Menage lighting - retractable lighting co? experiences?

ArcticFox

ArcticFox

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Midlothian/Borders
www.bryland.co.uk
Hi All


I am looking to put a couple of lights up in my arena and wondered about the retractable lighting company


does anyone have any experience? we will need to take the lights away regularly as we live in a windy area so I thought portable lights would be better

If you have used them/have them. Are they easy to put up? do you leave yours up at all or always take them down?

Also do you have any photos as the ones on their website are not brilliant.

any advice gratefully received, can offer a virtual twix!

Arena surface on order to arrive next week - might put lots of pics up when its finished!

:D :D
 
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I thought it was, they are a bit expensive so trying to weigh up if they are worth the extra.

Each pole has two floodlights on the top, when not in use they are unplugged (waterproof socket) and fastened onto a bracket on the side of the arena.

As they are made of aluminium it takes about half a minute to put them up or down.

use 0.8kw per pole and they are 14feet high.

I think they sound great as we live in an extremely windy area but hubby not sure as thinks too expensive so need to convince him!

If not I'd be happy for other suggestions.
 
Off the top of my head (as it was a while ago when I asked) it was £800 for 3 poles.

I can only put the lights on one side of the arena due to a main road so for a 45m arena 3 poles are recommended (for a 20 x 40 it is 2 down each long side) 6 floodlights in total.

That price was including fixings/brackets etc.

Do you think thats expensive or reasonable?
 
My friend has these and she says they're fab. They only use 3 down one side unless theyre jumping and they certainly cast plenty of light around.
Her biggest cost came from laying the cable as she had to mole under a LOT of concrete!!
 
ArcticFox said:
Off the top of my head (as it was a while ago when I asked) it was £800 for 3 poles.

I can only put the lights on one side of the arena due to a main road so for a 45m arena 3 poles are recommended (for a 20 x 40 it is 2 down each long side) 6 floodlights in total.

That price was including fixings/brackets etc.

Do you think thats expensive or reasonable?
Click to expand...

That sounds reasonable working for a lighting company - does that include everything ie taking supply to the arena will it be underground, overhead etc - will your supply cope with it?

Re the lights themselves, would it be asking the company to recommend local customers who you could either visit or call - I did this with rubber matting :)
 
Do you definitely need retractable lights?

I live in flat Lincolnshire and have 4 columns (very much like standard street alights) with 2 very large floodlights on top of each. We have significant winds whipping up the field and (so far) haven't had any problems with damage.

Baydale may be able to add to this as she also lives in flat, windy Lincolnshire and has permanent lighting around her school. :)
 
Thanks Measles

Kirstyhen - good to know that someone you know is happy with them

Cost wise, the guys that are building the arena are laying the cable - I have already bought the armoured cable that will carry enough power to cope with it. We are taking power from the stables which have only just recently been installed so the power discussed was also brought up then so should be fine.

The supply includes the brackets/lights/fixings. I would need to get someone to install them and the electrition to wire in the power. (spark is a friend)



There are two reasons why they need to be retractable I think -

we don't have planning and the arena is alongside a main road - when we put the plans in the roads dept said that if we were to put lights in they would have to shine away from the road and at the time we actually weren't planning on putting lights in so didn't add them, now we are close to finishing I realise i can't ride in the dark! We have a floodlight on the building but it just isn't bright enough.

The council are really nice though so I might reapply anyway just so they are aware.

other reason - we are very very windy! on the top of a scottish hill! Last week we had winds over 100mph and it is windy all year round (advantage being no midges in summer). Our wheelie bin regularly makes the 100m journey back up the road to our house unaided!!!
 
Arctic fox, can you dig out the exact price? I emailed them twice for a price, and couldnt get a response! We own a steel fabrication company, and we were asked to make these for a customer, the website was shocking, and the design didnt look too clever. We were thinking of making some and selling them ourselves tbh.

I think they are a good idea, esp with areas where planning issues are difficult!
 
Just a thought - My friend is just moving to a yard who have lights on the fence at approx chest height around the arena. They give a fantastic amount of light and I'd happily schhol or jump in there. The light is spread far more evenly than the floods we have over our school at home - I'm thinking of adding them to our school for next winter.
 
Sorry Showjump I don't have the actual price as my email was hacked so lost everything. I do remember it being around £800 though

Scarlett - would you be able to find out what lights they are? do they not dazzle the horses eyes if they are at chest height? Would be very interested in hearing more about them though. A photo would also be fab if you could wangle one :D
 
Yup, I'll be there this weekend so will get you a pic and find out info. I know YO is very, very happy with them, they seem like a brilliant option. :)
 
Ok thanks. Sorry to hi-jack your thread, but how many of you think theres a market for this time of lighting? We think we could be very reasonable and seriously looking into it as a little 'sideline'.
 
From what I understand, these are aluminium so very light, and are not recommended to leave up even if you are feeling lazy!

They require unplugging, lifting out of their bracket and placing in a storage bracket on the side of the arena. They do weigh less than 5kg so doing this should only take 30secs

What I like about them is that they are light, can be brought down and put away, each pole has two lights that are angled so reducing light pollution.

What I would prefer given the option is a light that doesn't need lifting off but will simply fold down after use (like a car barrier). If they are going to be heavy then a counter weight would be helpful to make it easier (like a car barrier). And if I am feeling lazy it could be left up overnight (not in high winds though!)

not sure if this can be designed without the cabling being damaged but I would be interested in finding out how much you would charge for each light if you were going to do this. PM me if you have some ideas.
 
showjump said:
Ok thanks. Sorry to hi-jack your thread, but how many of you think theres a market for this time of lighting? We think we could be very reasonable and seriously looking into it as a little 'sideline'.
Click to expand...

I'd be interested but would need them to be solar powered. could this be done?
 
A yard I used to be at had lights which we put up and down manually when we wanted to use them. the lights were attached to long poles which were attached to the boards at the side of the arena with a pin that enabled them to rotate, and lay horizontal along the side of the school when not in use. When we needed to use them we could simply lift up the long pole and slot it into a bracket on the side of the school which held it in place, and we used a pin to hold it there.

Our reasons werent for wind damage, but neighbours who thought that permanent floodlights would ruin their view, but this was a very effective solution and I imagine a lot easier to have put in place.
 
I haven't heard of these, but my genius OH made me something similiar using scaffolding poles. I have a bank of three sodium lights (one on each pole) along one side of my arena (due to houses on the other side, I didn't want to be too intrusive). They are on plugs which can pull out and then the pole can be split down and the lights removed. It wasn't difficult to do and the idea was that we could take the lights down, however they have been up for 6 yrs and so far we haven't even needed to change a bulb (famous last words).
Just to give you an idea, it is plenty bright enough for flatwork at night.
And we are very very windy here as we are at the top of a hill whichthe wind gushes up from the coast (and it's not warm coastal air!)
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1029402588304.6051.1622522214&type=3
 
BB - that looks like the kind of lighting I will have - seems plenty bright enough

maybe I should just go with two of them (that would be 4 lights)?

I think the retractable lighting people have just created a light that does what yours and Jo_x's does. These require unplugging and lifting out. The advantage being that they provide all the brackets, lights etc so you just screw it in and go.
 
We have poles which we can put up and down and have fixed spot lights to the top - it was a lot cheaper than £800.

We would need planning permission for permanent lights.

TBH we have had them so long we often just leave them up and it is incredibly windy at times and they have been fine...

Maybe worth looking at??
 
We have our own, made up by local engineers. Very similar set up to BB. We have small 20x40 sand school and two lights down one side (due to neighbours), they give us plenty of light. Have had them a couple of years and not taken them down yet! They've been very stable even in very strong winds.
 
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