Nothing says summer like a backyard barbecue or bash with friends and family. For those times when your get-together goes on past dusk, you’ll need some outdoor lighting to keep the party lit — both literally and figuratively. Outdoor lighting can amp up the ambiance of your patio, yard or deck, but also help improve your home’s security, safety and curb appeal.

A set of string lights, hurricane lanterns or tiki torches can add some illumination to your exterior hangout spot in a pinch, but professionals offer more permanent options to take your outdoor lighting to the next level. Backyard lighting doesn’t have to be a simple bulb besides your door.

Strategically installed outdoor lighting is a great way to highlight your landscaping as well as the architectural features of your home. Consider illuminating garden areas or underlighting attractive trees or bushes on your property. Cast a light on garden structures or hardscapes.

You can also mount exterior lights on your home to highlight arches, dormers, columns or other interesting or unique design features. Some options for exterior and landscape accent lighting:

Home improvement stores sell products for DIYers, but professionals who offerOutdoor lighting improves home security

Flood lights, which are a good option for home security, can cast a beam of up to 40 degrees — just use these sparingly so as not to annoy your neighbors or contribute unnecessarily to light pollution.

Consider these options:

Continuous lighting: Keeps the lights on all night.

Motion-detected lighting: Flashes on when something or someone moves in proximity to your home — be it friendly visitors or potential thieves.

You can also install a combination of the two types of lighting. A

Have a professional install pathway lighting along your front and backyard walks to provide safe passage around your property at night. You can set your lights on a timer that corresponds to sundown and sunrise depending on the time of year so that no one even has to be home to turn on the lights.

Some ideas: Garden lights that cast a canopy of light can make great pathway markers. Downlights can be mounted on trees or structures to illuminate the ground.

Are you constantly dealing with tripped circuits? What about blown fuses? If you’re experiencing any of these problems as you go about your daily routine, it may be time to consider installing dedicated circuitry in your home. Certain appliances in your home draw more power than others. Without a dedicated circuit, you might experience constant electrical problems. A dedicated circuit ensures enough power is provided to the major electrical appliances, reducing tripped circuits in your Tampa area home!

Maciej Winiarcyzk using more than two thousand digital photographs just over a month ago.

I have never had the privilege of seeing the northern lights in real life, but my sister lives in northern Canada and has told me about them. (She’s a pretty credible source: She even named her daughter Aurora.) After asking her, “What ARE the northern lights,” several times, I now understand the aurora borealis to be a visual effect of the collision of solar wind and magnetospheric charged particles with the thermosphere. Can you see why I had to ask what the northern lights were more than once? The northern lights are most spectacular near the North Pole and during spring and autumn equinoxes. (And, by the way, no. The northern lights are not Santa’s off-season hobby.) But the northern lights, if there are some geomagnetic storms a-brewin’, can be seen closer to home, too, visible occasionally as far south as Chicago or New York.

Anyway, this guy Winiarcyzk is an astronomy enthusiast who lives in Caithness, which is at the tippy top of Scotland. There’s isn’t much light pollution way up there, so it’s a good place for such a sky-minded person to live and enjoy his hobby. Wonderfully, with this time lapse video of the northern lights, we get to enjoy his hobby, too.

Take a look. Have you ever seen anything more lovely occurring in nature? You know, with all this solar wind, magnetospheric particles, thermospheres, and geomagnetic storms, it sure seems like there is a lot more going on in nature than we can readily sense.

As a homeowner, you face loads of trials and tribulations. Home maintenance, jobs, relationships, and plenty more! Life is rough enough without adding the uninvited members of the animal kingdom into your home, and when you find a chewed wire, you’ve unfortunately got just that! But, hey, don’t stress. The experts at Kolb Electric are here to help!

Why do rodents chew on the wiring in my home?

Rodent teeth are very capable of doing serious harm to your wiring. Why do they even chew on wires? Well, interesting fact, that. A rodent’s front teeth never finish growing, so they chew on anything around to control the length of their incisors. Cool fact, but bad news for your wiring!

Rodents chewing on electrical wires can bring you a world of frustration at the minimum, but can be a source of serious harm at worst! An infestation left unchecked can cause:

Well, traps are always an option, of course. But that remedy tends to be a little unreliable. The unfortunate fact is there’s no magical remedy here. There’s no magical rodent-proof wire coating, or specially crafted mouse vacuum. It really comes down to prevention, and failing that, quick action. To prevent a rodent incursion:

What do I do if I already have a rodent problem?

Call a pest-control specialists right away. It’s frustrating, and costs money you didn’t want to spend, but with each passing week you run the risk of paying more than a few lost cracker crumbs. Rodents chewing on electrical wires is no joke, and left unaddressed will leave you in a bad way, electrically speaking.

Once the nests have been handled, call on an electric professional (like us!) to inspect wiring as soon as possible. Damaged wiring can be caught and fixed before you end up with a real costly problem on your hands.

If things don’t go your way and you end up with some damaged wiring, don’t stress! The experts at Kolb would love nothing more than to assist, bringing you the expertise and service you need to set your wiring right again. Contact us today to learn more about our repair and installation services, or to set an appointment!