Illuminate Your Houston Property With Landscape Lighting

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How to Effectively Illuminate Your Property Using Landscape Lighting

You can create a beautiful landscape that can be enjoyed after dark with the latest innovative Houston Landscape Lighting solutions. Robert Huff Outdoor Lighting is the best Houston landscape lighting company in town! We have the experience, knowledge, and testimonials to show for it. We offer high-quality outdoor lighting services for residential and commercial properties in Houston, Texas

What Do You Want to Accomplish With Landscape Lighting?

Before you invest in Houston Landscape Lighting services, you need to determine the areas that you are going to want to illuminate and the mood that you are trying to create for your home. Do you want to create a soft, romantic mood? Do you want to illuminate the dark areas of your landscape for security purposes? Maybe you have a path that you want to illuminate and mark the boundaries. Finally, you may have a water feature like a pond that you want to draw interest to.

Sketch Out Your Yard With Houston Landscape Lighting

After you have determined what you are trying to accomplish, you need to do a simple sketch of your landscape. In the sketch, make sure to include all buildings, benches, shrubbery, trees, gardens, water features and existing lighting. It is important to realize that the vegetation and decorations in your landscape will either absorb light or reflect it. Finally, estimate the height of all foliage and decor and notate it on your sketch.

Determine Where Your Landscape Lighting Should Be Placed

You will need to decide where your landscape lights should go by matching your reason for illuminating your yard with the foliage and decor in your yard. If you want to illuminate a bench, you may want to use a lamppost. If, on the other hand, you want to create soft romantic lighting, you may want to place landscape lighting under shrubs to create interest. For pathways, opt for stake lights placed along one or both sides of the pathway. Finally, a spotlight can illuminate a water feature. To view, some of out Houston landscape lighting projects click here.

Decide How Much Work You Are Willing To Do

Houston Landscape Lighting can be difficult to install if you are using 120-volt lighting. The wiring must be buried 18 inches deep and encased in conduit to prevent water from getting to the wiring. A licensed electrician must install the electrical components. If you are using low-voltage landscape lighting, you may need an outdoor receptacle and a transformer. The transformer converts the voltage from 120 volts down to 12 volts. Finally, solar-powered landscape lights are the easiest because there are no wiring or chords to deal with. In order to maximize the lighting power of a solar light, it must be positioned so the photovoltaic cell receives plenty of sunlight throughout the day.

Setting a Budget For Houston Landscape Lighting Services

The most expensive lights are high-voltage landscape lights. These cost upwards of $100 or more for each light. In addition to this, you will have the cost of hiring an electrical contractor to install and wire the lights. A lower cost option is low-voltage landscape lights. These can range from $30 to $300 per light; however, they can easily be installed by a handy homeowner. Finally, the least expensive and easiest option is solar lights. Solar lights rely on the sun for power, using its photovoltaic device. There are no installation costs. The cost for this type of landscape lighting will be limited to the price of the solar landscape lights. If you are trying to illuminate an area that has a lot of shade through the day, the solar light will not receive enough sunlight to adequately power the lights. One way to counteract this is to install a solar panel in a bright area of your yard and run wiring to your solar lights. Robert Huff is the leading Houston landscape lighting company to receive recognition for their outstanding work! Make sure to check us out.

Setting Up Your Landscape Lights

If you want to illuminate a single item like a bush, gazing ball, fountain or statue, you may only need a few landscape lights with lower intensity bulbs. Doing this rather than one large spotlight will prevent harsh shadows. Place smaller lights at various angles and various distances to highlight your item. Opt for landscape lights along garden paths and space them equally along the path to ensure the pathway remains illuminated. Finally, opt for blue tinted lights to create a moonlight inspired mood in your garden.

For more insight, check out the Robert Huff Outdoor Lighting blog. If you want to speak with a professional about Houston landscape lighting services, contact us by giving us a call at (713)-861-2000

Why Outdoor Lighting Is Important For Your Houston TX Home

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Top 3 Reasons Why You Should Invest In Outdoor Lighting

Summer has made it to Texas, and this spring we have been enjoying gorgeous weather that is great for outdoor entertaining. We’re very lucky living here and having the ability to enjoy our outdoor areas most of the year. Homeowners all over Texas are ready to spend more time outdoors with the wonderful weather. Therefore, isn’t it a smart idea to create an inviting and warm oasis for your family and guests to enjoy? Homeowners spend lots of money on their outdoor living spaces, including on outdoor kitchens, decks, patios, swimming pools, and much more. However, what about after sunset? What happens then?

Is it time to pack everything up and go back indoors? Or sit around tables full of citronella candles so that everybody smells like smoke and bug spray at the end of the night? What about returning to your vehicles that are parked in front of the house? Not having the right outdoor home lighting Houston for your outdoor areas is inconvenient and also means you are at the mercy of the sun. In addition, there is a security and safety aspect to why outdoor lighting is so important for your home.

Reasons why it is important to invest in good outdoor lighting for your Houston home

1. Overall Experience

The most obvious reason is, of course, that your outdoor entertaining experiences are enhanced by outdoor lighting. Having the right outdoor lighting provides you with the chance to use all of your outdoor features safely and enjoy them after the sun goes down.

2. Your home’s security and safety are increased by outdoor lighting.

There are many ways that outdoor lighting may be implemented in order to increase your home’s security and safety along with the people at your house. Having a well-lit driveway or walk can make a big difference in helping to prevent people from injuring themselves or falling. Outdoor lighting can also help to deter criminals from making your home a target, to give you increased peace of mind.

3. Increase The Curb Appeal Of Your Home

Outdoor lighting can significantly enhance your home’s outer appearance to provide your neighbors and visitors with a very positive impression. Another great reason for increasing your home’s curb appeal is because when you are ready to sell your house, great outdoor lighting can really help to attract the right buyer for your home. It is possible to customize outdoor lighting, which means that Robert Huff Lighting can have our professionals design a lighting system for you that will draw positive attention to the best qualities of your home, including its landscaping and architecture to increase the value and curb appeal of your property.

To learn more about outdoor home lighting Houston TX Services,  check out our website and our blog. For questions or concerns, please Call us now.

Save Money With Outdoor LED Landscape Lighting For Your Houston Home

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Learn How You Can Use Outdoor LED Lighting To Save Money

LED is short for a light-emitting diode. It’s among the more energy-efficient options you have for modern lighting. The efficiency of them makes them quite appealing to many homeowners, and things continue to improve as the technology matures. LED lights aren’t some fad that’s overhyped or going to disappear from the market in the near future, so a lot of homeowners are now confident that they can maintain and even replace LED systems when need be in the future.

How Do LED Lights Differ From Other Lights?

Per the United States Department of Energy, there are a number of distinct features of LED lights that make them quite different from incandescent lights and even other options that are newer, such as CFLs, or compact fluorescent bulbs. To start with, every light-emitting diode is really minuscule in size, like the size of an actual grain of ground pepper. Diodes of various hues combine together in a single light to create the color of white. Altering this mixture of colors allows LED lights to have different tints.

Secondly, it’s quite easy to control the light direction using LED systems. That minimizes your need for shades or reflectors, which sometimes prove to be fire hazards or get too hot if they’re paired with conventional incandescent bulbs. If you have installations such as recessed lighting, LEDs prove to be an ideal choice. If an incandescent bulb is used in such a lighting system, then a fraction of its light gets lost from being reflected into a particular direction, which increases how much energy is necessary for the lighting of that space.

LEDs also get noticeably cooler as compared to CFLs or incandescents. That coolness means they’re safer for you to handle, and it’s also symptomatic of their energy efficiency. On the flip side, incandescent bulbs release nearly 90 percent of their energy simply as heat, and it’s still 80 percent for CFLs.

Also, an LED bulb’s lifespan is about 50,000 hours. In contrast, incandescent lights only last around 1,200 hours. This shorter lifespan drives up the cost in the long run since incandescent bulbs have to be replaced far more frequently.

Landscape Lighting Demands Robust Fixture Quality

LEDs often prove ideal for exterior lighting due to their lack of heat, low maintenance, efficiency, and long-running cost-effectiveness. So, what do homeowners need to look out for if they plan to make the switch to this kind of lighting for their entertainment areas, walkways, yards, and porches or decks? The need to make sure that they don’t just settle for the cheapest possible fixture choices. LED bulbs can last a very long time, but an outdoor fixture has to be constructed to be sturdy and durable so it can withstand the elements.

Want a hint of the expected hardiness? Check out the warranty length. Stainless steel, aluminum, and brass fixtures are usually higher in price than plastic choices, but they’re also in better shape to put up with what mother nature is going to throw at them. If you need outdoor landscape lighting in Houston, make sure to consider, the best outdoor lighting company in Houston.

Comparing LEDs To Compact Fluorescent Lights

CFL bulbs certainly prove to be a rational upgrade above incandescent bulbs when talking about efficiency. Since fluorescent lights typically fit into conventional incandescent fixtures, they’re not that much of an initial investment. They certainly offer you savings on your utilities, but CFLs do have a big downside, and that is mercury. When a fluorescent bulb breaks, it’s often troublesome to clean things up given the gases, but this isn’t an issue with LEDs, so they might make a safer choice if you’re renting any temporary fabric structures.

One final thing to take into consideration is a light’s expected look. LED options can honestly prove disappointing here. Incandescent bulbs often have a rather warm look. Homeowners might expect to get that same attractive glow from even other types of lights. On the other hand, the light from LEDs might seem harsher. They can also emit blue-hued rays which aren’t always expected by people new to this kind of lighting. Fortunately, those that develop LED technology are working on mixing different combinations of the various diodes so that they might mimic incandescents so they offer more various looks.

Get The Right Look By Using Color Temperature

Buyers need to know that new LED lights mean comparing many different options. Your local home improvement store might even have a display at the end of an aisle that demonstrates the different possibilities. At a minimum, the box of each bulb should offer a color description covering the light style emitted by the bulb. Color temperature helps predict just what bulbs are going to look like if they’re turned on.

Call us now or contact us today for more information on starting or finishing a new or existing outdoor lighting project!

LED Landscape Lighting For Your Houston Home

Posted by Robert Huff on

Tips On How To Make The Switch To LED Lighting

Would you like to lower your energy costs? Most people constantly scrutinize their electric bills, and since lighting is something you have a lot of control over, you can also help to control the amount of energy that you use. Although most people know that moving away from incandescent bulbs is more cost-efficient, some compact fluorescent bulbs that are available in the marketplace are expensive and don’t provide the same warmth that incandescent bulbs do. However, there are now LED (short for Light Emitting Diode) bulbs that have arrived on the scene that can be used outdoors as well as indoors.

When you hear LED you might think of the red lights on a ticker style of sign or those powerful small lights on pocket flashlights. However, LED lights can also be used in your yard and home.

6 Benefits Of Using LED Lighting

1. More light is produced per watt compared to fluorescents and incandescent bulbs. They also don’t generate any heat. Those two qualities help to save on electricity when it comes to lighting costs and helps to keep a room cool that can get overheated when incandescent bulbs are used.

2. Are hard to damage or break compared to incandescent and fluorescent bulbs.

3. Have longer useful lifespans (60,000 hours estimated) compared with incandescents (only 1,000-2,000 hours) and fluorescent tubes (about 30,000 hours). A quality LED light can give you 17 years worth of use or even more.

4. LEDs dim when they start burning out. This is preferable, especially in safety situations (basement stairs, garages, etc.) compared to an incandescent of CFL (compact fluorescent light) where the only way that you know it isn’t working is when the bulb doesn’t illuminate when you flip the switch.

5. LEDs light up fast.

6. There is no mercury contained in LEDs like there are in CFLs.

The one drawback that LED lighting has is the upfront cost. They are more expensive compared to conventional lighting technologies. But you usually can recoup your costs within one year by having to replace the bulbs less frequently and by having lower energy bills.

Indoor Uses

You might have your own personal lighting preferences, but generally speaking, “natural white” and “cool light” are great options for general ambient lighting and also spaces that need more task lighting, such as home offices, studies, and kitchen. A yellow hue is cast by incandescent lights. When LEDs are used you have more flexibility for using the lights throughout the different rooms in your house.

Generally speaking, natural white and cool lights are reliable options for most spaces and uses, however, a “daylight” or “natural” bulb is recommended for reading.

Outdoor Uses

Some people say that UV lights are something that many bugs are attracted do, and there are some LED lights that don’t emit UV light. So it may be worthwhile to explore LED landscape lighting options for your backyard to help reduce how many insects your lighting attract. LEDs have long lives, so they are ideal for those hard to reach lights that are on the exterior of your house, whether they are lights that need to be turned off and on frequently, back and front door lights, or floodlights.

Call us now or contact us today for more information regarding starting or finishing a new or existing outdoor lighting project of yours!

Outdoor Lighting For Your Houston Home Part 2

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Coming Up With A Plan For Your Outdoor Lighting With The Top Outdoor Lighting Company In Houston TX

When it comes to outdoor home lighting in Houston TX, Robert Huff Outdoor Lighting has a lot of great options available. We will create a beautiful outdoor space by coming up with a plan before installing the lighting.

Start by identifying the areas of your yard or garden that you want to illuminate. From there, decide how much light each area requires. For instance, an outdoor deck or a driveway will most likely need brighter light than a small flower bed that is located off to the side of your yard. 120 V lighting, which is typically required for decks, patios, garages, and other areas with bright outdoor lighting, should be professionally installed since it can be dangerous to work with that much electricity. Make sure that any outdoor light fixtures are UL-listed and that they are designed to be used outdoors.

Areas where less light is required such as pathways usually require a lot less power. Because these smaller types of lighting only require 12 to 15 V, the cords can usually just be plugged into outdoor outlets, making them quick and easy to install. Because the installation process is so easy, you can do it yourself without the need to hire someone to do it for you.

Coming Up With A Lighting Layout

Once you have a better idea of the different types of lighting that you need, you can then go on to the next step in the planning process, which involves creating a map of your outdoor space.

Get Inspired

One great way to get inspired is by driving through your neighborhood and checking out how other nearby houses are lit. Take note of any lighting that you find particularly attractive. For instance, if you see a house that has beautiful pathway lighting, jot down a few notes about how it is laid out so that you can re-create a similar look for your home.

Write It All Down

As you evaluate your landscape, write down notes about the different types of lighting that you want to install at each location. Try not to use the same type of lighting for everything. Mix-and-match lighting styles to create a well-rounded, diverse design.

Map It Out On Paper

To get a better idea of the overall lighting plan, consider mapping it out on graph paper. Start by drawing an outline of your house to scale on the paper. Then, draw in any large elements of your landscape such as trees, flower beds, or driveways. Make sure to jot down notes about where your outdoor outlets are located and where your breaker box is mounted.

Experiment With A Flashlight

Before you invest in light fixtures for your outdoor space, try experimenting with a flashlight to create different lighting looks. This can help you decide what style of lighting you want in each location. For instance, if you are considering using a spotlight on a tree, place a powerful flashlight at the base of the tree pointing upward. This will help give you an idea of how the spotlight might look after it is installed so that you can decide whether or not it is the right choice for that part of your yard.

As you put together your plan, make sure to think about your neighbors. Avoid pointing any lights in their direction or installing lighting that could be distracting. When installing pathway lights, space them far enough apart that your sidewalk or pathway doesn’t look like a landing strip.

Finally, when choosing outdoor fixtures, make sure that they work well with the architectural style of your house. Make sure to check out the top outdoor home lighting Houston tx company in town!

If you would like more information about the services that Robert Huff Outdoor Lighting offers, check out our website. For immediate assistance call us at (713)-861-2000

Residential Outdoor Lighting Ideas For Your Houston Home

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Houston Residential Outdoor Lighting Designs

Our passion is residential outdoor lighting Houston. Here, we are always trying out new ideas that are both innovative and creative. They show off the beauty of the great outdoors. Come, explore our ideas on residential lighting to get inspiration for your next design.

Bring The Inside Outside

A lot of our contemporary lighting fixtures appear to look much like the stylish indoor lighting you’re used to. From pendant lights to modern floor lamps and even drop lights, we can help you to design and create your own ideal outdoor lights. Your outdoor area will look both chic and unique. If you have a design aesthetic that you want to show off, you may want to focus on some of this inspiration.

Consider Both Safety And Security

With our innovative designs, you don’t have to sacrifice your safety for style. There is a way to get the best of both worlds. Consider LED lights along the path. Your guests will appreciate being able to see along the way. Your architectural lighting and landscape can all double as security lighting on your property. this way, intruders will be seen and your family and friends can navigate to and from your home safely.

Set The Mood

What mood do you want your outdoor space to show? Quiet? Fun and exciting? How about relaxing? Regardless of whether you’re hosting the most fabulous pool party, or just relaxing in the great outdoors, you can still create the ideal ambiance with your outdoor lighting. There are many great adjustable solutions that will allow you to design your outdoors and set the mood. We can help you to design the ideal outdoor spaces.

Remember: Less is Always More

When it comes to residential lighting, less is always more. You don’t need the brightest or the largest, you simply need to subtly accent the best features in your outdoor areas. You can use simple lighting which is far more effective at showing off your yard. Designers can assist you in your lighting as you go.

Call or contact us today with any questions you might have. Visit our blog for more outdoor lighting tips and tricks.