**9 Minute Read Time**
Landscaping and lighting go hand-in-hand. During the day, the sun keeps your beautiful home- scenery bright. At night, however, personalized lighting keeps your outdoors strategically illuminated. When it comes to outdoor lighting, you can’t be sure you are satisfied with the final product until the sun goes down; that’s when you know whether the job was done right-or not. Let’s look at the types, benefits, and the cost to install landscape lighting.
Are Expensive Landscape Lights Worth it?
Your home should not look like this at night:
Your home should look something more like this:
Landscape Management Group strives to provide the best value and experience when it comes to your home landscape-lighting–or otherwise. We manage your project from A-Z, create a 3-D design model preview based on your expectations, and even create a calendar so you can observe progress from your computer or phone. You should be able to look out your back window and observe a seamless landscaping transformation!
Why is Landscape Lighting So Expensive?
Obviously, price and value is always going to be the main concern when it comes down to the total cost to install outdoor lighting. In a perfect world, everyone could afford a $10,000 outdoor lighting setup, but realistically that cost isn’t in most people’s budgets. Most people want to cross the bridge where the price tag meets quality and therefore creates a supreme value for their home.
So let’s cut to the chase, how much does it cost for an average person to have quality lighting put up? Most landscape lighting projects span anywhere from $2,000 to $7,500. Most often, spending less than $2,000 doesn’t give you a great bang-for-your-buck after considering the setup costs of the lighting system. This flux in price is determined by the quantity of lights, size of the lighting transformer powering the system, and of course the quality of fixtures.
Your system may include pathway lights to provide a glow for a dark path; porch lights for stepping outside after dark, downlights for a pergola or pavilion, uplights for illuminating trees or walls, and of course flood lights to accent your beautiful home during the night. All these are combined in the cost of a complete outdoor lighting experience. Each and every light has a place in your already personalized landscape to keep it shining after dark
Do Outside Lights Need to Be On their Own Circuit?
The short answer to this question is, yes and no. You may say, “That isn’t a real answer at all!” And you would be right. Outside landscape lights don’t need to be on their own circuit, but in order to keep your home lighting safer–they do need to be separated–so if the outside goes out, you still have the lights on inside. The biggest problem here is Mother Nature. Lights look great at night on a cool summer evening, but during a rainstorm, snowstorm, tornado or anything else lights can quickly malfunction. If you are planning a landscaping project, this means planning ahead of time will help immensely. This is so wires and circuits can be buried or properly protected.
Steel-Wired-Armored Wires (SWA)
Speaking of protection, making sure wires are steel-wire-armored (or, SWA as it is commonly referred to) will help drastically. They will do a few things for your lighting:
- Protect Against Animals: There are plenty of critters around Ohio and the Midwest who would love to make your light setup, their lunch. Squirrels, rodents, and hedgehogs can gnaw through and tear regular PVC wires as opposed to SWA.
- Protect Against Weather: Huge storms can expose shallow-buried wires and fixtures very easily. And at some point, no matter how deep the wires are buried, a connection is made with a surface light and water will get in if not properly insulated.
- Protect Against Wear and Time: No matter how strong or well-built your lighting system is, time will do its thing. Who won the race? The turtle. Why? Because it was persistent. Mother Nature has incredible patience, and no feelings are involved to deter her course. SWA wires ensure a worthy defense.
Now, let’s get to the surface. What kind of lights do you want glowing up your backyard?
Are LED Landscape Lights Worth it?
Most LED landscape lights are designed to work in outdoor environments. They can produce wide beams of light, up and over 100 degrees wide. So quickly, let’s look at costs to install outdoor flood light alternatives. Most flood lights cast no more than 45 degrees, which means LED’s have far greater capability. An expensive flood light can cost over $500 for installation. For a quality flood light however, expect to pay around $200-300.
Low-quality flood lights can be installed for under $100, but probably won’t last long enough to brighten your landscape for years to come. If you plan to set up multiple flood lights or have a large property, the total project cost can add up quickly but it is well worth the investment.
LED Lights vs Traditional Incandescent
Well, for one thing, LED lights are brighter-especially when compared to traditional lights. Beyond the brightness (which is the most important feature) there are many other benefits including: A long lifespan, energy efficiency, optimal cold weather performance, design flexibility, dimming capabilities, and almost no heat creation (traditional lights often use 80% or more of your energy and simply produce heat instead of brightness).
LEDs were invented in the 60’s and have advanced in many different ways, like durability and energy efficiency. Now, LED lights are in their third generation. They can be switched on and off very quickly, without flickering or needing to warm up. They also require far less voltage than other lights, which brings down the cost of outdoor lighting. This means that if you decide to throw, say, a pool party, you can rest assured the lights will be just fine in the event of a monsoon cannon ball (or other displaced water) and won’t cost you an enormous energy bill if you leave them on all evening.
Is it worth the cost to install landscape lighting?
Well, landscaping lighting is an investment. Like we have explained earlier, there are LEDs, flood lights, pathway lights, porch lights, downlights, uplights, and other creative lighting fixtures for your landscape. Additionally, there are other accent light features which may be less appreciated, but make a huge difference. Examples of these are: step lights, garden lights, bollard lights, string lights, post lights and other accent lighting.
What makes these lights even more exciting is when you begin to experiment with different colors. All of this combines to create your dream outdoor environment, enjoyed as an evening experience. That is why the cost to install outdoor lighting is worth it!
Love what you see and ready to get started? Here are the steps to get the process started with Landscape Management Group:
From Start to Finish, We Get the Job Done!
From the original consultation all the way to the finished project, we truly don’t miss a beat! That is why we strive to be the best. We are very proud to be an industry leader. We think you should just go straight to the sources and check our Reviews on Google, that way you can decide who is really the best around! Click here to schedule your professional consultation!
