A residential tower repeats one balcony dozens of times, and the wall light on that balcony gets repeated with it. This note is for the architect, builder or dealer who has to name one compact outdoor wall lantern for every flat in a block and then order it in quantity. The full range of 56 codes is on outdoor wall lights. Below are the ones at 13 inches tall or less, sorted by how they sit on a shallow balcony wall.
Every code here is cast aluminium with a powder coated finish. The sizes are height by width in inches, read from the dimension drawing on each product page.
What a balcony asks of a wall light
Flat balconies are tight. Most are a metre or two deep, and the light goes on the side return wall or on the wall beside the sliding door, where someone walks past it every time they step out. A lantern on a long arm at shoulder height will be knocked by a drying stand, a broom handle or a door shutter swung open in the wind. So on a balcony, settle how far the fitting stands off the wall first, and the style after.
The second thing is the view from outside. From the society road or the next tower, a balcony light is seen as one dot in a grid of identical dots. If two flats on the same floor end up with different codes, or the same code in two batches of finish, the elevation shows it at night. Builders who have handed over a block before tend to fix the code in the specification and keep it there.
Exposure changes with height as well. The lower floors are often sheltered by the floor above and by trees. Higher up, an open balcony takes wind driven rain on the wall face during the monsoon, and the lantern is closer to that rain than a ground floor porch light ever is. Our monsoon note on gate lights covers the body and finish side of this, and wall lanterns face the same weather.
Nine compact codes compared
The table groups the codes by how far they come off the wall, judged from the product photograph and drawing. Confirm the projection on the drawing before you finalise a code for a narrow balcony.
| Code | Finish | Height × width (in) | How it sits on the wall |
|---|---|---|---|
| PWL 2564 | Raw Grey | 6 × 7 | Flat rectangular plate with a leaf pattern cut in front of the glass, fixed close to the wall |
| PWL 2806 | Raw Grey | 12 × 6 | Half lantern with a flat back, glass on three faces, no arm |
| PWL 2801 | Matte Black | 13 × 5 | Slim half lantern with a flat back, the narrowest body in this list |
| PWL 2563 | Raw Grey | 8 × 8 | Round frosted disc on a short stem and base plate (New Collection) |
| PWL 2504 | Antique | 12 × 6 | Upright lantern with a finial on a curved arm |
| PWL 2503 | Matte Black | 13 × 7 | Upright lantern with a flared roof on a wall bracket |
| PWL 2569 | Raw Grey | 13 × 5 | Round lantern hung below a short scroll arm (New Collection) |
| PWL 2554 | Antique | 13 × 7 | Lantern hung from a swan neck arm |
| PWL 2550 | Green | 13 × 7 | Lantern with pointed arch panels hung from a curved arm |
The first three suit the tightest balconies, where a person passes within arm's reach of the light. PWL 2564 is barely larger than a switch plate cluster and works on a balcony that also serves as the utility area. PWL 2806 and PWL 2801 give a traditional lantern outline while staying flat against the wall, which helps when the elevation is classical but the balcony is small.
The arm mounted codes need a little more room. They suit a deck style balcony or a terrace flat, where the light sits on a wall nobody brushes past and the lantern shape can be seen from the road. Choose them for the larger units in a block, such as the penthouse terraces, and keep the compact flat codes for the typical floors. Pick one family of finish for both so the building still reads as one design.
A sample count for one tower
The numbers in this section are illustrative. Take a tower of 14 floors with four flats a floor, each flat with one balcony that gets one light. That is 56 pieces of one code. Add a few spares from the same lot for the society's maintenance store, because a replacement made a year later can differ slightly in finish from the first batch. Say 60 pieces in all.
If the top floor has two terrace flats that take an arm mounted lantern on the parapet wall, they become a separate line on the same order, two or four pieces of a different code in the same finish. Ordering both lines together means they are coated, checked and dispatched as one consignment.
A count of this size is well past 10 pieces, where trade lots begin. Freight to the site city is quoted on top of the ex-works price, and shipping explains how it is worked out. For how projects of this kind are usually planned with us, see lights for builders and societies.
Points to settle on the drawing
- Fix which wall takes the light on the typical balcony plan, the side return or the wall beside the door, and keep it the same on every floor so the lights line up vertically on the elevation.
- Mark the centre height on the elevation drawing so every floor gets the same mark. Where to mark wall lantern height explains how to arrive at that mark.
- Run a concealed conduit to the light point before the wall is plastered. A surface cable on a balcony wall gets painted over, pulled at and rained on.
- Decide whether the light is on the flat's own switch or on a common facade circuit, since that changes who replaces the lamp later. The lantern itself stays the same in both cases.
- Choose frosted glass where the balcony faces another tower at close range, so the lamp does not glare into the opposite flat. Clear or frosted lantern glass goes through the choice by position.
- State on the order whether each line is a bare housing for your electrical contractor to glaze and wire, or a finished lantern with glass and LED. Lanterns leave the works with a B22 holder unless you ask otherwise, and our note on empty housing against a glass and LED lantern weighs the two for site work.
Sending the enquiry
A typical floor plan, one elevation and a photograph of a finished sample balcony, if the structure is up, are enough for us to suggest a code. Send them with the number of balconies, the shortlisted code and finish, and the city of the site on WhatsApp at +91 70176 62533. Every code in the table is also in the 2026 catalogue PDF, with its drawing.
The balcony advice here comes from the works, from Kunal's father Yogendra and his uncle Dharmendra.