Other lighting brands fill blogs with “10 stunning ideas” and solar street lights and false ceilings. That is their catalogue. 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, 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 not a mood board. It is metal on stone, wire through a drilled cap, a door that either shuts or becomes a bowl. The questions below are what I ask before I quote. They are boring. They save a remake.
1. Which job is the light doing?
Gate / pillar. Post-top lantern on the cap. Size follows the pillar width, not the Instagram crop. 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 error, not a style choice. More on that in how to choose a gate light.
Gate Light 1066Raw Grey · 2 sizes
Gate Light 1037Antique · 4 sizes
Gate Light 1025Matte Black · 3 sizes
Wall. Elevation, compound wall, veranda return. Wall lights take rain on the face and heat from the plaster. Same metal rules. Mount height matters for glare into the neighbour’s window — that is your architect’s call. Our call is cast aluminium and a finish that matches the gate if both are visible from the road.
Wall Light 2520Antique · 3 sizes
Wall Light 2524Matte Black · 1 size
Wall Light 2515Raw Grey · 2 sizes
Hanging. Porch, pergola, corridor. Still outdoor if it sees dew. A hanging light is not an indoor chandelier with a fancy name. Ask for the same body honesty.
Hanging Light 2611Matte Black · 1 size
Hanging Light 2617Antique · 1 size
Hanging Light 2601Raw Grey · 1 size
Pole. Driveway, garden path, society 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+ pieces. Poles in the stock range are a normal quote.
Pole Light 5005AMatte Black · 1 size
Pole Light 5011Antique · 1 size
Pole Light 5002AMatte Black · 1 size
Do not buy four categories because a blog said “layer your lighting.” Buy the jobs you have. Empty catalogue wishlists fill trucks with fittings that never get wired.
2. Body metal before colour
Colour is the last decision. Body is the first. We cast aluminium. Iron can look identical under a shop tube light. After two monsoons iron leaves a stain on white plaster. Aluminium oxidises on the surface and mostly stops. That is not marketing. That is why old jobs still call us for a holder, not a new body. Aluminium vs iron is the long version.
Lift the piece if you can. Die-cast has weight. Sheet that photographs like ours does not. 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. A works is not a bazaar stall.
3. Humidity, door joints, green stain inside the glass
Indian humidity works joints even when the sky looks clear. Cap, hinge, door lip. Water enters, dust mixes, glass goes milky or greenish. Buyers blame powder coat. Usually the lantern was a bowl — door not flush, latch bent, 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 on the quote keeps the bulb side cleaner only if the door works. “With glass” is not marine sealed. Empty housing means your electrician finishes the weather path. Either way, joints decide the stain. Soft cloth to clean. No pressure wash into the hinge. Detail on finish and climate sits in powder coat and antique finish.
4. Finish matches the site, not the screenshot
Powder coat, then antique gold, copper, matte black or grey. Antique is a wipe. Salt air and desert dust age the wipe. They do not turn aluminium into rust. Open sea-facing wall: lean matte or darker antique. Covered porch: antique still earns its keep. We will not print a fake IP number so a tender looks German. We will not call a wipe “marine grade.”
5. Holder, glass, empty or with LED
B22 is our standard. E27, E26, B15 on request. Empty housing, or glass and LED, as the quote says. Bulb not included unless we wrote it. Mixing “I thought glass was included” with a coastal install is how WhatsApp fights start. Say it on the quote.
6. How many pieces, how fast, whose bill
Trade from 10 pieces. One to five at retail list — no dealer discount on a handful. About four days for around ten catalogue pieces; one to two weeks for larger lots. Warranty twelve months, replacement part, not cash. Transit photo within forty-eight hours. Payment, freight and legal details live on About — not repeated here. That is the commercial brief. Pretty blogs skip it. Orders do not.
We already send to Delhi, Gurugram, Faridabad, Noida, Lucknow, Jaipur, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Guwahati, Kochi. You do not 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.
“Exterior lighting is a gate job, a wall job, a path job — not a Pinterest folder.”