Landscape lighting is becoming a popular addition to many households. With the right styles and colors of lighting, you can create the perfect nighttime outdoor escape at your property. If you’re still on the fence about installing landscape lighting at your property, here are some of the benefits you can receive from doing so.
1. Curb Appeal
One of the most notable benefits of adding landscape lighting to your property is that it boosts your overall curb appeal. Having a well-lit facade, trees, and a walkway provides an inviting and attractive appeal for your property. Professional lighting can be a great add-on alongside fresh mulch and properly trimmed trees.
2. Higher Home Value
When the curb appeal of your property goes up, so does its value. Adding lighting can be a great way to get a higher resale value out of your home by boosting its perceived value. Many home buyers are willing to pay more for a home with landscape lighting because it’s not a feature that you find in every home.
3. Enhanced Safety
One really great benefit of adding landscape lighting to your property is that it helps to make it safer. It does this in two different ways. First, it helps to illuminate your space so that you can move around without tripping or falling over elevated edges or other objects. Second, a well-illuminated property is a big deterrent for criminal activity. You can significantly reduce your risk of experiencing a burglary by adding outdoor illumination to your property.
4. More Nighttime Living Space
When you add landscape lighting to your property, it makes it more inviting to be outdoors during the darker hours of the day. You can enjoy spending more time cooking, hanging out with family, or just relaxing and reading a book. Exterior accents help provide extra living space for those overnight hours so that you don’t have to be stuck indoors.
5. Lower Homeowner’s Insurance Premium
One lesser-known benefit of adding lighting to your landscape is that it can help you qualify for a reduction in your homeowners’ insurance premium. Insurance companies know that a well-lit property is less likely to experience accidents and thefts. This decreases your risk of filing insurance claims and allows you to be rewarded with a lower rate.
6. Supports Nighttime Tasks
When we get to the shorter days of the year, it can seem like your house is always dark from the time you leave in the morning to when you arrive after work. Fortunately, landscape lighting is a great way to help restore lighting to your property so that you can take advantage of doing more nighttime hobbies and tasks. Whether it’s watering your garden or playing with your pet, you can enjoy doing so in a safely lit environment. You no longer have to alter your schedule according to natural sunlight.
7. More Inviting for Guests
Having a well-lit property makes your home more inviting for guests. More specifically, lighting up your driveway, entry paths, and even your front porch can help to make accessing your property easier for others. This can make it the perfect place for parties, evening get-togethers, and even holiday celebrations, as people will enjoy coming to your property.
8. Discourages Animal Activity
A great benefit of landscape lighting is that it can actually deter animal activity at your property. From raccoons and feral cats to opossums and coyotes, all of them are deterred by light. This can be especially helpful if you live in a rural area with a lot of vegetation. Outdoor illumination can help to put your mind at ease when you have pets that you regularly let outside.
9. Potential for Privacy
While you may think that adding lighting to your property will increase its visibility for your neighbors, that’s not always the case. When you use appropriately placed lights along your property line, you can actually create a more enclosed fence-like feel that makes it harder to see into your property. You can achieve this by using hedge backlights and low-glow uplights.
10. Makes Your Property Look Bigger
One really noticeable difference that can happen when you add landscape lighting to your property is that it appears bigger during the evening hours. Properly placed lights can help create an illusion of visually stretching narrow spaces so that they appear larger. Additionally, using strategic lighting, like uplighting, for your trees and outbuildings can work to make them feel taller and more prominent.
11. Highlights Property Features
Adding lighting to specific features throughout your property can assist in enhancing their individual appearance. Features like pools, fountains, and even trees can all have their appearance boosted with proper lighting. This can provide more of a visual interest for these features during the overnight hours.
12. Accountability
Another lesser-known benefit of having landscape lighting at your property is that it helps you to hold yourself more accountable for keeping up with your property. It can be easy to let your yard become overgrown during the shorter days of the year or keep putting off trimming back your shrubbery. However, when your landscape is illuminated both during the daytime and evening hours, it makes you more likely to take care of it on a routine basis.
Must-Have Outdoor Landscaping Features
There are many different types of landscape lighting that you can use to enhance the look and functionality of your property. One absolute essential is pathway lighting. This provides a necessary purpose of illuminating your walking space to provide more safety for you and your guests. Pathway lighting should be on all of your walkways, entryways, and even the edges of your flower beds for optimal aesthetic appeal.
Other popular types of outdoor lighting are uplighting and spotlights. These provide a wide cast beam that helps to provide illumination for both focal points and dramatic appeal. These can be great for lighting up your flagpoles, household architecture, columns, and even trees on your property. It’s important to be mindful of the beam’s angle. When placed properly, it works to create more natural shadows that can increase the dramatic effect of your lights.
Those looking to create a more natural feel to their landscape will highly benefit from using downlights, also referred to as moonlights. This particular type of lighting casts a stream of light downward, mimicking the natural effects of moonlight. This is perfect for seating areas, outdoor dining spaces, and other similar locations where you’re looking to create a more cozy and gentle ambience.
A very cost-effective type of landscape lighting is floodlighting. This is great for creating a very wide and bright beam to provide better security and maneuverability around your property. Floodlights are typically ideal for lighting up garages, open yards, and driveways. We recommend putting these on motion sensors or timers to help conserve energy.
Professional Landscape Lighting Service
Plumbing, Cooling & Electrical Nerds offers professional landscape lighting for the Southwest Florida community, including Bonita Springs, Naples, Estero, Fort Myers, and Cape Coral. We can also help with all your outdoor lighting and indoor lighting needs. Call our office today to schedule your next service appointment with one of our helpful electricians.
