Outdoor Lighting: Benefits and Ideas

Outdoor Lighting: Benefits and Ideas

Outdoor lighting can transform your commercial or residential building and enhance everyone’s experience of your property. By incorporating thoughtful outdoor lighting, you can increase the style, value, and safety of your property as well. Consider the advantages of outdoor lighting and head outside!

Benefits of Outdoor Lighting for your Project

What are the benefits of outdoor lighting? It enhances the natural beauty of the outdoors and enables people to safely navigate in the dark while adding bright energy to your building and outdoor spaces. Here are some additional benefits of outdoor lighting:

• adds beauty, sparkle, excitement, and mystery to your building and property
• extends outdoor living time into the evening hours
• adds interest and dimension to the outdoors
• enhances safety and security
• enables businesses to generate income after dark
• helps people to navigate the outdoors
• helps people to safely find their footing
• helps people to locate vehicles in parking lots and garages
• reinforces your company’s brand identity
• adds value to your building and property

Types of Outdoor Lighting to Consider

Energy-efficient LED lighting is the way to go with outdoor lighting. Here’s why:

1. saves energy over older forms of lighting
2. saves money because it lasts a long time
3. saves time because it does not need to be changed often

Halogen and incandescent lamps are still an available option and they are lower in cost initially. However, you will need to replace the lamps more frequently and will need to spend time maintaining the light fixtures. The advantages of LED far outweigh the low cost of older lamp technology. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, LED lighting uses 75% less energy and lasts 25% longer than incandescent lighting.

Solar-powered lighting is another option to consider in areas with reliable sunlight. Even portable lights can add a bit of sparkle on an as-needed basis.

Lighting comes in every possible shape, size, color, finish, and wattage. You can choose a lighting style that is consistent with your building interior/exterior or that contrasts and attracts attention. When setting up lighting, take glare into consideration and shield the eye from the lamp itself. Ideally, we should notice only the object being illuminated, not the source of light. Always keep in mind that outdoor lighting needs to stand up to the weather and should be rated for safe outdoor installation.

Here are some examples of outdoor lighting to consider in your next commercial, institutional, or multi-family project:

Parking lot standards

Bollard lights

Step lights

Railing lights

Electrified signs

Flood-lit signage

Flag lights

Tree and landscaping lights

Floodlights

Swimming pool lights

Bench lights

Pier lights

Walkway and path lights

Wall sconces

Wall lights

String lights

Uplights and downlights

Pendant lights

Post lights

Security lights

Ceiling lights

Low-voltage landscape lights

Highlight Outdoor Features with Lighting

Illuminate all those important focal points, features, and locations! Be creative in including outdoor lighting in your building project. Here are some areas to consider:

Walkways

Decks

Retaining Walls

Outdoor Kitchens & Bars

Stairs

Entryways

Driveways

Signage

Sculpture

Fountains

Historic Plaques

Flagpoles

Swimming Pools & Spas

Yards

Trees

Kitchens & Bars

Building Exteriors

Paths

Parking Lots

Pergolas

Overhangs

Ideas for Enhancing your Property with Lighting

You can extend the functionality of your building or project’s outdoor spaces well after dark. Here are some ideas for enhancing your property with lighting:

• Include lighting in the swimming pool or spa in your apartment complex or hotel. Dramatic lighting adds safety and style while extending swimming/spa time into the evening.
• Add lighting to outdoor stairs for easy visibility and safety.
• Flood your building with light for night-time brand identification and drama.
• Uplight trees and other outdoor vertical elements, like fountains, walls, and sculptures, to add drama, depth, and interest.
• Upgrade your existing lighting to energy-efficient LED lights to save energy and time.
• Consider colored lighting and automated color-changing light shows for customized effects.
• Highlight and define walls, decks, and architectural elements.
• Add lighting in outdoor restaurant, kitchen, and bar areas to extend customer use of income-generating areas of your business.
• Lift the mood with bright light and playful, customized color effects for special occasions or events.
• Add lighting to enhance contrast and highlight transitions between stairs, walkways, pool decks, and other hard-to-see places.
• Set the tone for a positive experience by incorporating a well-lit exterior.

Include outdoor lighting in your commercial, institutional, or multi-family project plans to enhance aesthetics, visibility, safety, security, and add value.