As a proud Houston homeowner, you know how hard you’ve worked to be where you are. Years of schooling, more years paying your dues and working your way up the ladder, and one day you finally arrived. Your home is an outward expression of the success you’ve achieved, and you naturally want it to look its best.
You’ve put more hard work and expense into doing just that, remodeling and landscaping, planting beautiful gardens and trees, and buying the equipment needed to keep it all maintained. It’s a lot of toil and sweat.
And now that you’ve got your home looking good, you’d like to take a break. You want to keep things at the lowest level of maintenance possible, but still maintain your property’s beauty, and to even enhance it whenever possible. Well, you deserve it. But there’s one improvement that’s inexpensive and low-maintenance, yet delivers fantastic results, that maybe you’re overlooking: outdoor landscape lighting.
Many Benefits of Outdoor Landscape Lighting
The one downside to having a beautiful home that people drive by and admire is that it can only be seen during the day. That’s why outdoor lighting is one of the most effective enhancements you can make to your home.
A well-designed outdoor lighting system, designed by a professional who knows how to use it to its best effect, can transform your home at night time, making it even more beautiful than it is during the day. The variety of ways modern outdoor lighting can be used in Houston is amazing. Fortunately, today the availability of lights is not limited to just the spotlights that people used years ago. Today you can create moonlight softly shining through the trees into your gardens, or backlight certain areas with an enchanting glow.
And it’s much more economical than it used to be. Today’s lighting systems use lower voltage than the older 120-volt systems, using only about a tenth of the power, so you can afford to leave them on all night.
Best of all, outdoor lighting is low-maintenance. Once it’s installed, there’s not much you have to do to keep it well-functioning for years. Of course, when it does need maintenance, Unique Outdoor’s professional techs are available to keep it in top condition.
Low Maintenance vs. High Maintenance Lighting Systems
Low-maintenance lighting systems offer significant advantages over high-maintenance ones.
First and foremost, as previously explained, these systems use low energy, as they expend low voltage power – 12 volts compared to the 120 volts used in older lights. As a result, they not only help conserve electricity but also reduce carbon emissions, providing an immensely more planet-friendly lighting option than their earlier counterparts.
The low-maintenance lighting systems also emit a cleaner light that is safer for your home environment. 12-volt lights don’t shock if a wire is cut or becomes loose, unlike the high-maintenance lights. Even a live wire of modern, low-voltage lights presents a minimum risk, eliminating the need to dig deep trenches to bury them deep into the ground. It makes installation as well as repair much easier and less time-consuming and labor-intensive.
Besides the energy efficiency and easy installation and maintenance, low-maintenance lights also provide safety, which is a key consideration when choosing the ideal lighting system for your home or business. When selecting the ideal outdoor landscape lighting especially, another crucial factor is its suitability around water, given the regular downpours in the area.
Fortunately, low voltage, low maintenance lights do not trip the energy source, even in the proximity of water. Apart from regions with frequent rains, it makes them suitable for gardens, yards, and other outdoor areas typically beautified with water bodies such as fountains, artificial waterfalls, rock pools, and swimming pools.
Types of Outdoor Lights
Below is a comparison of the two most commonly used lights in terms of their maintenance needs:
Halogen Lamps
Halogen lamps have been used for a long time. While they emit a beautiful light, these lamps are particularly hard to maintain and pose a safety risk, especially when used outdoors where they can gather decaying leaves or compost, build up heat, and even catch fire. In addition, they have a high energy consumption level, making them a less cost-efficient alternative in the long term.
LEDs
Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) on the other hand is a more viable alternative, as compared to halogen and incandescent lights. They are not only extremely energy efficient, but they also require minimum upkeep, which makes them the right fit for outdoor landscape areas. In addition, they inherently offer a directional light emission over an area of 180 degrees, which means they can offer the kind of targeted lighting that an outdoor space needs.
Furthermore, outdoor environments are prone to various elements like wind, moisture, temperature changes, sun, dust, and debris that can impact the life and quality of the lighting systems. Since the moisture content is high in Houston, outdoor residential lighting must have a minimum maintenance requirement and be able to withstand humidity.
Low-maintenance lights like LEDs offer the perfect solution, as they pose a minimum maintenance hassle and have a longer life span, remaining fully functional for even 100,000 hours or more, in contrast to fluorescent lights that last for an extremely short duration.
Any outdoor area can benefit from low-maintenance lights such as LEDs which beautifully illuminate a space while creating a spectacular targeted light effect with dazzling accents.
Consult the Houston Outdoor Lighting Experts
Unique Outdoor is always available to consult with you on the best options for your individual needs for outdoor lighting throughout Houston. We can help you choose the most affordable and effective layout for your property and help you choose the perfect garden and backyard lighting fixtures in Houston, TX, helping you turn your landscape dreams into reality. Contact us for a consultation and a free estimate.
