For property managers and boards

Condo and HOA Common Area Lighting

Corridors, garages, lobbies and pool decks. Matching what is already there, and specifying for salt air when it goes back.

If you manage a condominium or an HOA in South Florida, lighting arrives on your desk in one of three ways. Something has failed and residents are complaining. A building is being remediated and the fixtures have to come down and go back up. Or the board has finally accepted that the corridors have looked tired since about 2011.

All three are supply problems before they are installation problems, and they have a common difficulty: whatever is up there now was probably bought fifteen years ago from somebody who is no longer around, and nobody has the catalog numbers.

What I actually do for buildings

I am a manufacturer's representative for the SESCO lines. I do not install, and I am not looking to become your electrical contractor. What I do is find the fixture, price the quantity, and get it ordered through SESCO on a schedule that matches the work.

Identify what is already there. Send a photograph of the fixture and, if you can reach it, a photograph of the label inside. That is usually enough to identify the manufacturer and the catalog number, and to tell you whether it is still made.
Find the current equivalent when it is discontinued. Most fixtures in a fifteen-year-old building are out of production. There is normally a current model from the same manufacturer with the same mounting footprint, and where there is not, I can offer a comparable fitting from another line that will not look out of place next to the ones you are not replacing.
Quote the whole building, not one fixture. Corridors, lobby, elevator lobbies, stairwells, garage, pool deck, walkways, exterior wall packs. Pricing them together is usually cheaper than pricing them one at a time, and it stops you buying three different color temperatures by accident.
Release the order against a phased schedule. Buildings rarely do all forty floors at once. Tell me the phasing and I will work to it rather than dumping the whole order in the loading bay in week one.
Deal with the board, the manager or the contractor, whichever you prefer. Some managers want me to quote them directly. Others want it to go through their electrician. Both are fine.

The South Florida problems that are not in the catalog

Salt air eats fixtures, and it is not gradual. On an oceanfront building the failure usually starts at the fasteners and the backplate rather than the body, and a fixture that lasted ten years inland can be a rust stain on a stucco wall in three. Material and finish matter more here than fixture style does.
Garages are a corrosion environment too. Open-deck parking on a coastal building sees salt-laden air constantly, and garage fixtures also cop pressure washing. This is where the cheapest option is most reliably the wrong one.
Beachfront buildings sit under a wavelength rule. In Broward and Miami-Dade coastal cities, exterior lighting visible from the beach has to be low, shielded and long-wavelength, at 560 nanometers or greater. Nesting season in Broward runs from 1 March to 31 October. A warm white LED does not satisfy this, however warm it looks, and buildings do get told to change fixtures they have just installed.
Emergency and egress lighting is inspected. Corridors, stairwells and the garage carry egress obligations under NFPA 101, which Florida enforces through the Florida Fire Prevention Code and the fire marshal, separately from the building department. If your building is due a test and the units are failing, replacement heads and self-testing units are a normal part of what I quote.
Hurricane season decides delivery, not just weather. Anyone who has tried to get exterior fixtures in the fortnight after a storm knows this. If you are planning a phased replacement, front-load the exterior work.

When a building is being remediated

Broward County runs a building safety inspection program that generally starts at 25 years of age and repeats every ten years, which is earlier than the state default of 30. Your municipal building department is the authority on how it applies to your building, and it is worth asking them rather than reading it off the internet.

To be clear about what that has to do with me: nothing directly. Lighting is not a structural inspection item and I am not going to pretend otherwise. What is true is a matter of sequencing. When walkways, garages and balconies are opened up, re-waterproofed and repainted, the fixtures come down and something has to go back. That is the moment to decide whether it goes back as the same tired fitting or as something specified for the environment it is actually in.

A practical suggestion. If your building is in that cycle, get the lighting quoted while the scaffolding is still up rather than after it comes down. Access is most of the labour cost on an exterior fixture, and doing it twice is the expensive way.

What to send me

Photographs of the existing fixtures, and of the label inside one if you can get to it.
A rough count by area: corridors per floor, number of floors, lobby, garage levels, exterior.
Whether the building is oceanfront, on the Intracoastal, or inland, and how close.
Whether any exterior lighting is visible from the beach.
The phasing, if the work is being staged.
Whether you want the quote addressed to the association, the manager or the contractor.

Send it through the quote form, or call 786-395-1222. Photographs from a phone are fine. You get a line-by-line price and current lead times, usually within one business day, and there is no charge for the takeoff.

Common questions

Do you work with property managers and boards directly?

Yes, and I am used to the approval process that goes with it. If the board needs a written quote it can put in a meeting packet, with quantities and unit prices broken out by area, tell me and I will format it that way.

My fixtures are twenty years old and nobody has the model numbers. Can you still help?

Usually. A photograph of the fixture, and ideally of the label inside it, is often enough. Failing that, measurements and photographs of the mounting arrangement will get me close. This is a routine part of the work, not an unusual request.

Can you match some fixtures without replacing all of them?

That is most of what this work is. The aim is a replacement that sits next to the originals without announcing itself, which means matching finish, size and color temperature, not just wattage. Tell me which areas are staying as they are.

Do you install?

No. I am the manufacturer representative. Your electrical contractor installs, and I am happy to price to them or alongside them. If you do not have one, I am not going to recommend one I have a financial interest in.

Can you help with turtle-compliant fixtures for a beachfront building?

Yes. Several lines I represent publish long-wavelength amber product intended for Florida coastal ordinances, and FWC maintains a certified wildlife lighting list. Tell me the municipality, because the ordinances vary by city, and I will quote product intended to meet it and give you the manufacturer documentation to submit. The local authority decides compliance, not me.