Are you in the process of designing a high-end residential home or commercial business property? Did you know that low voltage landscape lighting is a great way to up a property’s curb appeal, while at the same time saving money on energy usage?
Low voltage LED landscape lighting can be used in a wide range of applications to improve the exterior look and feel of residential homes and business properties, by illuminating pathways, flowerbeds, fences, trees, driveways, stone walls and much more.
Since low voltage lighting can be completely tuned and controlled at any time to your design requirements, designing a property using low voltage landscape lighting puts you in complete control of your final environment.
Before we get into some of the design applications of low voltage lighting in your residential or commercial property, let’s first take a look at what low voltage lighting actually is.
What is low voltage lighting?
Traditional lighting is powered through line voltage that runs throughout a property and powers the lighting fixtures. With low voltage lighting, however, line voltage stops at a panel within a property.
Low voltage lighting uses a transformer to lower the power of line voltage from 120 volts to around 12 volts, with low voltage wiring (such as a CAT-6 cable) then used to supply power to fixtures throughout the property. Low voltage lighting is then operated remotely from any smart device, giving the user complete control over their environment.
Not only is low voltage lighting a smarter and more energy efficient method of landscape lighting, it gives designers and architects full control over the final look of a property and property owners the flexibility to change the lighting to suit their needs at any given time.
This ability to completely control and tune the temperature, warmth and brightness of lighting fixtures, means low voltage lighting can be easily changed to create a specific ambience for outdoor spaces.
What applications does low voltage landscape lighting have?
The design of a property isn’t just about a beautiful interior. Expertly designing outdoor spaces can make a property look unique and special; with the addition of landscape lighting it can improve those outdoor aesthetics even further.
Low voltage lighting gives you the ability to do just that in your property design. Low voltage lighting can be used to improve the aesthetics of property exteriors through the use of wall lighting, pathway lighting, feature lighting, outdoor living space lighting and other fixtures.
There are a huge number of reasons why you should install low voltage landscape lighting at your high-end residential home or commercial business. Colorbeam has listed just a few of those reasons here:
It creates ambiance: Lighting serves a wide range of functions, but most importantly, for the design of a high-end residential property or commercial business, it’s also beautiful. Lighting can be used on a property’s landscape to create ambiance. The best thing about low voltage lighting is that the property owner can completely control the temperature, brightness and warmth of the light. Low voltage lighting can be tuned to suit any specific environment, at any given time.
It provides security: There’s a reason why criminals generally operate at night, and it’s because they can’t be seen. A thief that breaks into a building in the middle of the day is far more likely to be caught in the act, and that’s the same for well-lit areas as well. By using atmospheric landscape lighting to light the exterior of a residential home or business, you will be discouraging would-be intruders from targeting your property.
Better curb appeal increases value: The better a building looks from the curb, the more valuable the property is. That’s one of the top rules in real estate. But we’re not just talking about increasing the price of residential homes, landscape lighting will make commercial businesses more valuable too. Well-thought-out landscape lighting will attract customers to commercial businesses (whether it’s a restaurant they walk past or a hotel they find online), which results in increased profits.
Illumination adds a layer of safety: Installing outdoor lights is in large part about aesthetics, but it’s also just as much about safety. Navigating landscapes at night can be tricky enough for homeowners, let alone visitors or commercial business guests (such as hotel guests). Placing low voltage lighting strategically through the exterior of a property to illuminate a path not only looks great, it also adds a layer of safety.
Are you interested in learning more about how you can use low voltage lighting in your high-end residential or commercial property design? Contact Colorbeam today. Our team of low voltage lighting experts would love to help.