Courtyard lighting in an apartment building. Who is responsible for street lighting? How to make outdoor lighting yourself

Walking along dark alleys in the evening, you can’t help but wonder if an elementary hooligan is hiding somewhere in the shadows? Who is responsible for providing our children and us, the taxpayers, with the most necessary things – electric light? Is there, after all, some kind of law or regulation obliging the same energy-saving company to monitor the condition of the same lamps in a populated area?

Well, one lantern doesn’t work, or it works, but the light is dim, that’s not so bad, but what if there are no lanterns in the courtyard of the house, and there are only a few electric light bulbs above the entrances and they don’t save the situation? You can contact the person in charge of the house, the manager, so to speak. Perhaps he will decide something someday, although this is not his responsibility. Still, I would like to know for sure who will be responsible for the operation of lanterns, light bulbs and other lighting fixtures on the streets in general and in courtyards in particular?

In this article:

What is the problem?

First you need to determine the problem that has arisen:

The light bulb needs to be replaced.
The lighting is weak or there is a need for additional light.
There is no light at all.

If the light bulb is visually damaged or simply does not work, you must first contact the housing and communal services manager, who must take the necessary actions. Contact numbers are provided on the website of this organization, and in some houses they hang on the walls near the mailboxes.

Contact the administration

If there is no response, then you need to contact the city administration directly, since it has an agreement with the electrical networks serving each district. They will take action by contacting the power company, who will have to evaluate the condition of the lighting fixture and make specific repairs. An appeal in the form of a collective or private complaint with signatures is carried out in the form of a regular application in any form and is submitted to the local Administration of a certain municipal body.

In the text of the appeal, it is important to indicate the following questions to the local administration:

Which organization is responsible for maintaining lighting fixtures on site?
As the name of the customer under the contract with this organization
Who is responsible for maintaining lighting at the required level?

Regarding the issue of insufficient street lighting, you should contact the Management Company by writing an application individually or collectively using the same template. The main thing is to write the full name of each applicant, signature and address of his residence. It is important to understand that the Management Company is directly responsible for the life and health of citizens and it is we who should point out the shortcomings to it, since we have a direct interest in this.

In a situation where there is a complete lack of light in your yard, you must contact the local administration, guided by the Federal Law of October 6, 2003 No. 131-F3 “On the general principles of organizing local government in the Russian Federation,” obliging local governments to organize street lighting properly. Which is also regulated by GOST regarding the procedure for organizing lighting, where all standards are prescribed. After completing and sending the application, the response should arrive within seven working days to a month.

Also, to understand the essence of the problem, building codes and regulations are presented here.

Lighting of architectural objects and cultural monuments is a mandatory measure when organizing a street lighting system.

Illumination of main and secondary roads is carried out taking into account the type of road surface and its reflective properties.

Each street provides a certain degree of horizontal illumination. For example:

for wide roads this parameter corresponds to 20 lk,
regional roads are illuminated within 15 lk,
for local streets 4-6 lux is enough.

If you receive a refusal, you can file a complaint with the local organization responsible for maintaining street lighting. Very often refusals are justified by insufficient funding, but these explanations do not make things any better.

Your next step may be to contact the court or prosecutor's office at your place of residence. It is advisable to provide a photo of the area where there is no light and a written (or digital) refusal from the Administration responsible for street lighting.

Who is responsible for street lighting in towns and villages?

As a rule, the budgets of towns and villages do not always adequately finance street lighting. Installing lights along each road is an expensive task and often shelved. Every year, a plan is drawn up to equip streets with lamps and the local Administration considers it in accordance with the budget. It is mandatory to install lights at road intersections where the risk of an accident is most likely, near administrative and educational buildings.

The district department of Energosbyt is responsible for maintenance, but control over the proper performance of its duties lies with the local municipality. It would be more correct to contact them orally, simply by calling by phone or in writing, filling out the same complaint.

Bottom line

Summarizing all of the above, we come to one simple conclusion - the Administration is responsible for the lighting on the streets of our cities and towns, and it is from them that there should be a demand for the absence or insufficient lighting of the streets.

None of the regulatory legal acts of Russia contains a definition of “domestic territory”.

At whose expense should it be done?

In accordance with the Housing Code, all costs for maintaining the common property of the house are divided between the owners in proportion to the area of their apartments, and since the adjacent territory belongs to joint property, payment for street light falls on the shoulders of the owners. Costs for street lighting are calculated using a common building meter and are included monthly in the residents' receipts.

Reference! If it is not documented that the territory around the house belongs to common property, the inclusion of such a line of expenses in the payment receipts is unlawful and can serve as the beginning of legal proceedings.

Returning home in the dark is much more pleasant and safer in the illuminated courtyard than getting to your own apartment in the dark, flinching at every rustle. The lack of light in the yard is a reason to contact the management company or administration.

Installing street lighting in a summer cottage or in the courtyard of a private house is a very important task that requires a comprehensive solution. Unlike an apartment in a multi-storey building, the situation outside of which is not entirely of interest to the owner, owners of their own houses need to control the area around it. And it’s much better to take a walk in the fresh air in the evening along the illuminated paths of your yard.

At first glance, installing a street lighting system for the courtyard of a house seems simple. However, for the entire complex of equipment to operate normally, it must be correctly selected and installed. Read on to learn how to make lighting in your garden plot.

Types of courtyard lighting in a private house

Lighting in a summer cottage or garden plot performs three functions:

Technical. It consists of illuminating the area to ensure safety of movement around the area in the dark. For this purpose, buy regular halogen or LED lights. They are placed along the paths.
Decorative. Such lighting is part of the landscape design and serves to highlight with the help of light all the beauty of the flora of the garden plot. Especially often, many owners highlight alpine slides, mini-pools, and flower beds. To provide decorative lighting, colored lanterns of a wide palette are used. To make the picture pleasing to the eye, some decorative lighting systems are controlled by special computers that create real color shows. However, it is worth noting that they are quite expensive and should only be installed by specialists.
Security feature. An illuminated garden plot does not attract petty thieves, who are constantly trying to steal from the yard everything that is “badly lying”. Even if the owners are not at home, the illuminated area will make thieves wonder whether it’s worth going there. Sometimes lighting with motion sensors works better than a security alarm.

Planning lighting for a private yard

No installation of a lighting system is possible without detailed planning. Ideally, a plan should be drawn up for the placement of light sources, indicating their type, connection features, types and sizes of wires, placement of poles, etc. Thanks to this planning, installing lighting on a personal plot will be much easier.

The main place where mandatory installation of lighting fixtures is necessary is the porch of the house and its gate (gate). At night, the owner of the estate must control everything that happens at his gate. As a rule, lamps that illuminate the area in front of the gate are equipped with motion sensors. In this case, the light will turn on when a person approaches the gate. This is very convenient and also allows you to significantly save energy. Typically, LED spotlights are used as a lighting device for such cases, which have excellent light output with low power consumption. Another undeniable advantage of LED lights is their long service life compared to other types of lighting devices.

If there are recreational areas on the site (barbecue area, children's playground, bathhouse with adjacent territory), both it and the paths that lead to it are highlighted. For ease of parking at night, the parking area should be illuminated.

When planning the entire lighting system, it is necessary to clearly understand how they will be connected by electrical cable. The cable can be laid along an overhead line between lighting poles or through an underground tunnel. Each method has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Installing an overhead line is much simpler and cheaper. However, for this operation it is necessary to buy a special cable that will not be subject to stretching under the influence of wind. Also, to hang it, you need to use a special wire that will hold it in the canopy. In addition, during strong hurricanes, there is a high probability of the cable breaking due to strong winds.

When the cable is located underground, it can last for several decades, because external forces do not act on it. True, the cable laid in the trench must be hidden in a metal sleeve, which adds costs to the overall estimate.

Installing lighting poles in a private yard

If there are natural supports for installing lighting fixtures, the task of installing the entire system is greatly simplified. The wall of any building or its roof, etc. can serve as a natural support. For objective reasons, it is undesirable to use tree trunks.

If there are no supports, you must build them yourself. Lighting poles are made from hollow steel pipes and installed on a concrete foundation. To equip it, holes are dug 0.4x0.4 m in size and 0.5 m deep. A layer of sand or crushed stone is laid on its bottom, and formwork is installed. A hole is made in the formwork through which the corrugation is inserted. It is taken upstairs to lay the flashlight connection cable along it. Next, several pieces of reinforcement or thick wire are installed inside the formwork as a reinforcing belt. Then anchor bolts are installed inside the formwork, to which the pole will be screwed. After this, the formwork is filled with concrete. Concrete is prepared using a cement-sand mixture in a ratio of 1 part cement to 3 parts sand. When the places for installing the pillars are ready, the pillars are installed in a vertical position with mandatory leveling. The adjustment is made using metal spacers.

The wires are laid in a trench with a depth of at least 0.7 m. The distance from the power cable to the nearest building must be at least 0.5 m. The bottom of the trench is filled with sand or screenings. The cable is placed in a protective metal sleeve. After the cable is laid, the entire system is connected. The lantern wiring is connected to the main cable using special terminals. Twisting of wires in this case is unacceptable.

When installing a courtyard lighting system, special attention must be paid to the choice of power cable. It must have a safety margin of at least 25% of the current consumed by all lighting fixtures. For example, if all the lamps in the system operate at a current of 10A, that is, they consume approximately 2 kW, then the wiring should be designed for a current of 13-14A. If you plan to install additional light sources on the site, then it is better to lay the route with a reserve. It is better to choose a cable that is double insulated, so it will be better protected. An aluminum cable is quite suitable for such work; it costs much less than its copper counterparts.

The entire lighting system is assembled on one panel, on which automatic switches are installed to turn off each branch. It is better to make lighting from several branches, as this will make it possible to turn off only one of them for repairs.

Choosing yard lighting fixtures

Currently, the choice of outdoor lighting devices is very large, which makes it possible to assemble a system to suit your requirements. All lamps are divided into several groups. Basically, the division occurs depending on the lamp that is used in it.

Halogen lamps. The glow of halogen lamps occurs due to the passage of electric current through a flask with vapors of substances - halogens, such as iodine, bromine, fluorine, etc. Such lamps are not too sensitive to voltage fluctuations and harsh operating conditions. Therefore, their service life is much longer compared to incandescent lamps. They are also much more efficient than “Ilyich bulbs”, since with the same light output they consume much less electricity. Such lamps are not too expensive.
Sodium. The principle of operation of such lamps is almost identical to halogen lamps. Sodium vapor glows in the bulb of such a lamp. Their glow has a warm, gentle tint, which allows them to be used to create various lighting effects. Another positive aspect in the operation of sodium lamps is their service life, which reaches 30 thousand hours.
LED bulbs. The most modern types of lighting devices. They are characterized by low energy consumption, long service life, and low sensitivity to voltage changes. LED lamps can be built on the basis of one extremely bright LED or a large number of lower power parts. Since the LED lamp is a high-tech product that has a special voltage controller, the prices for these products are still quite high. However, it is worth noting that they are decreasing every year.

Autonomous lamps for lighting the courtyard of a private house

Many owners of areas where frequent outages occur prefer to assemble an external lighting system based on autonomous lamps. The principle of their operation is to be powered by a rechargeable battery installed inside. The latter is charged during daylight hours from a solar cell.

Advantages of autonomous lamps:

Mobility. Since there is no need for wiring when installing stand-alone luminaires, they can be installed and dismantled in a short time. This allows you to remove the system from the dacha plot for the winter if the dacha is not in use.
Low costs for installation work. Some lamps just need to be stuck into the ground, and they will work at the right time. There is no need for electrical installation or excavation work.
Low power consumption. Basically, autonomous lamps are built on the basis of LED lamps, which allows reducing energy consumption several times.