.

Let our Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex-area award-winning streetscape experts help you.