Service
Outdoor and landscape lighting
Outdoor lighting does three jobs at once: it makes the property safe to move around, it makes it harder to approach unseen, and it decides what the place looks like after dark.
Designing for the property
We start with how you actually use the outside: which paths get walked after dark, where people arrive, which trees or elevations are worth lighting and which would look better left alone. Good outdoor lighting is mostly restraint. Too many fixtures at too high an output turns a garden into a car park and produces glare that makes the dark areas harder to see into, not easier. We aim light where it does work, shield it from where it does not, and think about how it looks from inside the house as well as outside.
Security and practical lighting
Entrances, driveways, side returns and stairs are the places lighting earns its keep. Motion sensing is useful where it is set up properly and irritating where it is not, so placement and sensitivity matter more than the fixture. We also handle lighting for gates, garages and outbuildings, and the circuits for cameras where those are part of the plan. On hillside and canyon properties the runs are longer, which makes conductor sizing and voltage drop a real design question rather than a formality.
The wiring underneath
Outdoor wiring lives in wet, hot and occasionally dug-up conditions, and it fails when it is treated like indoor wiring that happens to be outside. We use fittings and enclosures rated for the location, GFCI protection where required, burial depths and conduit that suit the route, and low-voltage transformers sized with headroom for the run and for fixtures added later. Timers, photocells and control are worth deciding at the start, because retrofitting control to a system laid out without it is the expensive way round.
Common questions
Line voltage or low voltage?
Low voltage suits most landscape and path lighting: it is safer to work around planting, easier to extend, and the fixtures are smaller. Line voltage still makes sense for security floods, longer runs and some architectural lighting. Most properties end up with a mix, and we will explain which is which and why.
Why do my far fixtures look dimmer?
That is voltage drop over the length of the run, and it is the most common fault in low-voltage systems installed without calculation. It is fixed by correct conductor sizing, sensible circuit layout, and sometimes by tapping the transformer differently. We design for it rather than discovering it.
Can you add to a system I already have?
Usually. The first questions are what capacity the existing transformer has left and whether the existing cable can carry more. Sometimes there is plenty of headroom and adding is straightforward. Sometimes the existing system is at its limit and extending it would just make everything dimmer. We will tell you which.
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Tell us what your property needs
Want the outside of your property lit properly? Call (800) 280-0428 for a free estimate.