At Kolb Electric, some of our favorite projects we do involve lighting design and installation. Well done outdoor lighting design is one of the most impressive projects you can undertake, and when done properly, it can add curb appeal and value as well as safety and utility to your home. There are a number of important design considerations to make to ensure your outdoor lighting is as effective as possible, including:

Think about your indoor living – outdoor lighting should graze your home’s exterior and go up—not in. When installing outdoor lighting, it’s important to make sure none of your lights shine directly into any windows in your home, creating an annoying and disruptive spotlight effect.

Keep entranceways visible – you especially don’t want spotlights in any entranceways in your home. Spotlights shine directly into your and your guests’ eyes, and can cause them to miss steps while approaching. You don’t want your lighting to interfere with anyone trying to walk through your front door. If it does, the lighting isn’t making your space any safer—it’s making it worse!

Maintain balance with coach lights – coach lights, which are wall sconce lights you see outdoors in many homes, should be incorporated into outdoor lighting in a way that enhances the whole light scheme’s design. This may involve dimming the coach lights so the whole design looks elegant and balanced and the elements don’t compete.

Maximize the spread of light – one of the most important things to consider when designing an outdoor lighting scheme is making sure the light is evenly spread across the exterior of your home. You don’t want any dark spots that will look awkward and may present a security risk. The right outdoor lighting designers can even help get around issues such as decks and porch overhangs blocking light to a second floor.

Light walkways correctly – path lighting is one area where outdoor lighting can go very right or very wrong. If you use high quality path lights with a large light spread, it’s easy to get the perfect look with just a few fixtures. One mistake many people make is using too many fixtures, which can end up creating a walkway that looks like an airport runway!

Use lighting to enhance your landscaping – using outdoor lighting effectively involves finding ways to highlight specific features of your home, from low-growing flowers and bushes to trees and anything else you want to showcase.

The outdoor lighting designers at Kolb Electric will take these and many other considerations into account when designing the perfect outdoor lighting setup for your home. If you’re ready to get started, call us today!

This episode of Operation Build aired nationally on the History Channel Saturday morning, April 18th at 8 am and on H2 April 25th at 7:30 am.  In case you missed it, here is the link…

See a home transformed as good lighting turns into great lighting with the latest innovation and exquisite lighting design. 

Architect/Lighting Designer Joseph A.  Rey-Barreau and Capitol Lighting President Eric Lebersfeld meet Operation Build.

Lebersfeld of Capitol Lighting and Rey-Barreau of the American Lighting Association (ALA) invite us in for an exclusive tour of one of South Florida’s luxurious estates as secrets of turning good lighting into great lighting are revealed.

Don’t miss this opportunity to get the latest lighting information and see for yourself how great lighting makes a world of difference in the look and feel of your environment.

With so many options in LED (light emitting diode) and CFL (compact fluorescent) lamps, the creative design capabilities are vast and lighting designers are implementing decorative schemes that are truly amazing.  Rey-Barreau offers the latest lighting techniques and an insider’s view of the incredible changes taking place in the lighting industry.

See more with Rey-Barreau at 1800lighting.com:

As I’ve said before, I’ve spent years in the electrical business working hard to help people save money and keep safe.  But I’m not really any different from any other American.  At the end of the day, I get to lay down my work for a while and come home to my wife and children, and I want nothing more in all the world than for them to be happy and safe.  For me, that’s one of the places where being a parent and being a Top Garland electrician can come together.  I have the expertise from my trade to do what any parent would want to do; make your home safer for your family.  Which makes this story I’m about to share with you hit me even harder than it would otherwise.  I can’t think of anything worse than something like this befalling the people I love.

Not so long ago, a mother in Texas was bathing her five and six year-old children when disaster struck.  A hair dryer, plugged into an outlet nearby, was accidentally pulled off a nearby counter, and wound up falling into the bathtub.  The current from the hair dryer quickly passed into the bathwater.  Neither child survived.

What makes the story even more tragic is that the deaths of these children could have been prevented with an investment of less than sixty dollars in equipment and labor costs.   Specifically, installing a GFCI or Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter, could have saved the lives of these children. The home the family lived in was an older home, and as a result the circuit in the bathroom wasn’t equipped with this simple yet incredibly important piece of equipment.

A GFCI is designed to quickly interrupt the flow of electric current when it detects that the current is imbalanced, which is a sign that current’s passing through something other than what it’s supposed to, like a person.  This can be a danger when we’re dealing with outlets close to water; the composition and chemical structure of water make it an extremely effective conductor of electric current.  It doesn’t take very much water, either; unplugging an appliance with your hand in a small amount of spilled water on a counter top can cause you to suddenly complete a circuit to the ground, giving you a very nasty shock.

As you might expect, this means that a GFCI should (and by code, must) be installed anywhere there’s a electric device close to water. This isn’t limited to kitchens and bathrooms either; GFCIs should also be installed on outlets located in garages, near any counter top, near pools and hot tubs, and on any external outlets.

We don’t always think of external outlets as needing a GFCI, but they do; remember, any electronic equipment you use outside interacts with the elements.  Using an electric lawn care device, like a weed whacker or electric mower on wet grass can be dangerous, especially if you happen to run over the cord, which could create a circuit between the electricity and the ground through your body.

One of the most common issues I see where GFCIs are lacking, and could be potentially dangerous, lie where there is plenty of water:  your swimming pool.   Older pools, like older homes, may not have a GFCI installed on the pool light located under the surface.  Over time, the seal that keeps water out of the pool light can break down; if and when they do, it can turn your pool from a fun place to spend time to a place to get to get your goose cooked in the blink of an eye.

Although all outlets like the ones listed above must be equipped with GFCIs according to code, this hasn’t always been the case.  Older homes, like the one where those two children were killed, may have been built before these regulations were put in place.  If you have any question whatsoever I strongly recommend that you contact a Top Garland electrician as soon as possible to perform an inspection.