When Parking Lot Pole Lights Go Dark: What Usually Fails

Nobody calls about pole lights in the daytime. The call comes on a dark Thursday evening when an employee says the back lot is pitch black, or after a customer mentions it, or when a church volunteer walks out after a meeting and cannot see the car. A dark lot is a safety and liability problem first. The good news is that the pattern of what is out usually tells an electrician a lot before anyone climbs anything.

Start with the pattern

How many poles are out, and which ones, is the most useful thing you can write down. The cause of one dark pole is rarely the cause of a whole dark lot.

• One pole out: usually that fixture, its lamp or driver, or the connection at that pole
• A few poles out on the same side: often a shared circuit, a damaged underground run, or a failed connection between poles
• The whole lot out: more likely the control or the breaker feeding the lot, though a failure upstream can do the same
• Poles that come on late, go off early or flicker: often a control problem such as a photocell or timer, or a fixture on its way out

What usually fails

Light fixtures wear out. Older fixtures use lamps that fade and then die, and the parts that regulate power to the lamp, which can be a ballast or a driver depending on the fixture, wear out too. This is the most common reason a single pole goes dark, and it is the simplest to fix.

Controls are the second suspect. Most lots run on a photocell that senses daylight, a timer, or a control in the building. If a control fails, lights can stay on all day or never come on at all. Moisture is the third. Poles stand outside through every Indiana season, and water that gets into a fixture or a pole base connection can trip a breaker or corrode a joint until it stops carrying current.

The fourth suspect is the wiring underground. Lot lighting is usually fed by cable buried between poles. Frost, a dig for another project, a plow or a vehicle strike can damage it. When several poles are out and the fixtures test fine, a damaged buried cable is a real possibility. Finding where it is damaged takes the right locating equipment, and L & M Electric does underground cable locating and cable fault locating for that reason, so nobody has to dig up half a lot to guess.

What to note before you call

You do not need to diagnose anything. A few minutes of notes will save your electrician a lot of time:

• Which poles are out, from a quick sketch or photo of the lot
• When it started, and whether the lights ever flicker or come on late
• Whether there was a storm, a power blip, construction or a vehicle incident around that time
• Whether a breaker has been tripping, if someone in your building already knows
• How old the fixtures are, if you know

Please do not climb a pole, open a fixture or handle wiring yourself. These are energized circuits at height, and that work belongs to a licensed electrician with the right equipment.

What a retrofit changes

When a lot full of older fixtures starts failing one by one, it is worth asking whether to keep replacing lamps or retrofit the whole set. A retrofit swaps the old fixtures or their light sources for LED. In many cases the poles, bases and underground feed stay where they are, and the work happens at the top.

LED fixtures generally draw less power than the older lamps they replace and generally last longer between replacements, which means fewer after-dark calls and fewer trips up a lift. They also give you a chance to rethink the light itself: where it lands, how even it is across the lot, and whether the entrances and walkways are well covered. We do not promise a particular savings number here, because it depends on what is there now and what your electric rates are. Ask for the comparison in writing and decide on the facts for your lot.

Design matters as much as the fixture

Properly designed lighting is essential for productivity, sales and security at a commercial or industrial facility. A new fixture on a badly placed pole will still leave a dark corner. If you are replacing a lot's lighting, it is a good time to look at pole spacing, mounting height and the controls, and to think about any parking you may add later.

Why it is worth doing right

Pole lighting is exposed to weather, traffic and time. The fastest fix is not always the best one, and a repair that skips over the real cause tends to come back. We design, install, repair and maintain pole lighting for businesses, churches and schools across North Central Indiana, and our crew works from a bucket truck so the work happens at the fixture, not from the ground.

If your lot is dark or going dark, call L & M Electric in Goshen at 574-533-4633, Monday to Friday, 7:00 am to 4:00 pm. The lighting design page explains how we approach new and retrofit lighting, and the commercial and industrial page lists the rest of what we do for facilities.