Hello World! Welcome Friends! You’ve probably put a lot of effort and money into your home’s exterior design and landscaping. So, why let it all disappear after sundown? With a flick of a switch, you can roll back the darkness and showcase your home even at nighttime.
When done right, exterior lighting brings your façade and outdoor space to life. While most homeowners choose to go the DIY route for their outdoor lighting, if you want to make a difference between an ordinary design and one with a wow factor, hiring expert outdoor lighting designers like Washington Outdoor Lighting is your best choice.
In this article, you’ll find a few questions to ask outdoor lighting designers to ensure that they’re the right fit for your needs. But before that, understand the reasons for lighting up your home’s exterior.
4 Benefits Of Outdoor Lighting
1. Showcase Home Aesthetic at Night
Outdoor lighting enhances the beauty and curb appeal of your home at night. It helps illuminate pathways, highlight charming features and create an alluring ambiance. Strategically placed lights can accentuate the best features of your home’s landscaping and exterior and make your home stand out in your neighborhood.
2. Improve Security and Safety
One of the main reasons most homeowners invest in outdoor lighting is to boost security and safety after dark.
With the right security outdoor lighting equipped with technology like motion sensors, you can protect your home against intruders. A well-lit home deters burglars as they become highly visible.
In addition to frightening criminals away, the right outdoor lights can also ensure safety when moving around outside. For instance, outdoor lighting can brighten entrances, doorways, exits, and driveways. You can also use lights to illuminate walkways and stairways, making it easier for people to navigate your home’s exterior and prevent falls and stumbling accidents.
3. Maximize Outdoor Use
Today’s outdoor spaces have become extensions of most homes with outdoor dining spaces, kitchen equipment, lounging areas, and more. With strategically-placed outdoor lighting, your family can use your outdoor space even after the sun goes down.
Outdoor lighting allows you to brighten a large portion of your yard or set a scene for a relaxing night on the porch, giving you more time to enjoy bonding with your family or entertain guests after dinner.
4. Boost Home Value
By improving your home’s curb appeal at night, security and safety, and increasing the usability of outdoor living spaces after sundown, outdoor lighting can also help in increasing your home’s value. It makes your home attractive and more functional, drawing the eyes of potential buyers when it’s time to sell.
Choosing the Right Outdoor Lighting Designer
As you can see, there are several benefits to creating a well-lit exterior. However, you can enjoy these benefits only with a well-planned outdoor lighting design. Hiring an expert is the best option to ensure that you’re getting the most out of your outdoor lighting plan.
But with numerous experts promising the best results, how do you choose the right one for your needs? You do it by asking the right questions. Below are some top questions to ask outdoor lighting designers to determine if they can address your needs best.
1. Do You Specialize In Outdoor Lighting?
Most generalist businesses like lighting contractors, landscape firms, pool and deck companies, or handymen advertise that they provide outdoor and landscape lighting services. However, it doesn’t automatically mean that they have the right knowledge and experience needed to complete the job to your satisfaction.
So, instead of hiring a generalist contractor, it’s best if you can find a specialized niche company that focuses more or entirely on outdoor lighting design.
2. How Long Have You Been In the Lighting Business?
This is an obvious question that most people tend to overlook. Although you can find a niche company specializing in outdoor lighting, you also need to consider its age in the industry.
Expert outdoor lighting designers with years of experience better understand how to illuminate your exterior and create the desired effect. They can help customize your lighting to suit your home’s unique architectural features and garden design.
Knowing what and how to light outdoors, which techniques and fixtures to use, and how to light for both security and beauty takes experience, education, and acumen. Hiring an experienced company to plan your outdoor lighting system can ensure that the end product is one that you’ll surely love.
3. Do You Have Licenses, Insurance, and Bonds?
Most states require experts who design or install outdoor lighting systems to have the necessary license or certifications. After all, they’ll be working on your home’s electricity, so ask for the designer’s license to ensure that you’re working with a legitimate one. Good outdoor lighting contractors will be happy to provide you with their license number.
In addition, designers should have the necessary liability insurance and bond paperwork. Liability insurance can help protect you and your property against potential injuries and damage caused by the company during installation. Meanwhile, a bonded contractor means that it’ll obey laws and regulations when designing and installing your outdoor lighting. Bonds also help protect customers from theft and other unethical behavior of the contractor’s employees while on your property.
4. How Long Will It Take?
As with hiring other contractors, you want to know the timeline for your outdoor lighting project. In general, experienced professionals should have a good idea of how long each phase should take.
The design phase will depend on your communication with the provider as well as the goals you want. In terms of installation, this can be dependent on the weather. Thus, you want to ask for a rough estimate of the timeline. Take note that the timeline for homes to be constructed may also be different for existing homes.
By having an estimated timeline for your outdoor lighting project, you can adjust your schedule to accommodate your contractor.
5. What Is Your Pricing?
The cost will always be a significant factor when starting any home project. Setting a budget ensures that you don’t go beyond what you can afford. So, ask this question as soon as possible.
In general, the cost for an outdoor lighting design project will depend on the size of the project, the lighting fixtures you choose, and the level of support the contractor offers. Thus, you want to get multiple quotations and cost breakdowns from different providers to help you understand if they’re charging a fair rate to find the one that suits your budget.
6. What Type Of Lighting Fixtures Do You Use?
The type of fixture your contractor uses can significantly impact the longevity and overall appeal of your outdoor lighting.
In general, lighting fixtures should endure the outdoor elements and harsh weather conditions. It should also have the right brightness in relation to its functionality. For instance, spotlights should easily illuminate a large area, while pathway lights should have low brightness to illuminate walkways softly.
Reliable outdoor lighting designers should know the right types of lighting fixtures to use in different areas. They should utilize only high-quality and durable fixtures.
You can ask the designer to bring and show you some fixtures to determine if they’re suitable and of good quality.
7. Do You Have Service and Product Warranties?
It’s important to ask an outdoor lighting contractor about service and product warranties. In general, outdoor lighting contractors should provide at least one year warranty for their work and lighting fixtures. Some reputable firms with confidence in their work may even offer five years or even lifetime warranties. Meanwhile, warranties for individual lighting fixtures and components will vary, depending on their supplier.
Choosing a designer and contractor with good warranties ensures quality work and provides you with peace of mind.
8. Who’s Designing and Performing the Work?
Before hiring an outdoor lighting firm, you want to ask who’ll be designing and performing the job. Most contractors will allow newbies and apprentices to design your outdoor lighting and even let them install and complete the work.
However, only a licensed and experienced lighting designer and electrician can deliver quality work that’ll keep you satisfied and free from worries.
9. Do You Offer Maintenance?
Even the best and most durable outdoor lighting system will require regular maintenance. Thus, you’ll want to know if the contractor can also provide maintenance options after installing the initial outdoor lighting design. Regular maintenance ensures that your outdoor lighting system can provide continued reliability and functionality year after year.
Take note that not all providers offer maintenance services. Some may only offer planning, designing, and installation services. Having a lighting system designed and installed without after-service can cause you headaches in the future.
10. Do You Have References?
You want to ask the designer for client references you can consult. Good contractors won’t have a problem providing you with a list of past clients who can vouch for their work. If possible, you should also ask for the addresses so that you can drive by the properties at night. While you can stare at photographs of the designers’ finished work, the opportunity to see their project in person can give you a closer look at their work.
Takeaway
Exterior lighting can make the best of what you’ve got by highlighting your house’s architectural designs and drawing attention to other elements. While you can do this project on your own, hiring experts can ensure that you have an effective and strategically-placed outdoor lighting design that’ll truly benefit your home’s curb appeal.
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