With the Holiday season upon us we start seeing more decorations and banners hanging from light poles. As much as we love the added festiveness for the season there are a couple things we need to keep in mind. Banners add EPA wind load which needs to be taken into consideration when installing the banners on the pole. Most banner companies don’t take this into consideration when selling the banners and brackets. LED fixtures often have an EPA of less than 1 SqFt. Most banners are at least 3 SqFt each. Smaller banners or mounted lower on the poles are often not an issue, but larger banners, multiple banners on a pole, and banners mounted at the top of the pole grossly overload the Max EPA rating of any pole.

So what are some solutions for those Holiday banners and decorations? The only definite solution is knowing what your light pole and fixture’s max EPA is. But, some quick fixes are to look at where they are mounted, look for banners that have wind slits that allow wind to pass through the banner and look for flexible or spring mounted brackets to mount to. All of these will help to lower the EPA load.

For more info, check out our Tech Tip Post on EPA