Straight Answer

What happens on the day solar lights are installed

Footings, placement and an afternoon. There is no trench in this story.

A lamp goes in within about an hour. We mark the positions with you, set a footing for each lamp, let it cure where the pole is tall, then mount the lamp and angle the panel to the winter sun. Nothing is trenched and nothing is connected, so a garden in use stays in use. How long the whole garden takes depends on how many lamps and how tall they are, and we tell you before we start.

We mark the positions before anything is fixed

The walk around the garden is the part that decides whether you like the result. We put a marker where each lamp would stand, and you look at it in daylight and say yes or move it. Changing your mind at this point costs nothing.

What we are solving for is where the light lands, not where the lamp looks tidy on a plan. Steps, level changes, the turn in a drive and the stretch between the gate and the door are the places that matter after dark.

Footings, sized to the lamp

A small garden post needs a modest footing. A three metre street lamp needs a concrete footing sized for the pole and for the wind it has to stand in, and that is the part people underestimate when they buy a tall lamp in a box.

Footings are small and shallow next to any cable trench, and they are the only thing that goes into the ground. Paving stays down, planting stays in and irrigation lines stay where they are.

The panel is aimed at January, not June

The winter sun sits low in the south, so a panel that clears a wall in June can sit in its shadow in January. We set the angle for the low sun, which is the single decision that separates lighting that still works in February from lighting that quietly fades.

The honest limits

Concrete needs to cure. Where a tall pole is going in, the lamp is standing the same day but we would rather not have it leaned on for a couple of days, and on a windy site we say so.

Ground that turns out to be solid rock or an undocumented service changes the footing, and occasionally the position. We would rather move a lamp a metre than put a footing somewhere it does not belong.

The tall street and park lamps are the ones where the footing is genuinely worth having done, and they are also the ones that light the most ground per lamp. Solar Street Lamp 3000 lm · Solar Park Lamp 2800 lm

The next questions

No. Because there is no trench between lamps, only the spot where a lamp is going in is occupied, and only while it is going in. Hotels and private communities have this done in season for exactly that reason.

Yes. The site is left clean and the packaging leaves with us. On planted ground we make good where a footing disturbed the surface.

We would rather look at them first. Placement and footings we can do for anything, but we will not put our name on the performance of a lamp whose battery and panel we do not know. If they are decent lamps we will say so.