NJW, your home renovation Columbus, Ohio company knows the importance of good lighting, inside and out! A little education about outdoor lights can save you a lot of headaches, time and money. And who wants a headache?
Below you will find some do’s and don’ts when dealing with outdoor lighting:
Do’s
- Make sure you plan ahead for your lighting project. Have a budget in mind along with a rough idea of what you want your lighting system to do for you.
- Verify that anyone working on your property has insurance. If they are a licensed contractor they will, BUT a lot of contractors don’t have general liability insurance. That means if something goes wrong on your property – you’ll be using your homeowners insurance.
- Buy quality fixtures. Quality fixtures will cost $75 – $150 per fixture and it should always come with a 15 year to lifetime warranty.
Don’ts
- Make sure your wiring isn’t overloaded with too many fixtures. This common mistake can melt connections, trip circuits and blow fuses.
- Check the capacity of the transformer to make sure you’re not exceeding the total amps allowed.
- Test the voltage at each fixture to make sure you’re within the correct operating range of the bulb. For instance – a 12 volt bulb operates best between 10.8 and 12 volts.
- Be careful when replacing bulbs – don’t replace a 20 watt bulb with a 50 watt bulb. This can cause significant damage to the fixture, wiring or transformer.
- Don’t install path lights in grass. Lawnmowers will destroy them, and no one wants to be replacing the lights season after season!
- Don’t wait too long to replace burned out lights, these lights increase the voltage to other lights on the wire, which can cause your lights to burn out faster.
Contact NJW to help you with your home renovation, room addition and outdoor lighting! We currently build in Westerville, Worthington, Whitehall, Upper Arlington, Powell, Pickerington, New Albany, Lancaster, Hilliard, Gahanna, Dublin, Bexley, Columbus and all of Central Ohio.