Light & Camera Towers: The Equipment Nobody Notices Until It’s Missing
Walk into an active construction or event ground after dark, and there’s a good chance you’ll see them: tall, mast-mounted towers casting light over the worksite or event space, sometimes with a camera mounted on top for surveillance. They’re an easy thing to overlook until the night they’re just not there, and a worksite or event ground goes dark or misses out on crucial monitoring.
At their core, these towers perform two distinct functions that just happen to share the same mast. The lighting side is usually done with LED floodlights, mounted high enough to spread the light out evenly over the worksite or event space with minimal shadows, compared to ground level lighting. Most towers are between 6 and 9 meters in height, which may seem excessive but makes for good coverage with minimal units.
The camera side has come a long way in the last couple of years. While in the past light towers were often just a light on a pole, nowadays it’s common to have PTZ cameras with motion detection, night vision and remote viewing capabilities, turning what used to be a light on a pole into a viable security asset. If you work in an industry where theft is a concern (and who doesn’t have experience with construction site theft?), this can be an invaluable addition.
Power source is often a point of consideration. Diesel engines are still common for isolated worksites without power, but solar-hybrid towers have seen an increase in popularity in recent years, offering quieter operations and no need to source fuel. Battery-powered towers are also an option, usually for shorter-term jobs where the other options would be too much effort to set up.
Mobility is a crucial consideration for many jobs, and one of the biggest differences between light towers and permanent lights. Trailer-mounted towers can be pulled from site to site, while skid-mounted ones are more permanent but can be moved around with a forklift or crane. The whole point of a light tower is to provide lighting and surveillance where and when it’s needed most – and then move on to the next priority when it’s no longer needed.
They’re not glamorous pieces of equipment, and they rarely make for interesting stories. Ask a site manager what they’d do without a light tower, though, and chances are they’ll give you a long list of things that could have gone wrong without them.