There is a lot that goes into an electric exterior sign that many new business owners may not know. This is why we have a lot of questions for clients when they first reach out to us to get a storefront sign or another type of building sign. One of the first things we do when we are starting on a new building sign is visiting the location to do a site survey. The initial site survey is important because it allows us to measure the storefront and the building frontage to determine how large the sign can be and to get a look at how easily we can hook up the sign.
The measurements not only help us determine a good size for the sign based on the sign area, but it also helps us determine the maximum square footage of the sign that is allowed by the city. This may not be common knowledge, but signs do require a permit from the city. The maximum size for the sign is typically determined by the width of the frontage of the building or storefront and the ratio is dependent on the city. We have years of experience pulling sign permits from different cities in the Los Angeles area so you can be assured that the sign we quote you will be up to city standards.
Most storefronts have electricity running to the fascia, but we can still run into issues with the wiring. If we can access the area behind the wall, or get into the wall itself, we may need to mount the sign using a raceway. A raceway is a metal box that holds all of the wirings for the sign. As you can see from the photos, the letters are all attached to the raceway in the shop. The sign is installed as one piece, and just the raceway needs to be wired and the entire sign can be lit.