Algeria AgencyBranding & design
Having a sign installed: the quotation, the permit, the maintenance
The design is approved; what remains is three comparable quotations, a permit, and lighting that still works in two years.
The article accompanying this one decides what the sign has to do: read at night, at a given distance, in four seconds from a vehicle, and never with an unlit letter. It is a brief.
This page is the project that follows: getting quotations you can compare, getting the permit, having the measurements taken, being present on installation day, and planning the maintenance — which is what decides whether the sign stays an asset or becomes a liability.
The main difficulty is not technical, it is administrative and contractual. A sign commits a wall, often a façade that is not yours, a municipal permit, and electrical equipment that ages — four things that appear nowhere in a mock-up.
The order proposed here is the order of risk: the permit before the final quotation, the survey before the order, and the maintenance decided before installation rather than discovered at the first dead tube.
The permit comes before the order
This is the most expensive inversion in the field and it happens in two thirds of projects: the sign is made, then the permit is applied for, and a constraint turns up that makes the object unusable.
The permit is a municipal matter, and requirements vary from one commune to the next — the point suppliers from outside your town do not know. Some limit dimensions relative to the façade, others prohibit projection beyond a value, others still regulate lighting or colours on certain streets.
The process starts with a visit to the relevant department with a photograph of the façade and a dimensioned sketch. That visit costs a morning and produces the information that determines everything else: what is permitted at that precise location.
Two situations require an extra step. If the premises are rented, the landlord’s written agreement is needed and it is better obtained before filing than during. And if the building is under co-ownership, the co-owners’ agreement is a procedure in itself, with a delay counted in weeks.
Finally, keep the file. The permit obtained is a document that protects you during an inspection, and it is also what a buyer or successor will ask for. It systematically disappears between filing and the moment it is needed.
The survey, before any serious quotation
A sign is made to the dimensions of a particular wall, and that wall is never the one in the photograph. The survey is the step that separates a usable quotation from an estimate.
What it establishes: the width actually available between two obstacles, the height under a balcony or cornice, the nature of the substrate — concrete, brick, cladding, glazing — and the position of the nearest electrical supply.
The last is what produces the surprises. An illuminated sign needs a power supply, and if the nearest is twelve metres away on the other side of a shopfront, the installation cost changes by an order that has nothing to do with the price of the sign.
The survey is done by the installer, on site, and it is legitimate for it to be charged when it does not lead to an order. A supplier who quotes without visiting is quoting a hypothesis, and the gap will appear on installation day, when there is no negotiating margin left.
Take three photographs yourself during that survey: the whole façade from the opposite pavement, the location close up, and the electrical panel. They will serve for the municipal file, for comparing quotations, and for the next installer in five years.
Three quotations that do not compare
Sign quotations are notoriously incomparable, for a precise reason: they do not describe the same object, because nothing obliges anybody to describe the object.
The same "3 m illuminated sign" can mean a box in coated steel or in aluminium, economical or long-life lighting, a face in three-millimetre or five-millimetre acrylic, a fixed or rail installation, with or without a spare transformer. The price gap between two interpretations far exceeds the gap between two suppliers.
The correction is to write the request once, on one page, and send it identically to all three. It contains: the dimensions from the survey, the type of construction, the lighting method, the thickness of the faces, the fixing method, and the guarantee period requested separately for the structure and for the lighting.
Also ask for three lines nobody supplies spontaneously: the lead time from the order, what is included in the installation — access platform, road occupation permit, electrical connection — and the cost of a maintenance call outside the guarantee.
The last line is what genuinely separates suppliers. An installer with no call-out rate does not do call-outs, which means your first fault will be handled as a new job by somebody who does not know the installation.
What costs, and what does not
The structure of a sign quotation surprises people, because what costs is almost never what the client looks at.
What weighs: the installation itself, which occupies two people and often a machine; the electrical connection when there is none; and the construction of the box, where the difference between steel that will rust and aluminium that will not is paid once.
What weighs little: size, within a range. Going from two and a half metres to three changes the total little, because the installation, the travel and the connection are identical. That is useful information, because many people reduce the size to save money and lose in legibility what they barely gain in dinars.
What costs a lot and shows little: the constraints of the location. A façade on a busy street may require night work or a temporary pavement occupation permit, and both lines are often discovered after signing.
So ask explicitly that the quotation states the planned installation hours and who handles the road permit if one is needed. Two lines, and they avoid the most unpleasant conversation in this kind of project.
The lighting: the item that decides everything
The neighbouring article establishes that an unlit letter is worse than no sign. This section is about what makes a letter go out, because that is decided at purchase and not at failure.
Three elements age at different rates: the light modules, the driver that runs them, and the sealing of the box. In local practice the first failure almost always comes from the driver or from water, rarely from the modules themselves.
Sealing is therefore the item not to negotiate. A box that lets water in gives no warning for months and then fails all at once, and the repair requires a complete removal — that is, the installation cost a second time.
Then ask for two concrete things rather than a promised lifespan. That the driver be accessible without removing the whole box, which halves the cost of the commonest failure. And that the modules used be of a common type, replaceable by any installer, rather than a proprietary model only the manufacturer stocks.
Finally, have a control device fitted: a timer or a photocell. A sign lit at two in the afternoon burns its lighting for nothing and doubles consumption; the device costs little and pays back over the life of the installation.
Installation day
Installation takes a few hours and determines irreversible things. Being present is the only control available, and it is often the day the owner has something else on.
Three checks happen before anything is fixed. The exact position, marked on the ground or drawn on the wall, seen from the opposite pavement and not from underneath — perception changes completely with the viewpoint. The reading direction, if the sign projects. And alignment with existing façade elements.
A fourth happens after connection and before the team leaves: switch it on, at night if possible, or by shading. A letter that does not light is fixed in ten minutes while the team is there and becomes a chargeable call-out the next day.
Photograph the finished installation, front on and at an angle, by day and by night. Those photographs are what settle a guarantee discussion two years later, and they cannot be retaken identically.
Finally, collect three documents before the team leaves: the itemised invoice, the technical sheet for the lighting installed, and the direct contact for whoever attends a fault. The third systematically disappears if it is not asked for on the day.
The guarantee, and what it does not cover
Every sign is sold with a guarantee and almost nobody reads what it covers, which produces the same disappointment after eighteen months.
The structural point: the guarantee generally covers the structure and far less the lighting, often for a different period. That is logical — one is an object, the other a consumable — and it means the most likely failure is the least covered.
Almost always excluded: vandalism, exceptional weather, mains fluctuations, and any work done by a third party. That last exclusion deserves attention: having a small fault fixed by a local electrician frequently voids the guarantee on everything else.
So ask, in writing and before ordering, for two separate periods — structure and lighting — and exactly what the call-out covers. A guarantee covering the part but not the labour or the access platform covers very little, since the part is the cheapest element.
And record the guarantee expiry date in the same document as your other deadlines. It is information that is needed once, at exactly the moment nobody remembers it.
The maintenance nobody buys
This is the item that decides whether the sign stays an asset or becomes a liability, and it is the one everybody removes from the quotation to save money.
The reasoning behind removing it is understandable: a new sign needs nothing, and maintenance looks like insurance against a distant risk. The problem is that the failure, when it comes, cannot be handled quickly without a contract — you have to find somebody, get a quotation, wait for an available platform.
What is enough is modest: an annual visit that cleans the faces, checks the sealing, inspects the driver and replaces what is weakening. One morning a year, and it turns a surprise failure into a planned replacement.
The cleaning is not cosmetic. A dirty face loses a significant share of its brightness, which produces exactly the symptom the neighbouring article describes — a sign that no longer reads at night — without a single part having failed.
If the annual contract is not taken, at least put a reminder in the calendar and do the round yourself: look at the sign at night, from the opposite pavement, twice a year. It is free and it catches the weak letter before it goes out.
Premises that are not yours
Most retail premises are rented, and the sign then raises three questions that are only settled at the lease or at departure — never in between.
The first is the landlord’s authorisation, already mentioned: it must be written, even when the relationship is excellent, because landlords change.
The second is what becomes of the sign at the end of the lease. An object fixed to a façade may be treated as an accessory to the premises; writing it down at installation avoids a discussion at the moment of leaving, when the relationship is rarely at its best.
The third is reinstatement. Removal leaves fixings, holes and often a visible mark on the render, and the lease generally requires returning the premises in their original state. Have the removal and façade repair priced at the initial quotation — a line of a few thousand dinars that becomes a four-figure negotiation when discovered in the month of the move.
A last point for short leases: a sign with a three-year payback on a two-year lease is a decision, not an oversight. It can be justified, but it should be taken knowingly, and it often shifts the choice towards a demountable solution.
When the sign already exists
The commonest situation is not installation but taking over: premises inherited with a sign in place, or an ageing sign you hesitate to replace.
The first decision is whether the structure is reusable. A sound box with dead lighting is an object whose faces and interior are replaced for a fraction of the price of a new sign. A box that lets water in or is rusting cannot be saved, and repainting it postpones the expense by a year.
The second is the permit. Taking over an existing sign and changing only the name generally requires a new declaration, because the permit was attached to the previous business. It is the commonest error when taking over premises.
The third concerns the old name. A sign carrying the previous business’s name for six months sends every passer-by to a shop that no longer exists, and it is a daily cost nobody accounts for. If the replacement takes time, a decent temporary covering beats waiting.
Finally, check the electrical condition before any re-energising. An old installation put back under power without inspection is the commonest cause of incident on this kind of equipment, and the inspection costs one visit.
The other point-of-sale surfaces
The sign is the main surface and not the only one. The others follow the same project logic, with lighter timescales and constraints.
The shop window is treated as a surface in its own right rather than as available space. The practical point: vinyl applied to the outer face ages within eighteen months in the sun, while the same vinyl applied inside lasts several years. The price difference is nil and nobody mentions it.
The vehicle requires a decision rarely taken explicitly: full or minimal livery. Full is expensive and is redone with every change of vehicle; minimal — name, trade, number, on both sides and the rear — does most of the work and transfers better.
Interior signage is the most neglected and the cheapest item. The most frequently missing indications are ordinary: where to pay, where to wait, what is at the back. They cost a few thousand dinars and remove dozens of questions a day from staff.
Handle them all in the same project as the sign, with the same supplier where possible. Visual consistency depends on it, and the travel cost is shared across several jobs instead of being paid three times.
What we do, and what we refuse
What we do is bounded. We prepare the municipal file with the dimensioned sketch, we write the one-page request so the quotations are comparable, we attend the survey and the installation, and we assemble the installation file — invoice, technical sheets, photographs, guarantee expiry.
We refuse to start manufacture before the permit is granted. It is the most frequent request, because the administrative delay always falls at the wrong moment, and it is the refusal that saves the most: a sign made and then refused is a total loss, not a setback.
We also refuse to present a sign quotation without its maintenance line, including when the client has already said they will not take it. The line must be visible so that going without it is a decision; removed from the quotation, it becomes a surprise eighteen months later.
And we neither manufacture nor install: we prepare, compare and check. That means we have no interest in which supplier is chosen, which is precisely what makes the comparison useful. There is also something you can do tonight without us: go and look at your current sign after dark, from the opposite pavement.
Frequently asked questions
Do we need a permit to install a sign?
Yes, it is a municipal matter and requirements vary between communes — dimensions relative to the façade, maximum projection, sometimes lighting or colours on certain streets. Start with a visit to the relevant department with a photograph and a dimensioned sketch. And if you rent or are in a co-owned building, the written agreement comes before the file, not during.
Why are our three quotations incomparable?
Because they do not describe the same object. The same "3 m illuminated box" can mean two constructions, two lighting types and two fixing methods, and the gap between those interpretations exceeds the gap between suppliers. Write the request once, on one page, with the survey dimensions, the construction, the lighting, the fixing and separate guarantee periods.
What should we check on installation day?
The position seen from the opposite pavement rather than from underneath, alignment with the façade, and — before the team leaves — full illumination, at night if possible. A letter that does not light is fixed in ten minutes while the team is there. Also collect the itemised invoice, the lighting technical sheet, and the direct contact for faults.
Does the guarantee cover the lighting?
Far less than the structure, and often for a different period — which means the most likely failure is the least covered. Ask for both periods separately and for exactly what the call-out covers: a guarantee on the part but not the labour or the access platform covers very little. Note too that a repair by a third party often voids the rest.
Is annual maintenance really necessary?
It is the item everybody removes to save money and the one that decides what follows. One visit a year cleans the faces, checks the sealing and replaces what is weakening — the cleaning alone prevents the symptom of a sign that no longer reads at night, with no part having failed. Failing that, go and look at it after dark twice a year.
We are taking over premises with an existing sign. What now?
Three checks. Is the structure sound — a box letting water in cannot be saved. Does the permit need redoing: it was attached to the previous business, and that is the commonest error when taking over. And do not leave the old name up: every day it sends passers-by to a shop that no longer exists.
Where we come in
The morning at the counter brings back what decides the quote. It does not give you anything that makes three answers comparable.
- We draft a one-page brief, identical for all three, so the answers can be compared.
- We chase the file to a decision, and date every visit.
- We inspect the fitting at night, lit, before the balance is released.
- We keep the servicing line on the quote even when you have refused it.
If your lease has under two years to run, take something demountable and do not call us about a box fixed to the frontage.
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