A patio gets built for summer evenings and then sits dark from October. The planting that took a season to establish disappears at five o'clock. Lighting is the difference between a property you use in daylight and one you use.
Lighting is part of the design-build scope here, coordinated with the hardscape, the electrical and the planting in one plan. Sleeves go under the patio before the pavers do. Wire runs get planned around the irrigation, not through it. Retrofitting a lit seat wall after the cap is set costs more and looks it.
Plenty of it can still be done well. Path, accent and security lighting all retrofit cleanly. What does not retrofit cleanly is anything that wanted a sleeve or a chase, so we say so at the walkthrough rather than after.
Lighting decisions made at two in the afternoon are guesses. We look at what is actually dark and what is worth seeing.
Fixture count, transformer load and which groups switch together. Written, with the fixture types named.
If hardscape is going in, the sleeves go first. If it is already in, we route around what is there.
Fixtures get aimed at night with the system live. That pass is the difference between lit and designed.
Most of it, yes. Path, accent and security lighting all retrofit cleanly. What does not retrofit cleanly is anything that wanted a sleeve under the paving or a chase inside a wall, and we tell you which is which at the walkthrough rather than after the invoice.
Lighting is coordinated with the hardscape, the electrical and the gas in one scope, so it is planned and sequenced as part of the build rather than handed to you as a separate problem to solve.
The path, accent and hardscape work is low-voltage LED running off a transformer. Security lighting at entries and drives is specified case by case.
It depends entirely on fixture count, run lengths and whether anything needs to go under existing paving. The walkthrough and the written estimate are free, so the honest answer is that we will tell you before you commit to anything.
Either during a hardscape or planting build, which is far cheaper because the trenches are already open, or in the autumn, when you get the most nights out of it straight away.
Almost every bad lighting job was specified in daylight. What is dark and what is worth seeing are both night questions.
A property lit as a single zone is either all on or all off. Zoning is what makes it usable rather than decorative.
A lit seat wall wants its chase before the cap is set. Done after, it either shows or it does not happen.
Add four fixtures to a system at its limit and the whole run dims. Load gets calculated before anything is bought.
Fixtures set in daylight and never revisited are the difference between lit and designed. The aiming pass happens after dark, with the system live.
Two trades, one trench, no plan. Coordinating the lighting with the irrigation and the hardscape is the whole reason it runs under one scope here.
Tell us what you are trying to do. We will walk the property and put a written number on it.