One of the easiest ways to increase your home’s security and beauty is to install outdoor lighting. By combining beautiful outdoor lights with your home’s landscaping, you can increase the value of your home while creating a gorgeous outdoor area that you can enjoy at any time of the day. But what outdoor lights are the best? Let the electrical experts at Kolb Electric help.

Like everything, it depends on what you’re looking for with your outdoor lighting. Do you want security for your home, or landscaping? These questions will point you toward not only what style lights you need, but how bright your lights should be.

When you choose to use outdoor lighting for security, you can go in two different directions. You can either:

If you’re choosing to install outdoor lighting for landscaping purposes, it’s important to keep these few things in mind:

Kolb Electric offers outdoor lighting that will increase your home’s:

Beauty – landscape lighting can be used to showcase interesting features in your home’s architecture or your yard! At Kolb Electric, we can design and install outdoor lighting that will illuminate and call attention to your landscape at night. Landscape lighting is a fully customizable way to improve the look of your house after the sun goes down, particularly if you enjoy entertaining or you want to improve your home’s curb appeal.

Security – dark spots in and around your yard can be dangerous, particularly if they are around entry points into your home. With low-voltage landscape lighting, you can shine a light on potential problem areas in your home and deter intruders late at night!

Safety – in addition to keeping your home safe from intruders, low-voltage outdoor lighting can make walking around your yard safer. It can be used to light up stairways, paths, etc. to prevent tripping and injuries.

If you’re a homeowner, you’re probably looking for ways to save energy and money. There are so many hidden costs involved in home ownership, and if you’re not careful, your electrical consumption can be a big factor in those costs. However, it’s easier than you might think to save on energy if you just follow a few simple tips.

If you’re ready to save energy, ElectricMan wants to help you figure out how to do it! We want to be your go-to source not only for electrical service but also for advice and information on all things electrical. A family owned business, we offer quality electrical services at low prices, and we only employ professional, licensed, certified electricians. We’re here to fix any electrical repairs you may need and if an electrical emergency should happen, we’re available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! Visit the ElectricMan website to learn more, or connect with our online community on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google Plus.

I have a great deal of interest in digital photography, but my life is as crazy as anyone else’s. My son, family, and work keep me busy from dawn to midnight every day. I’ve never had time to cultivate any photography skills, even though I’ve always been very interested, sitting on the edge of my seat, if you will, for a chance to take some digital photos in order to learn a little about how capturing light can create astonishing works of art.

My interview with Matthew Danser had given me my long sought “excuse” to try out some photography techniques. But it also required that I put in an honest effort. The thought in the back of my head: These photos are going to suck. Probably a lot. And they will most likely be seen by the thousands of people who visit this blog monthly. Second gulp.

But I’m the kind of person so riddled with ADHD that even my paranoia about being judged on a mass scale can only last about three minutes before the audacity to try anything resurfaces and action is taken. So here’s what happens when a total amateur who has no idea what he is doing tries to “Paint with Light.”

A one-dollar flashlight from – you guessed it – the Dollar General. One dollar. Even. Gotta love it. Especially since it’s all I could afford, seeing as how I’m still paying off the aforementioned Nikon that I bought to take photos of our baby son. (True, a million pictures have been taken of him during his first year-and-a-half on Earth. However, 999,999 of those photos were taken with an iPhone. Go figya.)

THE PLAN, STAN:

The plan was to wait until it was dark in the apartment and do some light painting. I knew that I could use the Shutter mode on my camera to set it to take exposures of up to thirty seconds. I saw that my camera also had an option for bulb release, so, invoking Danser, who recalls how his girlfriend had to hold down the button on his camera for a full thirteen minutes, I determined that if I asked really nicely, I might be able to persuade my wife to hold down the trigger to get exposures longer than thirty seconds. Otherwise, thirty seconds was my window of time to do all the light painting I could.

I started off pretty timidly. I had seen photos online in which people used long exposures to create squiggly lines. The most popular examples are pictures of traffic at night, headlights and tail lights streaming, giving you a sense of the fluid motion of busy intersections. You’ve also seen those nature pics in which streams and rivers and clouds and stars become gauzy with movement because of long exposures.

But what I really like about Danser’s work is the use of color. The effect of running inside the hut and popping off red-gelled flashes shown at the beginning of this blog post (Matthew Danser! And happy lightpainting, everyone!

Office spaces are a place for color temperature of 5600k, we don’t need to quite match this. A level between 5000k to 6000k will do fine for an office environment to prevent sleepiness.

Exposure to non-artifical light (aka, natural light from the sun) is known to this post by luxreview.com that should lead you in the right direction.

From there, ensuring you know all of the rules in your area will be the best route to ensuring you aren’t breaking any laws with an improper lighting system. The added benefit to following these rules is you can drastically reduce any possible liabilities you may incur if you had otherwise ignored these rules. So, we find it best to follow them!

Additional considerations

Not only are the above tips important to consider, but strongly considering LED office light technology can prove to supply the above benefits along with the following:

Energy savings.

It’s not uncommon for companies to list of 9 ways LED beats fluorescent on our blog, it’s certainly worth checking out.

Longer lifespans.

Longer life spans by 2 to 3 times is very common when converting to LED from other lighting technologies, just as much as its very common for the insane energy savings we talked about above.

This has two mains benefits which we always talk about: the less often need to buy replacement tubes as well as fewer maintenance costs to pay someone to replace those lights. We like to think of the second as an indirect way longer lifespans saves you money, and it’s certainly a great benefit.

Conclusion

We’ve not only covered tips to consider when implementing a better lighting system into your office but also why LED might be a great option for doing so while also reducing overhead costs. Hopefully, by following these tips you find your way to a more productive office and lower overhead.

As we gear up for another winter, the Old Farmer’s Almanac warns it is going to be a rough one. Unfortunately, it isn’t supposed to be a wet one. However, bitter cold can make it difficult for the power grid to keep up with the demands of furnaces running everywhere. While the area typically has mild temperatures, there are times when a cold snap can result in widespread power outages. Many folks don’t have woodstoves to rely on and will be forced to ride out the power outage without their heaters. You can keep your family warm despite a power outage with the help of an electrician in Burbank. The team at The Electric Connection is ready to install a standby generator for your home that will ensure you have electricity on the coldest days.

A standby generator is a worthy investment. It can save you a lot of frustration and ultimately money lost by spoiled food and damaged electronics. A standby generator is essentially the same as a portable generator with the major difference being portability. The standby generator is wired directly into your house and is more of a fixture than something you bring out from time to time. Because of its more permanent setup, it is easier for the homeowner to use it when needed.

An electrician will go about hooking the generator up to your Burbank electrical panel. Depending on the size of the generator, you can opt to run the entire panel or a few select breakers. This is something you will want to consider carefully. The bigger the generator, meaning the more kilowatts put out, the higher the price. You will need a high-powered generator to run your furnace. Talk with your electrician or a generator dealer to learn more about the various sizes and what would work best for your needs. Give The Electric Connection a call today when you are ready to have your generator installed.