Tag Archive for: Landscape Lighting

Enhance The Backyard Experience

LED Outdoor Lighting Will Enhance Your Backyard

As warmer weather approaches, we prepare ourselves for the sun’s rays by getting our swimming pools ready for the summer. But swimming pools aren’t just for daylight hours. Some of our most enjoyable pool parties happen at night!

LED lighting not only provides safety but can create amazing aquatic experiences you & your friends or family will never forget.

Outside Lighting Around The Pool

LED lights also illuminate the outside of your pool providing a light that softens and enhances the area around your pool. Install them so that they shine on the trees around your pool to add a structural element to your design.

 

Outside LED lighting will draw your guests to the pool area with the ambiance that you’ve created. Light the pathways and other landscaping to allow your guess to move around the pool safely.

Austin TX landscape lighting designers

Here are some LED light fixtures that you can use on your pool deck to enhance and customize the overall outdoor pool experience.

1 – Under-Rail Lighting

These light fixtures hide underneath the handrails of your steps and cast a faint glow that lights up the spaces between the balusters.

2 – Stair Risers Safety Lighting

Without sacrificing the beauty of your design these lights illuminate the stairs with just enough light so that your friends can maneuver around safely while carrying plates of food and drinks. When people try to move around in the dark, they are too busy concentrating on trying not to trip which definitely decreases the fun factor.

3 – Recessed Deck & Step Lighting

These lights recess into the deck floor so that their surface is flush with your deck. They allow you to light areas that you usually couldn’t because raised lights would be tripping hazards.

4 – Fence Accent Lighting

Place LED lights on the side of your posts and fence to cast a subtle, downward glow to illuminate dark spaces. They aren’t too harsh or bright and won’t shine in your eyes.

5 – Post Cap Lighting

Install these lights under post caps to softly brighten and warm the atmosphere. These lights are one of the most common lighting applications for your pool deck. You may find that these lights detract from the scenery when people sit down because this often puts the lights at eye level.

Here are some landscaping tips around the pool (Video)

Enhance the ambiance of your pool and outside landscape with LED lights. They highlight your favorite structural aspects and impress your guests with customized colors and styles. Make your pool the star feature of parties at night as well as during the day.

Texas Landscape Lighting Installers

 

How Landscape lighting can help sell your home

Landscape Lighting Can Increase Home Value

For home owners, home builders & real estate professionals – how having low voltage lighting can help sell your home. When selling your home, it’s vital to downplay any weaknesses and highlight your home’s best features. Many people think that landscaping and enhancing curb appeal isn’t necessary, but in this case, first impressions are everything.

landscape lighting around swimming pool

You may think that landscape lighting won’t add to your house’s curb appeal. However, landscape lighting design enhances structural details and softly illuminates your home providing a warm ambiance. Soft exterior low volt led lighting can increase the value of your home. Few investments bring you 100 percent ROI, but landscape lighting sure comes close.

Lighting can be everything so let’s learn how to use it to our advantage.

Highlight Your Home’s Exterior Architecture

If you have a beautifully detailed walkway, light it up to draw the attention of potential buyers. Use landscape lighting to cast soft light on hedges, plants, and a beautiful yard. People coming and going from nighttime open houses will picture themselves having family gatherings and parties with friends.

Subtle lighting creates a unique experience for people who visit your home, especially for those interested in buying it. It can provide a feeling of comfort and warmth that people may not realize is a simple landscape lighting design.

Highlight architectural details with uplights. Up-lighting cast light up towards walls and pillars accentuating them with shadows and light. You can also use the right amount of light to silhouette other features of your landscape such as statues or shrubbery. Light and shadow create focal points in your yard and around your house and increases visual interest for visitors.

You can also install lights high up on your house or in trees that cast light down, simulating moonlight. This lighting helps guide people through your property and to the front door. If you have a unique door, you can highlight it with subtle lighting making it a showpiece for interested buyers.

Numerous studies have illustrated that most homeowners prefer a house with a customized, well-designed landscape lighting system. These systems can increase your property value up to 20 percent. The National Association of Home Builders conducted a survey that showed 90 percent of home buyers found outside lighting one of the most desirable exterior features of a house.

Landscape Light Install Prices Schedule Home Lighting Demo

UPGRADE THE OPEN HOUSE EXPERIENCE

landscape lighting increases home values

Imagine the open house set in the evening time, just before the sun goes down. Potential buyers attending an open house when they get to see the home as the sun goes down can have dramatic emotional effect and may drive compelling offers for the home.

CREATE DRAMATIC PROPERTY MARKETING PHOTOS

Help your realty agent by making your home look it’s best! When you include for sale property photos during dusk when the lighting system comes on for the night, you can get some excellent photos that potential home buyers will fall in love with.

ENHANCE HOME SECURITY & SAFETY

Exterior residential lighting serves other purposes than just enhancing aesthetics. The FBI reported that there were approximately 1,401,840 homes burglarized in 2017. Homes with landscape lighting deter criminals because they are more difficult to break into without detection.

Criminals look for places to hide such as dark places near tall shrubbery or areas with obstructed sightlines. Installing motion detectors along with landscape lighting is an excellent component of any security plan. Light up your yard or other buildings on your property such as gazebos, garages, or sheds.

AESTHETICS & CURB APPEAL

Proper lighting also highlights the beauty of architectural features of your home while helping visitors traverse your property safely. You may know where the hazards are, but guests may trip over plants, decking, or other obstructions. Soft lighting illuminates stairs or other drop-offs such as the end of your deck as well. Outdoor lighting also makes your property safer for guests when they are coming or going.

Homeowners appreciate the forethought that goes into creating a safe home environment. That’s why landscape lighting ranks so high on the list of needs for home buyers. Landscape lighting certainly has a dual purpose. You can craft the perfect balance between enhancing your home’s curb appeal and safety with customized landscape lighting.

The combination of added safety and a warm ambiance make landscape lighting an excellent option to increase your home’s value. It’s a great investment to improve the curb appeal of your home and make buyers fall in love with the experience that landscape lighting provides.

GIVE HOME BUYERS WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING FOR

People who buy homes are looking to have as little work to do as possible. Adding a low voltage landscape lighting system to your home prior to selling is not just another expense, you will get that back when the home is sold. Landscape lighting is an investment to your home value whether you are actively selling or not. The bottom line is, the more inviting and awe inspiring you can make the home look the easier it will be to sell.

Don’t let potential home buyers think you cheaped-out if you are one of the few homes on the block without exterior low volt lighting, you wouldn’t want them thinking what else is missing throughout the home!

Landscape led light installers Houston TX

Houston TX landscape lighting designers

More Tips to Increase Home Value (Video)

Landscape lighting swimming pool remote control

How to add landscape lights to swimming pool control system

Our low volt lighting systems are so versatile & adaptable that they can even be integrated into your swimming pool digital control automation system!

landscape lighting swimming pool wireless control system

Pool Automation Controllers + Yard Lights

low voltage lighting control app smartphone

We see that most swimming pools equipment come with digital control centers that have extra features, one of which is the ability to add in backyard landscape lights and have them programmable along with the pool & spa.

Outdoor Lighting, Landscape Lighting, LED Lighting, Hudson Street Lighting, Garden Lighting

This makes it convenient because all of the backyard features are combined into one system and wireless remote.

Power up

There are 2 ways that we can power our low volt light transformers via the swimming pool control box.

Typically, we find that a local GFCI receptacle is added to the side of the load center (control box) and will suffice, when using a weather protected cover, for plugging our transformer into.

Another method, and the most popular, is to power our transformers from an available switch or “relay” within the pool control box.

  1. The side mounted GFCI receptacle on a pool & spa controller is generally used as the protected circuit for the swimming pool lighting system, which makes sense for us to adapt for 120 volts of power supply to our landscape lighting transformers.
    • If the system is missing this component and the control box allows for a “knock out” we can easily add the required power receptacle.
    • If the control box is missing this feature yet supports the addition of 120 volt circuit breakers then we can hard wire our transformer to a breaker slot.
    • Note: This method will require a transformer with internal timer, or a photocell switch for automatic functionality.
  2. Wiring to an available relay switch is the best way to go if you want the lighting controls together with the pool. It allows for you to program the relay switch for LED landscape lights, assign a schedule, and make manual overrides. As most swimming pool control systems now support WIFI & mobile connectivity and landscape lights around the pool this all comes together as the most convenient way to enjoy the backyard.
    • Alexa and Echo integration into your pool control will allow you to voice activate your landscape lighting!

Dial Timer & Landscape Lights

For simple pool control systems, those featuring rotating dial timers, you can still add in the low voltage transformer, but will not have limited capabilities. For simple dial controllers we suggest adding a photocell switch, or you may need to add an additional timer specifically for the light system.

photocell switch for landscape lighting system

Stand Alone Wireless LED Landscape Lighting

If for some reason we are not able to offer a solution for connecting your landscape light system to the pool controls we do offer stand-alone systems with wireless capabilities. Some of these options also include:

  • Home automation integration
  • X-10 switches
  • Z-Wave technology

Through helping so many customers we have learned the installation for the most popular pool control systems installed in the field.

For more information about Digital Swimming pool controllers:

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Disclaimer:

We do not promote home owners to make electrical changes to their home, pool, or landscape wiring. The methods listed here apply to trained electrical professionals and low voltage lighting professionals.

What are the best landscape LED lights?

Which Landscape LED Light Should I Use?

When choosing which types of landscape lights to use, there are several questions to ask. What application will the light be used for? What effect are you looking for? Does the manufacturer matter for my job? How will the project be zoned or laid out? There is not one blanket answer for any of these questions.

 

Therefore, you should always consult with a professional (like us) to help design and install your landscape lighting projects. Your professional installer can answer all these questions except one. What effect are you going for? We’ll try to help educate you on your options so you can make the best possible choice.

How many lumens do I need for backyard lights?

How many lumens do I need for backyard lights

When determining the desired overall effect, the number one question you should ask is, “what color light do I want?” There is a huge misconception with outdoor LED lights, that many people think they are BLUE in color. This may have been the case several years ago, but higher end manufacturers have perfected the ability to maintain consistency within their LED diodes through a process called “single binning”.

Without going too deep in to the science of the process, the condensed definition of single binning is the act of machine sorting through thousands of LED diodes to capture an average of 20% identical Kelvin temperatures.

This allows the manufacturer to create their product with exact and consistent color deliverance. The 80% un-selected diodes will be sold to the mass-produced manufactures that you will likely find at a big box store sold to the general public. That is why you will notice that their products will give you a range of kelvin temperatures, rather than a specific 3000k rating. If you are not sure what to use, the industry standard is always 3000k.

Comparing LED Landscape Lighting Lumens

landscape led lighting lumens comparison

Color temperature is expressed in degrees Kelvin (k). A warm white light might be 2700k – 3000k. A cool white source might be 4000k to 4500k. See the chart below for examples of varying color temperatures.

About Kichler Variable Lumen Output LED Landscape Lights

Another question to ask yourself when determining your lighting selection and design is which techniques do you want to use on your project? Here is a list of the most widely used outdoor lighting techniques.

Path Lighting

pathway LED lighting

Objective: Illuminate sidewalks, stone pathways and lawn walkways while adding a hint of intrigue to boulders and plant beds.

Path lighting is created by placing small fixtures along the borders of walkways, driveways, and patios. A well-planned lighting design can be stylish and achieve desired illumination simultaneously.

Selection and placement of these fixtures is key. Precise placement will allow fixtures to illuminate the path without being an interference for the homeowner or lawn mower.

Wall Wash Lighting

wall wash exterior LED lighting

Objective: Directs the eye to the textures, shape and/or height differences of items in beds, adding depth and ambiance.

Wall-washing creates a soothing, even glow that comes off the wall or structure it’s focused on. Placing the light fixture a few feet away from the feature and directing it at an angle will help achieve the most desired result. Shining the light alongside the wall will allow an even and subtle ambient lighting on the desired area. A wide-angle flood light with low wattage is recommended for this, as opposed to a spotlight.

Accent or Spot Lighting

accent and spot landscape LED lighting

Objective: Shines light upward to illuminate an object or surface for dramatic, attention-getting visuals.

Lighting that draws special attention to a specific feature is considered accent lighting. Specifically angled up-lighting or down-lighting can be used to accent an architectural design, plant, or other feature.

Try using a narrow beam spotlight from a hidden fixture to add a flair of mystery to your accent lighting.

Moonlighting

monlighting landscape lighting methods

Objective: This effect looks like moonlight shining down through the branches.

Create moonlighting by placing a large fixture with a full glare guard high up in a tree while angling it downward. This results in attractive shadow patterns on the ground while also providing a very natural and beautiful lighting effect.

Shadowing

shadowing landscape lighting methods

Objective: To project the look of a tree or your favorite yard art onto a surface behind the object.

Shadowing involves placing the fixture towards the base of a feature, aimed towards an adjacent wall. The goal is to create a soft shadow and is best achieved by utilizing a tree with open, delicate foliage. The effect of the tree’s movement in the wind is sure to integrate a dramatic element to any facade.

The best LED landscape lights for any property

We provide custom designed landscape lighting layouts for property & backyard lighting using exclusively the best LED outdoor lighting products by:

  • Kichler – Diamond Elite
  • American Lighting
  • Bulbrite
  • Jacuzzi
  • Emery Allen
  • Schonbek
  • Framburg
  • Elan
  • Hubbardton Forge

Exterior & Outdoor Products – Residential or Commercial (Generalized)

  • Low voltage lighting transformers
  • Low volt lighting LED lights
  • Mosquito System parts & accessories
  • Low voltage lighting parts & accessories

How much does it cost to install landscape lighting?

Here at Hudson Street Lighting, we don’t want you to be confused at where to start on a new landscape lighting installation for the home or business. That’s why we have created landscape lighting pricing information and starter packages to get you going.

How much does it cost to install landscape lighting?

Exterior Home Lighting Services by Hudson Street Lighting, LLC

Want to see more? Look at our landscape lighting image gallery for some inspiration.

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