Other lighting brands fill their blogs with "10 stunning ideas", solar street lights and false ceilings. Ours is narrower on purpose. Padma makes cast aluminium outdoor fittings in Aligarh: gate lights for pillars, wall lights for elevations, hanging lights for porches and pole lanterns for paths. If your brief is a living room panel or a solar highway pole, we are the wrong shop. If your brief is the gate that faces July, keep reading.
Exterior lighting on an Indian home is metal on stone, wire through a drilled cap, and a door that either shuts or becomes a bowl. The questions below are what I ask before I quote. They are boring, and they save a remake.
Which job is the light doing?
Gate and pillar. A post-top lantern on the cap. Size follows the pillar width, not the Instagram crop, so measure the cap. Gurugram and farmhouse pillars are often narrower than the photo. A lantern that sits like a hat on a pencil is a sizing miss. There is more in how to choose a gate light.
Wall. Elevation, compound wall or veranda return. Wall lights take rain on the face and heat from the plaster, and the same metal rules apply. Mounting height matters for glare into the neighbour's window, which is your architect's call. Ours is cast aluminium, and a finish that matches the gate if both are visible from the road.
Hanging. Porch, pergola or corridor. It is still outdoor if it sees dew. A hanging light is not an indoor chandelier with a fancy name, so ask for the same honesty about the body.
Pole. Driveway, garden path or a society's internal road. We die-cast poles from 2 ft to 15 ft. A path that needs fifteen feet of pole and a lantern that needs a custom size are two different lead times. Custom lantern sizes need a sample and 50 or more pieces, while poles in the stock range are a normal quote.
Don't buy four categories because a blog said "layer your lighting". Buy the jobs you have. Wishlists copied from a catalogue fill trucks with fittings that never get wired.
Body metal before colour
Colour is the last decision and the body is the first. We cast aluminium. Iron can look identical under a shop tube light, but after two monsoons it leaves a stain on white plaster, while aluminium oxidises on the surface and mostly stops. That is why old jobs still call us for a holder, not a new body. Aluminium versus iron is the long version.
Lift the piece if you can. Die-cast has weight, and sheet that photographs like ours doesn't. If you only buy from a photo, ask what the body is and whether the bill comes from the works that cast it. "Bought in Aligarh" is not a material certificate, and buying from the Aligarh works covers the difference.
Humidity, door joints and the green stain inside the glass
Indian humidity works the joints even when the sky looks clear. Water enters at the cap, the hinge or the door lip, dust mixes in, and the glass goes milky or greenish. Buyers blame the powder coat, but usually the lantern had become a bowl, with a door that wasn't flush, a bent latch, or a wire hole in the top with no drip loop.
Before you order, ask whether the door latches. After you install, shut it and check from the side, not only from the driveway. Glass or acrylic keeps the bulb clean only when the door really latches, and "with glass" is not marine sealed. An empty housing means your electrician finishes the weather path. Either way, the joints decide the stain. Clean with a soft cloth and don't pressure wash into the hinge. Finish and climate are covered in powder coat and antique finish.
Match the finish to the site
The finish is powder coat, then antique gold, copper, matte black or grey, and antique is a wipe. Salt air and desert dust age the wipe, but they don't turn aluminium into rust. On an open sea-facing wall, lean towards matte or a darker antique. On a covered porch, antique still earns its keep. We won't print a fake IP number so a tender looks German, and we won't call a wipe "marine grade".
Holder, glass, and empty or with LED
The outdoor holder is B22, and another cap (E27, E26 or B15) only if you asked. Write empty or glass with LED on the quote, and don't assume a bulb is in the carton. "I thought glass was included" combined with a coastal install is how WhatsApp fights start, so say it on the quote.
How many pieces, how fast and whose bill
Household orders of a few pieces are priced at list, and dealer quantities are a different desk. Warranty is a replacement part within twelve months, not cash, and a transit photo is needed within forty-eight hours. Payment, freight and the legal lines are on About.
We already send to Delhi, Gurugram, Faridabad, Noida, Lucknow, Jaipur, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Guwahati and Kochi. You don't need every "idea" on a competitor's blog. You need the right category, the right metal, a door that shuts, and a bill in the manufacturer's name.