After the recent long and hot summer, the cool weather of autumn came quite abruptly. It comes as no surprised that homeowners are throwing on additional layers of clothing, and turning up their home thermostats to compensate for the cold temperatures. However, before you touch the thermostat dial, consider the advantages you will have with electrical heating. Higher efficiency, lower maintenance and environmentally friendly – electrical heating is the smart choice for your home, continue reading to find out why.

As there is no need for oil or gas required in electrical heating, there is no combustion, output or waste created when converting electricity to heat. Electricity is 100% renewable so the impact on the environment is much smaller than standard gas or oil heaters. Furthermore, as there is no input in required for electrical heating, the ongoing maintenance is much less. While an electric heater may be a larger initial investment, the cost savings from a reduction in maintenance during the service life is much better.

Electric heating can help you save money every month on your heating costs. In certain situations heating an entire home or building with electricity can cost more as it takes more energy to generate and transmit the heat to the entire building to heat. But where electricity truly shines in focused heating in areas. Rather than heating areas of your home unnecessarily, using smaller electric heaters in the frequented areas of your home leads to much better cost savings.

For example, during the evening you may be spending the majority of your time in the living room and kitchen. Turning up the thermostat would cause your heating system to heat all the rooms of your home that nobody is occupying. Instead, you would turn on your electric baseboard heater in the living room to keep you warm there. You can then turn off the heater when you are leaving the room for bed. This is much more efficient as the heat is targeted to the areas needed most and you are in full control.

Electric Furnaces – An electric furnace would replace your standard gas furnace to heat your entire home. A gas furnace can last 20 – 25 years, while the expected lifespan of an electric furnace is even longer. Because there are more combustible parts in a gas furnace, the maintenance is much higher over the course of its life. This means you will realize more cost savings over the life of an electric furnace.

Electric Baseboard Heaters – Many of you may be familiar with these types of electric heaters. These small boxes are placed just above the floor on the baseboard. They are installed in each room (as desired), and can be controlled individually. When the heat is generated it will rise to the top of the room, in turn the cold air falls and is put through the baseboard heater and the process continues.

If you are looking to make your home more efficient and eco-friendly – electric heating is the right option for you.

The following post is from our new blogger Annie Josey, who is joining Pegasus Lighting on May 21, 2012. Annie is a recent UNC-Chapel Hill graduate who majored in English with a minor in creative writing. Annie wrote this post during the interview process and we loved it so much, and learned a little bit about art in the process, we could not wait to post it to the blog. We hope you like Annie’s first post as much as we do, and can’t wait for her to “enlighten” us even more in the coming months.

In paintings, the depiction of light can create tangible shape, intricate texture and vibrant color. Great painters like Rembrandt, Caravaggio and Manet crafted careers out of working with light, while having very few lighting options for inspiration. Here are a few examples of their work, and how each painter might go about achieving the same schemes with modern lighting:

The employment of lighting in this Manet painting differs greatly from Rembrandt and Caravaggio. Instead of valuing shadow to illuminate dimension, Manet uses full frontal lighting to emphasize color – bright reds, whites and yellows.

It’s full-on spring, and there seems to be a lot of activity in the landscape lighting world. That’s probably because landscape lighting is generally a great and affordable way to significantly improve the curb appeal of your home. Landscape lighting ideas abound on the internet, and, since it’s a popular season for landscape lights, I thought I would curate for you some of the best landscape lighting I have seen out there on the Web.

1. Wall Grazing at Its Finest

Wall grazing is a lighting technique in which light is cast up or down a wall in order to let the light and shadow play off the wall’s texture. Wall grazing works especially well on this wonderfully textured stone wall. Interesting walls like this almost demand uplights to play off their texture.

2. Cinematic Pond Beacon Situation

Very bright light on this structure in the middle of a pond creates a dramatic, almost cinematic effect. Bright uplights on the trees give some context to the attractive structure.

3. Variations on a Path

Using different styles of path light can make the walk to the house much more interesting. Never assume it’s law that all your path lights match. Mixing it up a little gives the eye a lot more to look at, and the outdoor lighting design looks more calculated, in a good way. Instead of the string of path lights that come in a pack, this is conscious design that makes every trip to the front door pleasant.

4. Variation on Variations on a Path

Another way you can break the monotony of path lighting is to place your path lights according to the visual features along the path, like plants or garden ornaments. Setting up the path lights to be spaced a little farther apart and placing them in different proximity to the path – now directly on the path, now set back near some interesting plants – leads the eye farther down the path, which creates a spectacle and gives the eye much more to admire.

5. Path Lighting without all the Path Lights

Landscape lighting doesn’t always have to include path lights. Here, adequate illumination and very attractive lighting design is achieved by uplighting trees and using downlights mounted on the house.

6. Moon Lighting: A Supernatural Experience?

Moonlighting is a technique in which lights are hidden higher up in trees to create an ambient effect. Pretty cool!

7. Under Counter Lights

One really cool outdoor lighting effect is under counter lighting. Led rope, tape, or LED tape rope hybrid can be run under the edge of counter, stone wall ledge, bar, island, or bridge to create a wonderful lighting effect. This is one application in which LED landscape lighting works really well.

8. Water + Lighting =  Awesome

What’s cooler than light fixtures giving an almost otherworldly beauty to outdoor water features? This is my personal favorite kind of landscape lighting. It just provides such a reliably relaxing and comfortable atmosphere. If your home is your sanctuary, you might want to consider this one-two-three punch of water, sound, and light.

9. Shadowy Magic

Moonlighting can also be used to create cool shadows on the path. See that light mounted up in that tree? It mimics the light of the moon, creating interesting shadows on the ground and enough ambient light to see where you’re walking. Great lighting design.

10. Lit Up Night Time Oasis

There are a lot of interesting things going on here. The space feels large and luxurious, in part because that uplight at the back draws the eye directly to the back edge of the space, making the whole spread look larger. The path lights around the perimeter draw attention to the landscaping. Of course, the star of this show is the cove lighting used around the bridge, making it look almost as if it is floating on light. Yes to this.

11. Epic Landscape Lighting in a Park

I mean, this pretty much speaks for itself. The high powered uplights illuminating the tall canopy creates an amazing effect. Not only is it beautiful, but it also represents the dual purpose of landscape lighting: To beautify and to make safer. Urban parks can be dangerous, but this one looks even more welcoming at night.

If you’re in the market for a new generator, then you’re off to the great start. We offer unparalleled service and exceptional workmanship when it comes to finding our customers a whole house or portable generator for their homes. But there are several things to consider if you want to make an informed decision. Whether you’re on a tight budget or you’re shopping for a comprehensive backup for your large home, it’s critical that you get in touch with a professional electrician early on. Only a knowledgeable and skilled technician can advise you as to which make and model of generator would work best for you.