How to Design Your Landscape Lighting in 5 Easy Steps

Landscape lighting is one of the easiest ways to make your home look stunning. People who spot your home from far away would get attracted to it. It adds to the overall exterior beauty of your house. Many times you don’t understand this on your own that a simple dark exterior section of your home which looks dead might start looking beautiful when it is given the proper lightning and in turn, would start looking the most beautiful part of your house. We at top dog electric are ready to help you with landscape lighting in Broward County. Our team has worked on several projects around the city and changed the look of old dull-looking houses into bright modern and trendy houses. Further, let’s have a look at prominently used five steps that will develop a very distinctive and trendy design of your property and it would look stunning as soon as the sunsets. 

Form Ideas for Your Landscape Layout

The very initial thing is to form the ideas about how the layout should be. What all things would suit the exterior and sync in beautifully with already present outer furnishing. One should walk around the area during the day as well as during the night to get a close insight and to generate ideas of how exactly the setting should turn out to be. Gathering the main points and generating a clear understanding of where you could place a beautiful palm, placing juniper shrubs, a beautiful oak tree in corners all these ideas will do wonders to your home. Few hardscape features can also be added in order to enhance the idea of giving your home a rejuvenated look.  The accented stone wall looks beautiful when enlightened amidst a beautiful natural setting, so it will be a win-win if you decide to use it for your exterior space. All these ideas when coming together and are executed with perfection are bound to look at your house, which you have always been dreaming for. There are many other ideas for residential landscape lighting design, all you have to do at your end is to give a thorough screening to your ideas and the collective ideas from skilled individuals and make a precise plan once you are certain about what exactly you want your landscape lighting design to look like. Once you are certain about your decision, the excellence of modern exterior lightning will do all the remaining tricks. They act like the cream on a cake when placed intelligently in the right places. From the narrow ceilings to the deck area, and from the garden corners to driveways and porches, these mini beautiful lights will be the game-changer in the overall transformation.

Make a Sketch of The Landscape

A sketch will help you give an idea of the resemblance of what the layout of your exterior is going to look like.  One should have the idea of the parameter he is about to cover, and then the follow up on inclusion of vegetation, palm trees, oak tree, shrubs, decks, benches, and all the other decoration which you wish and are considering including.  Try to include everything in your sketch which were in your ideas initially, this will let you have an idea that if they fit well in reality.  Assuming the height and length of all the objects to be included is also important. This will give you an idea of how much space each of those objects will take so you can accommodate each of them according to your present dimension.

Select Your Landscape Lighting Fixtures

Nothing is more important than choosing the right fixtures for the area in your pursuit of perfect landscape lightning. Two questions are largely considered, the first is recognizing if you have an existing lighting system, and the second is an assessment of how large is your layout. Choosing between the 120V or 12V landscape lighting system will be essential. Normally, if you have got an existing landscape infrastructure of 120v, only then the lightning system of 120V will be recommended. Or else 120V is an expensive choice and installation is pretty tedious and tricky. In comparison, a low voltage lighting system of 12V which is supplied through a central power supply is much recommended. There are recommendations of many lights that can be used in the process; they are namely path and area lights which are assumed great on illuminating walkways. Then there are accent lights, which can be placed under shrubs or other placed architecture and they would enlighten the beauty of them to a different extent. Then there are in-ground lights that illuminate the driveways and walking paths, wall wash lights used for generating wide light on a façade or garden wall to make it look beautiful. There are also hardscape fixtures, submersible, and other indicator lights which make the overall landscape of the house look exactly how you dreamed it to be. The electrical contractors in Broward County will give you an exact idea of what light will fit was to give a perfect look to your place.

Fixture Spacing

This process, in particular, can be subjective; a length of 6 ft wire is normally required for the spacing of landscape lightning, let us discuss how much distance is generally kept between different flashes of lightning.

A 10-inch distance is usually recommended between the path and area lights. One has to understand that their work is to guide a person across the path not to illuminate it. With accent lights, almost 4 fixtures might be required for a big tree or statue, and for the small ones 1-2 might be enough. Wall wash lights can be placed about 1-2 ft from the wall so that they can cast the light in the right way and one can spread these lights on a distance of almost 6-8 ft. with hardscape fixtures a strip of almost 3 inches would be enough for small areas and a 6-inch strip if a larger area is being covered.

Wire Runs, Power Supplies, and Final Layout

When you are almost done with all the above processes, it’s time to bring your lightning system to life. If you ended opting for a 12V low voltage lighting system, one transformer would be more than enough to run your entire landscape lighting. All you have to do is to select the right size of the transformer, which should have a wattage capacity ranging anywhere between 75 to 600 watts. A powerful transformer will leave you with on option of expansion. If you wish to add more to your landscape lighting system after a while, you will not have to worry about the existing setup. The usage of powerful LEDs has already bought a revolution in lighting technology and these LED will be the main architect of your overall illuminated lighting landscape. 

Also, Read about: - The Difference Between Lightning Protection and Surge Protection

We at Top Dog Electric are all set to help you with your landscape lighting in Broward County. We have a team of skilled professionals who have been engaged in helping people make their exterior space beautiful over the years. We have the relevant skills and experience to understand your desire and demands and we work exactly according to what you wish to have in your home sweet home.

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Exploring the Do’s and Don’ts of Surge Protector

Our modern-day markets have changed at an incredible pace. You go looking for a gadget useful for your daily needs and you come around tens of other product which captures your attraction as well. We as a society have grown several folds over the years and our spending power has thus improved significantly. That being the reason you see a lot of new gadgets and products in the market, which eventually end up in abundance into our homes. These new gadgets are super expensive, which is kind of justified because of the comfort they bring to our daily lives.  These gadgets have become our new lifelines as they are making our day-to-day work a little easier. But what if someday your house faces an untimely surge, which in turn destroys most of your connected gadgets; it will have serious consequences and would turn out to be a huge nightmare. The data loss, gadget break down and the money wasted are some of the consequences you will have to face. This is exactly where surge protector comes into action. If you have got one at your home, you can easily avert this disastrous situation and be able to save your money and comfort at the same time. Therefore surge protectors guarantee you the safety of your important and expensive gadgets from an untimely surge, sudden changes in the voltage, or any other overcurrent situation formed due to nature’s catastrophic event like a storm or lightning. We at top dog electric have a team of the best Electrician in Broward County and we are more than willing to help you to safeguard your home from any such untimely surges. For the time being let’s try to understand how beneficial it could be to use a surge protector at your place

Benefits Of Using A Surge Protector Device

1)      Affordable Solution

The convenience and affordable cost of using a surge protector are incomparable.  There is no such medium that could be as affordable and the fact that you just have to plug to start the functioning of a surge protector makes it a wonderful option and almost incomparable in its class.

2)     None To Minimum Maintenance

The presence of a surge protector has undoubtedly increased the life span of your electronic gadgets. When there is a sudden surge, you have to invest in giving all your devices a maintenance check to ensure their safety and look after if any of the products has been damaged in the sudden surge. Now with the presence of a surge protector, all this maintenance cost and damage cost is avoided as surge protectors give an ultimate shield of protection to all the connected devices.

3)     No Repairing Burden

The life span of the devices and gadgets in your house gets a major boost with the presence of the surge protector. There are near to no chances that the devices will get damaged due to sudden fluctuations as the surge protector will quickly neutralize the effect. The devices will remain intact for a longer period and you won’t have to worry about that extra money you used to spend on repairing the products when there was no surge protector in your house.

Also, read about: - 7 Reasons to Hire a Professional Electrician for the Needs of Your Home

Do's and Don’ts of Surge Protector

A surge protector is there to help you safeguard your important devices but it has also got its own set of do's and don’ts which one has to follow-

Do's

• Do Keep a Check On Joules

When you consider buying a surge protector, it is important to understand the highest number of joules it can safeguard from. The higher the number of joules it safeguards from, the better chances it creates to keep your devices safe in case of huge surges.

• To Confirm The Count Of Ports

You will most likely see a surge protector with AC sockets that are universally used. But in case you need more, you can rather choose the surge protector which has a USB port like PD charging and USB fast charging.

• Do Opt For An Environment-Friendly Device

It is very important to look for the products which are least harmful to the environment and thus considering the same, one needs to look for the surge protector which is energy efficient and is therefore also helpful in cutting down on its running cost.

• Do Place It In An Area Where It Is Visible

It Is important to place it in an area where you could often easily put an eye on it to be sure that the surge protector is working fine and is safeguarding your other electronic products.

• To Ensure The Security Parameter

Many similar devices claim to be following the safety standards and boast about the features of protection from electric leakage, flame retardant casing, and a good light indicator for showing the grounded connection but unfortunately, they are not necessarily true. So one has to be extra cautious while buying a surge protector and make sure that all the claims of safety standards turn out to be true.

• Do Watch Out For Certifications

Multiple certifications confirm the authenticity of the device. So one has to look for CF, ROHS, and FCC to be sure about the product you are buying is legit.

We at top dog electric provide all the important information about surge protection in Broward County and if you still have any confusion about the surge protector, don’t waste a second to connect with us and let us help you in your best interest.

Don’ts

• Don’t Buy A Power Strip In The Name Of A Surge Protector

People often get confused between these two products and they do look similar too but are very much different. A surge protector will save you from untimely surges, overvoltage but that is not the case with a power strip.

• Don’t Overload The Protector

The surge protectors come with a wattage capacity and you can’t connect all the devices simultaneously. Make sure that you only connect the compatible device and do not, in any case, connect the home appliances like microwave, oven, or heater to be safe.

• Don’t Daisy Chain

If you have a daisy chain protector you have created a huge mess for yourself. It will overload the protector and will destroy not only the protector but all the devices connected to it.

• Don’t Place Them Near Damp Ambiance

Never in any situation place your protector near damp places which include the area near the washroom or the water sink.

• Don’t Get Frustrated With Child Safety Shutters

Child safety shutters present in the surge protectors are very important and keep children safe from any shock if they are trying to put objects in the outlet in the wrong way. But this shutter might irritate you too sometimes, so instead one should look for the proper guidelines.

We at Top Dog Electric are trying to spread awareness of how important these surge protectors are and with a team of the best electricians in Fort Lauderdale, we assure to solve all your problems from surge protection.