Is your outdoor lighting helping or hurting your home? At Kolb Electric, we believe that outdoor lighting is an important part of the overall look and function of your Washington, DC area home. From adding to your home’s security to making it look its best no matter what the time of day, outdoor lighting is an important part of your home. If you’re considering installing outdoor lighting in your home, here are some thoughts you need to consider.

Ready to install outdoor lighting in Washington, DC? Contact the Kolb Electric team now!

Are you considering ways in which you can improve your home’s appearance and security? Outdoor landscape lighting in Washington, DC can do both. By combining beautiful outdoor lighting with your home’s landscaping and adding lighting to areas that are dimly lit, you can increase your home’s value and appeal while decreasing the risk of theft.

Outdoor lighting brings several benefits to your home. Some of these include:

Kolb Electric understands how to design lighting plans for your Washington, DC home that provide all three of these benefits. If you’re looking to improve the look, safety, and security of your home then outdoor lighting is the way to go.

Before installing landscape lighting you will need to know the different types available to you. Here are some common options to consider:

LED lights are low-voltage lights that can illuminate small areas, like individual stairs, garden plants or railings. They don’t use much electricity and last a long time, making them an economical investment. They are available as individual lights, spotlights and rope lighting.

For homes with a pool, pool lights improve nighttime swimming by illuminating the water from below the surface. They can also be installed in outdoor hot tubs.

Pathway lights dress up a path and help reduce tripping hazards. These are often low to the ground and can be solar powered, drawing energy from the sun during the day and then expending that energy with a subtle glow at night.

Security lights light up dark spots in the yard to protect against intruders. Some security lighting is triggered by motion, while other lighting stays on all night long.

Which type of outdoor lighting is right for your home? The answer will depend on your goals. Whether you’re looking for additional safety and security, want to spruce up the look of your outdoor space or simply want to highlight a part of your outdoor space, you can find a landscape lighting option that will fit those needs.

If you’re looking to improve your home with outdoor lighting, you are going to need to make some considerations before you invest. Choosing the right lighting starts with understanding how you want to use it. Here are some considerations you can make.

First, decide if you plan to illuminate a dark area of your yard constantly or if you want to turn the lights off after enjoying them. If you’re going to leave the lights on all night long you may wish to invest in an energy efficient lighting option. The more efficient the bulb is, the less you will be spending on energy bills. Remember that you won’t need much light at night so low-voltage and efficient lighting is a great way to keep the energy bills in check.

If you feel that the high energy cost of leaving the lights on is a bad idea for your budget, consider using motion sensors in areas where you need lights for security or safety. Motion sensors will light up the space when someone is present, adding the safety you’re looking for in your home.

Finally, consider what you’re looking to illuminate. This will help you choose between the two main types of outdoor lights – uplighting lights and downlighting lights.

Uplighting lights shine from the ground up on a surface, like a landscaping feature or a tree. Downlighting lights shine down onto the ground, which can illuminate an unsafe area or highlight a plant you wish to show off. Both can be incorporated into your design as you work to illuminate your yard.

When you have a basic idea of what you want in your outdoor lighting, then the real fun can begin. The Kolb Electric team is ready to help you with the design process, so you can be certain your final project will do exactly what you want and need it to do. As you consider your design options, make sure you take these factors into consideration:

If you are ready to transform your home with beautiful outdoor lighting, Kolb Electric is here to help. Our design team and licensed electricians can help you with the entire process, from choosing the lighting that best fits your needs and tastes to installing it expertly. Let us help you create an attractive outdoor lighting scheme in your Maryland, Northern Virginia or DC area home. Give us a call at 877-287-1179 today, or you can contact us online.

After you’ve been around something for a while, you start to take it for granted.

Things like dissolvable cornstarch packing peanuts.

It took one imaginative 11-year-old boy and an email from a happy customer to remind us just how nifty these little earth-friendly peanuts are.

If you’ve received a shipment from Pegasus Lighting in the past few years, your box most likely had a sticker on it with those words. Inside the box is a note that shares the reasons behind our choice to use biodegradable cornstarch packing peanuts, not the least of which is because they are really fun to play with.

Thank you, Happy Customer, for restoring our packing peanut fascination by sending this great note and photo of your son’s clever art sculpture (whatever you decide that it will be)! Oh, and for the record, I’m voting Rocket Ship.

From movies candle-lit dinners, lighting is one of the most important factors in everything we do.  Science and technology teams around the world have put an amazing amount of effort into developing the sturdiest, longest-lasting lights for any application you can think of.  Color, saturation, brightness, and even beam shape are all important when it comes to picking the right light for the situation.  The best part?  Mood lighting is a careful art that’s pretty easy to pull off once you know which settings work best.  Romantic lighting is especially simple and can set the stage so long as you have the right room and the right lights.

It could be our culture that has led us to see certain settings as romantic.  But there are also a few scientific aspects of lighting that genuinely make a setting more romantic.  While it may be that decades of amber-colored lights or the flicker of candlelight have fashioned our notions of what makes for romantic lighting, there’s also the effect of the light itself to consider.

Light with a low color temperature (below 3000K, or ‘yellow’ light) produces a very interesting effect on surfaces.  These lights, which are standard for most incandescent lamps, soften features and improve appearances.  If you want to look good, use an incandescent lamp.  While not ideal for getting ready in the morning, a standard light gives that warm and cozy feeling we all enjoy from standard incandescent bulbs.

The next step is to keep the lights dimmer than normal.  Dimmer lighting creates a closer, more intimate feeling to any room.  But there is a trick to this.  Don’t simply remove a few light bulbs from the dining room, you need to use an actual dimmer.  Uneven lighting is jarring and distracting.  Removing lamps or relying on recessed lights that have been dimmed can ruin the effect.  Recessed lighting that’s been dimmed can create cave-lighting (when there are unintended dark corners along the upper part of the wall).  Uneven lighting isn’t cozy, it’s distracting.  Use a dimmer switch.  Just be sure to match your dimmer to the type of lights you’re using.  If you plan to use LED lamps, make sure the dimmer is compatible with your brand of LEDs.

When we say to keep lighting even, we don’t mean equal throughout the room.  Even lighting in this case is designed to highlight focus areas.  Think about how restaurants stagger their lighting, with islands of light at each table and muted lights everywhere else.  If you want the greatest effect, use a fixture that focuses a soft light where you’ll be spending your time while ambient lighting casts a light glow everywhere else.

A romantic setting demands more than just the right lighting.  Pair the lighting with a favorite meal or entertainment.  Some background music will set things off nicely, but only if you select something that matches the mood.  You may enjoy electronic dubstep, but when the lights are lower something quiet and soothing is the way to go.

For the best in quality electrical repair work and installations, contact the professionals at Custom Electric!  Be sure to check back here each week for helpful advice, news, and guides or follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

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Have you ever received a nasty shock when your electric bill arrived? Maybe the amount you owed skyrocketed when you turned on the air conditioning for the summer, or the refrigerator started breaking down and consumed an excess of electricity. No matter what the cause of your sky-high electric bill, once you use the electricity, you have to pay for it. One way you can get a heads-up on any unusually high consumption is to keep an eye on your electric meter. Read on to learn how to read the meter so you are prepared when the bill shows up at your door.

Is Your Meter Digital or Dialed?

If you're lucky, you have a newer electric meter with a digital display, making it a cinch to see how much current is coming in. Simply compare your consumption from one month to another and you'll quickly be able to figure out if you're using up more energy than normal.

Traditional electric meters are a bit trickier to read, but you don't have to be an electrician to decipher them. These older meters have dials instead of a digital display, and they don't all spin in the same direction. With a little practice, however, you can figure out how much power you are using and get a ballpark idea about what the bill will be.

Spinning Clockwise, Spinning Counterclockwise

On a traditional electric meter, there are five dials that go between 0 and 9. To read the meter, follow these steps:

There's one more twist -- if the dial is pointing exactly to a number, and the next dial to the right points to a nine, you should subtract one from the dial that points to the exact number.

Now you've got your reading, and you can simply track how much it changes from month to month to get a handle on your energy use.

Getting Smart About Your Meter

If your utility has already implemented smart electric meters, it's even easier to follow your consumption. Not only is the display in easy-to-read digital form, but the meter can provide updates on how much you're using as often as every fifteen minutes. That way, you can get an alert in real-time if your usage spikes so you can track down the culprit before you have to shell out a fortune in bills.

In addition to monitoring your own consumption, it's a good idea to watch the meter so you will know if the utility company accidentally overcharges you. If you need any help figuring out how to read your meter, contact a trusted electrician today.