11 Jan 2019

5 Important Questions to Ask your Outdoor Lighting Designer

For all those who are planning to transform their outdoor spaces, landscape lighting is the best solution. It adds immense beauty to the aesthetics of your property and provides a good level of security at the same time. There is no doubt that a great lighting scheme can create a warm and welcoming ambience without burning your pocket.

However, to achieve such a level of perfection, it is important that you hire a professional landscape lighting contractor to suggest you the kind of lighting solutions best suited for your landscape and makes the installation process simple and hassle-free for you. But before you head out to choose a lighting designer or contractor, you need to see if that designer qualifies through your set of needs or not.

Here are some important questions that you should be asking your outdoor lighting designer–

Q 1: How long have you been in the business?

This question is the first step in searching for a reputable and trustworthy lighting company. A company who has been in the same line of business from a quite a long time indicates that it typically does good work. By catering to the unique needs of customers each day, the experience and knowledge are bound to get enhanced. Moreover, their well-established presence in the market shows that they are committed to their work.

Q 2: Can you show me your work portfolio and share a list of past referrals?

Asking for the contractor’s work portfolio is indeed a great way to check their expertise with landscape lighting. But at the same time, it is important to ensure that the work images they present actually belong to them. There are cases where few companies mislead people by showcasing work which is not theirs. To avoid encountering such a situation later, it is better to check their customer’s reviews or ratings online. You can ask for a list of past clients from the designing company and contact each one of them to know about their experience. A contractor refusing to provide you with references shouldn’t be relied upon.

Q 3: What kind of lighting will suit the style of my home and the surrounding landscape?

No lighting project can look same as the other. Every property is constructed differently and has different architectural features to be highlighted. So, asking the experts for what kind of lighting solutions they have got for you is important to see if their expertise and creativity would do justice to your property. Remember- only a professional landscape lighting designer would be able to suggest you the right kind of lighting schemes matching the style and color tones of your home.

Q 4: Can you suggest me energy-efficient options?

Planning out a lighting system that works wonderfully in enhancing the beauty of your landscape and home is what everyone looks for. But at the time it is important to look for solutions that help in conserving energy and decreasing your monthly bills. You can do so by asking your designer to suggest you LED landscape options that will help you in saving money.

 

Q 5: What will be the total cost and time duration of the project?

If you are hiring a landscape designer for the first time, make sure you consult multiple contractors to gather information about the prevailing charges in the market particularly for your project. It would probably vary according to the size of the property and the kind of lighting you want for it. Also, ask about how long the installation of lights will take. Having proper information regarding these aspects will save you from getting surprised with bigger-than-expected bills and delays later.

 

10 Oct 2018

Essential Outdoor Lighting Tips

Lights and their strategic positioning have the competence of completely transforming the exterior look of your house. Landscape lights can be both functional and installed to enhance and adorn the decoration of your house. On the one hand, they light up your entire property, thereby keeping you safe from the prowling of trespassers and delinquents, and, on the other hand, they can be the perfect accessory to brighten up the appearance of the house.

Despite the countless options of landscape lights in the market today, you must make sure that you settle down on an option that is congruent to your liking and the overall décor of your house. The choice of landscape lighting is also determined by the manner in which you want to capitalize on the available space in your grounds. Depending on this, you would have to conclude whether you would be in need of illumination along the pathways or driveways, or if you would prefer using landscape lights to highlight a centrepiece in your patio section. If you have a separate area for sports, you might have to choose a different set of lighting fixtures meant exclusively for this purpose.

Enumerated below are a few essential tips that would be of help in guiding you through the process of choosing a particular variety of landscape lighting fixture.

Night lighting in tropical garden Decorative LED lighting in garden to see the garden pathway at night with palm trees.

 

The Layout

Before you proceed with the purchase of landscape lights, make sure that you draw out a plan of what you would like to realize at the end of your project. The landscape lighting on your property is directly dependant on the efficaciousness of the layout that you make after careful inspection of the premises.

While charting a blueprint, be certain to be inclusive of how the exterior lighting looks from inside the house too. This would help you to ensure that the design is synchronized with the all-round look of the house.
Additionally, mark a few focal points on the layout that would be the locus of your exterior landscape. These areas would require special attention while settling down on the lights and it would be wise to choose lights that would highlight them and not overshadow them. Determining the focal point would also aid you in playing around with shadow effects to create more depth and dimension on the premises. Further, be conscious of the difference between ambient and spotlighting. The former is more mellow in tones and brightness and casts a veil of light over an extended area, while the latter refers to the use of strong lighting fixtures to focus attention on one particular part of the landscape.

Lighting Strategies

The three most popular choices of lighting strategies would comprise downlighting, uplighting, and cross lighting. Downlighting is the manipulation of lights in a manner that dissipates the light by pointing it downward. It aims at a softer, more affable glow dispersed over an area. Uplighting would be characteristic of dramatic and bolder lighting that creates strong accents highlighting the best features of the landscape and exploring the shadow effect on greater depth. The lights are pointed upwards, illuminating only a desired part of the property.
Crosslighting is the strategy of cancelling out shadows by using both the upward and downward focal lighting.

 

Other Factors

While choosing the light fixtures for your house, make sure that you are selecting more fixtures with comparatively lower lumen outputs. If you use a lesser number of fixtures, but higher light intensity, it ends up defeating the purpose of landscape lighting. This would create extremely illuminated centres in some areas and leave the great in the dark. This looks unsightly and is not conducive to the safety of your house as well.

 

If you have decided to install landscape lighting in your house, you could consider soliciting the services of Pro Green Irrigation Services to help you navigate through this plan to realize the lighting of your liking.

 

15 Dec 2016

How an Irrigation Sprinkler System Can Benefit Your Toronto Area Garden and Lawn

Anyone with a beautiful backyard knows the feeling of happiness and pride of showing it off to their friends and family.  Once you have laid out the considerable investment on achieving your dream garden you will want to protect it as best you can and keep that proud feeling alive for many years and throughout each season.  One of the best ways to ensure that you are going to be able to do this is to have a professionally installed irrigation system.  Lawn sprinkler systems are designed in a way that is tailored to your unique outdoor space.  The very best lawn sprinkler systems in Toronto are programmable and adjustable in a way that allow you to control and satisfy the unique irrigation system needs of your garden.

When considering the cost of having a lawn sprinkler system installed you have to think about the log term health of your garden.  By utilizing the best irrigation system technology available in Toronto you can guarantee that your plants will always remain perfectly hydrated, even if you go on vacation or forget to water them yourself.

Without a sprinkler system installed, it would be unfortunate to see your perfectly manicured and designed garden lose its unique splendor.  The need for lawn sprinkler systems in Toronto outdoor spaces is equally important for homes that are long expansive lawns.  The expense of replacing your beautiful lawn is quite small compared  to the cost of a one time installation of a lawn sprinkler system.

The ability to program your lawn sprinkler system to work diligently to irrigate specific sections of your garden will not only protect the plants and lawn, it will give you great peace of mind that you do not need to worry about your plants.  Knowing that you can spend your time enjoying your garden rather than constantly maintaining it can be a very relaxing thing.

Lawn watering systems in Toronto can go a long way to helping protect against the changeable weather conditions. The occasional drought or sudden spell of hot weather need not concern you as much when it comes to the health of your plants.  WIth a lawn sprinkler system installed into your Toronto garden you can focus on enjoying the warm weather and sharing the company of your friends at one of your famous barbeques.

Even if you are confident that you are able to satisfy the needs of your garden in all conditions, life has a way of interrupting routines. Even the smallest distraction, or last minute business trip may cause some of the more delicate plants in your garden to be affected to point of needing replacing.  You can install a lawn watering system into your Toronto garden whenever you wish, although the best time is when you are in the early stages of designing your outdoor space.  It is no problem to do this at a later date and in fact you may notice that some areas of your garden require more irrigation than others.

Once you have your irrigation system installed you will marvel at how your outdoor spaces flourish into the vibrant, colorful and spectacular scene you always envisioned. There will still be plenty for you green thumb to accomplish only now you don’t need to worry about watering and you can focus on growing and maintain the aesthetics of your outdoor space.  Your guests will be in awe of your ability to maintain such a beautiful garden.  Lawn watering systems toronto are becoming exceedingly popular and you only have to look around at some of the gardens that have sprinkler systems to see what a spectacular improvement that can have.