Want to know how to install professional-looking landscape lighting? Sure, I can give you some landscape lighting tips. I’ll post a few of my best below.
But first, bear with me, because I just have to rant about what NOT to do with landscape lighting. It’s actually easy to demonstrate. All you have to do is get in your car and ride around after dark. I can almost guarantee that within a few blocks you’ll have passed case after case of really bad lighting installations.
Like the giant square box runway lights that just blast light at a building as if it were daylight, doing nothing to highlight the architecture or evoke a mood.
Or the residence where somebody bought bullet lights and aimed them at a shrub, and it looks like what Moses saw on Mount Horeb: a single bush all alight with nothing but harsh shadows all around.
Or the facade of a house that has a bright, bright light in one spot right next to a patch of blackness so dark the devil could be hiding there. It’s jarring. When will people learn that you can’t just go buy lights and point them at things and expect it to come out looking good?
Now that I’ve got that off my chest, let’s talk about how to do landscape lighting right.
There’s a science to landscape lighting, and an art to it. In fact, I like to think of landscape lighting as a combination of engineering and artistic painting. You have to have the mind of a mathematician and the eye of an artist. Both require finesse.
To do lighting well you need to first understand how the human eye and mind work. It’s important to understand how human beings perceive things, and how lighting levels, color temperatures and contrast impact human emotion as well as human locomotion. (And in case you’re wondering, Joe Schmuck with a truck probably isn’t thinking about these things. That explains a lot.)
In addition to having a modicum of aesthetic appreciation, you also have to understand voltage drop, electrical codes, proper mounting, maintenance, and long term ROI. I”m not going to cover all these things here because it would take a book, but in my mind any competent landscape lighting professional should be well versed in these skills and concepts before hanging out a shingle.
Got these down pat? Great! Let’s move on to the tips. Here are some landscape lighting pointers to help you create a drop-dead gorgeous installation.
First, let’s talk hardware. Your choice of fixture is very important because a poor quality fixture (or the right fixture in the wrong location) will look terrible in short order, and will often create more headaches than it is worth. Here are some things to consider when shopping for outdoor lighting fixtures:
These days, there are literally dozens of landscape lighting manufacturers who between them offer hundreds if not thousands of fixture models.But you won’t find them in a big box store. Do yourself a favor and go to a place that sells high quality commercial fixtures, instead. Here are some brands I can personally recommend:
There are plenty of other outdoor lighting companies, but when it comes to off-the-shelf fixtures to consider in the low voltage line you can’t go wrong limiting your search to these.
Regardless of which manufacturer you go with, be selective about your fixture materials. You want something that will hold up to conditions in your area and stay looking nice for years.
My preference is always copper, but brass and bronze can do well, too. If you really need a budget option, cast aluminum is very cost effective for non-coastal environments. However, don’t use it if you live along the coast; it oxidizes in salt air and will look terrible in short order. If you do go with aluminum make sure it is powder coated for a long lasting finish.
I am not a fan of composites or plastics in outdoor lighting fixtures. They don’t age well and typically look pretty horrendous after just a few years. And by all means avoid steel alloys, unless you really like the look of rust.
While we’re talking about fixtures, it’s worth mentioning that a lighting system is only as good as the integrity of its electrical connections.
Remember, these puppies are going to be lying in the dirt. You want the majority of the surface area of the wire to have contact with the surface area of the next wire. That’s why we don’t think much of the clamp-on puncture type connectors. These offer minimal wire-to-wire connection, which over time leads to less than perfect performance. Instead, we use watertight sealed connectors for a true lug-to-lug water tight connection that resists oxidation over the long haul. It’s like the difference between a lean-in shoulder hug versus a full-body embrace—you know which one is more bonding.
Once you’ve got the basic know-how down, and have your fixtures in hand, it’s time to consider what to do with them. This is the artistry part of it, and it is what ultimately creates the magic.
Here are some landscape lighting techniques we use to improve the nighttime safety and aesthetic appeal of our clients’ properties:
Hopefully these tips will help you to avoid the worst of the common landscape lighting pitfalls and create a beautiful nighttime landscape on your property. But should you decide you’d rather just sit back and enjoy your nightscape without getting your hands in the dirt, by all means give us a call, or request a quote for landscape lighting installation. We’ll be happy to assist!