High-quality lighting fixtures are beautifully crafted, built to withstand the elements and last for years of enjoyment. Photo credit: Diana Bergren.

High-quality lighting fixtures are beautifully crafted, built to withstand the elements and last for years of enjoyment. Photo credit: Diana Bergren.

As daylight continues to shorten this fall, you can extend the time to enjoy your home and garden with an investment in low-voltage landscape lighting. With a wide variety of fixtures and numerous lighting techniques, a low-voltage lighting system adds value, ambience, safety and security to your home.

What’s the Difference?

Many of our clients are familiar with landscape lighting, but may not realize the difference that professionally designed and installed landscape lighting can make in their own landscape. Our lighting professionals design and install lighting to beautifully illuminate your property at night, with just the right mix of technical knowledge and aesthetic sense, using only tastefully designed, high-quality fixtures and materials that are built to last.

A properly lit patio provides just the right amount of ambiance to entertain guests, or to simply relax with your family. Going beyond your patio and selectively illuminating your garden enhances your yard and extends the nighttime beauty your landscaping has to offer. Additionally, defining your walkways or lighting uneven areas such as natural elevation changes or steps, minimizes the risk of trips and falls. Illuminating poorly lit areas near back gates, alleys or alcoves also adds a level of security around your home.

Post lights gently illuminate a deck.  Photo credit: Kichler.

Post lights gently illuminate a deck.
Photo credit: Kichler.

For Our Clients: A Complimentary Lighting Trial

To help our customers visualize what landscape lighting can do for your property, we’ve put together a lighting kit.  We can install this temporary lighting system and leave it on your property for a few days or the weekend.  The kit has a variety of fixtures of different shapes and sizes, which will be used depending on your landscape lighting needs.  Having this kit installed at your home allows you to visualize your yard’s potential, before making the investment.

Contact us to set up a time to have this lighting kit installed at your home.  We also have an indoor lighting showroom with many different fixtures to choose from.

Things to Consider

When considering installing a lighting system, there are three main things to consider: aesthetics, functionality and cost. Aesthetically, the light from an LED fixture has been refined to closely match that of its halogen counterpart. However, choices of fixtures are currently limited. Functional LED’s and halogens are similar; both types enhance your landscaping. Initially, the cost of an LED system will surpass that of a halogen system, yet over time the LED system could save you money. Because LED uses up to 75% less wattage, the systems become extremely energy- and cost- efficient. Also the bulbs in the LED fixtures will never need changing. The chart below compares an average size halogen system to an LED system. You can see that based on using a system for 6 hours a day, the LED system can save over $200.00 a year in the cost of electricity.

Comparative Cost of Electricity: Halogen vs. LED

Another advantage of LED verses Halogen is the lifetime cost of the system.  Assuming an 18-year life of a LED system (40,000 hours), and using the cost of electricity outlined in the chart above, the next chart shows that the entire cost savings of an LED system can be in excess of $3,000.00!

Total Life Cost of a Low Voltage Lighting System: Halogen vs. LED

 

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