Title 24 Requirements for Car Dealerships
Much of a dealership's regulated lighting is outdoors. The Energy Code defines the outdoor sales lot and the sales frontage, gives each its own allowance in Table 140.7-B, and draws a firm line between where cars are displayed and where they are driven or parked.
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What counts as sales lot
An outdoor sales lot is an uncovered paved area used exclusively to display vehicles or other merchandise for sale. The definition then takes a great deal back out: internal and adjacent access drives, walkways, employee and customer parking, and vehicle service or storage areas are hardscape, not sales lot. Table 140.7-B adds that driveways and parking stay hardscape even where the sales lot surrounds them on every side.
That boundary decides the calculation. The sales lot allowance is per square foot of display area, luminaires must sit within five mounting heights of it to qualify, and what is granted is the smaller of the table value and the power actually installed for the purpose.
Frontage is separate, and not everywhere
Outdoor sales frontage is the part of the sales area's perimeter immediately adjacent to a public street, road or sidewalk, and it earns an allowance per linear foot — in lighting zones 2 and above only; zone 1 has none. A site may claim one or two frontage sides, and a corner lot may claim two adjacent sides only where each has a different principal viewing location. Qualifying luminaires must sit between that viewing location and the frontage.
Sales canopies follow the same pattern: an allowance within the drip line in zones 2 and above, none in zone 1.
Motion sensing on the lot
Luminaires lighting outdoor sales lots, sales canopies, parking and general hardscape need motion sensing where the bottom of the fitting is 24 feet above grade or lower. The control must be able to cut power by 50 to 90 per cent, and separately switch off, within 15 minutes of the area emptying, with no more than 1,500 watts on one sensor. Fittings rated 40 watts or less are exempt. The controls are acceptance tested on the outdoor lighting form.
The showroom glass
Prescriptively, window area is capped at 40 per cent of the gross exterior wall area or six feet times the display perimeter, whichever is greater, and the Compliance Manual names automobile showrooms among the buildings that cap affects. Display perimeter counts only exterior wall that immediately abuts a public sidewalk, so a showroom set back behind its own sales lot may have little or none to claim.
Where to go deeper
Every allowance above changes with the site's outdoor lighting zone, which is the first thing to establish. The workshop behind the showroom is assessed on its own terms — see the auto repair shop requirements for the service bays.