Buyer's guide
How to choose a garden lighting installer in Eastbourne
Garden lighting is one of the few home improvements where the difference between a good job and a bad one is invisible on the day it is handed over. Everything that decides whether the scheme still works in five years — fitting grade, joint method, cable depth, certification — is buried by the time you switch it on. These are the questions worth asking before you choose anyone, including us.
Eight questions to ask before you commit
- Is the 240 V work certified to BS 7671?
- Any mains circuit in a garden must be tested and certified to BS 7671, and the certificate is a legal requirement — not an optional extra. Ask who issues it and ask to see it at handover. Purely 12 V low-voltage circuits do not need the same certification, so a scheme that is entirely low-voltage is not automatically a red flag.
- What grade of fitting is being specified?
- This is the single biggest difference between a scheme that lasts and one that does not in Eastbourne. Ask for the material by name: 316 marine-grade stainless steel, solid brass or bronze. Powder-coated aluminium and 304 stainless pit and fail within a few winters within a mile of the sea. Ask for the IP rating too — IP65 or better for anything at ground level.
- How are cable joints made?
- Buried connections should be in resin-filled or gel-filled enclosures, not tape or screw connectors in a plastic box. Joints are where most garden lighting eventually fails, and you cannot inspect them once the border is back in place.
- Do I get a plan before I pay anything?
- You should see a written lighting plan and a fixed price before any deposit changes hands. If you are asked for money before you know what is being installed and where, that is worth questioning.
- What exactly is guaranteed, and for how long?
- Separate the fittings from the labour. Ask for the corrosion guarantee on the fitting bodies, the LED module guarantee, and the workmanship guarantee — they are three different things with three different terms. Get all three in writing.
- What happens if a light stops working?
- Ask how call-outs are charged. A fair structure is: free if the fault is the installer's workmanship, a stated fee otherwise, agreed before anyone travels, with parts, labour and materials quoted separately and approved before work starts.
- Is the scheme zoned and controllable?
- You will not want every fitting on every evening. Ask whether the scheme is split into zones and how it is switched — timer, photocell, app or a physical switch — and whether the transformer has spare capacity for a later phase.
- How is light spill onto neighbours handled?
- Aiming, shielding and beam angle matter as much as fitting choice, particularly on tight plots and at the harbour where light carries across water. A good installer will talk about what stays dark, not just what gets lit.
Warning signs
- A quote given over the phone without anyone seeing the garden.
- A large deposit requested before you have seen a plan.
- No mention of BS 7671 anywhere in a quote that includes mains work.
- Fittings described only as 'stainless steel' or 'weatherproof' with no grade or IP rating.
- Testimonials, ratings or accreditations that cannot be traced to a named source.
- A design that lights everything evenly — garden lighting works through contrast, not coverage.
Why Eastbourne is a harder brief than most
Salt-laden air off the Channel is corrosive in a way that inland gardens never test. Meads, the seafront, Sovereign Harbour and Pevensey Bay all sit in the worst of it, and fittings that would last a decade in a Sussex Weald garden can pit and fail in two or three winters here. Any installer quoting for a coastal Eastbourne garden should be able to name the alloy, the IP rating and the joint method without being pushed.
Read more on lighting coastal properties, or see what a scheme costs.