Drake Lighting

Painting your tower used to be the most cost effective way to make your tower visible to aviators if you required daytime marking. Painting meant switching between orange and white paint on the tallest part of your tower. The paint must meet specific criteria, as well. The Federal Standard for colors that you must use on your tower are #12197 "aviation orange" and #17875 "outside white." Not to mention, the paint must be 100% acrylic exterior latex for galvanized steel. The list goes on, and it is harder and more expensive to paint your tower every year.

The regulatory change to the FAA Advisory Circular 70/7460-1L raised the height for a medium intensity tower from 500 to 700 feet. With this height increase, towers were able to stay under the medium intensity lighting realm for 200 more feet. It also reduced the amount of lighting required for taller towers that fall in the 500-700 feet range. In the past, towers ranging over 500 feet required high intensity obstruction lighting, so the daytime application of painting your tower was deemed more cost efficient than purchasing high intensity lighting for daytime marking. Now, towers up to 700 feet can use medium intensity obstruction lighting. Because of this change, tower owners with structures reaching over 500 feet may find that using daytime lighting as opposed to paint becomes the more cost effective option.

The costs of painting your tower can start to get pricy. When you think of the crew that you will have to hire to paint, the downtime needed of your tower being non-functioning in order to paint the tower, the cost of labor, and the reapplication when the paint starts to fade, the dollar signs keep adding up. When switching to a daylight obstruction light, the cost starts to go down. The energy savings of using a LED light, the elimination of paint costs, less downtime for the tower, and less maintenence will save you money in the long run.

The obvious choice when considering your next step for your tower would be to go with a daytime obstruction light as opposed to paint. To be eligible for daytime obstruction lighting, your tower must be refiled for consideration with the FAA. The process is easy for you, just let us take it from here. Drake Lighting will do the refile with the FAA and help guide you through the process of transitioning from paint to daytime lighting.

Think your tower could use an upgrade? Give Us A Call!

PHONE: 270-804-7383

EMAIL: contact@drakelighting.com