Outdoor Lighting Perspectives (OLP) invites you to visit our exhibit in Booth #1442 (same location as last year) to see the latest in landscape and outdoor lighting products and services, as well as lighting controls/home automation. At this show, we will also be launching a new 5W PAR36 LED bulb retrofit that will revolutionize the landscape lighting industry. Stay tuned in the coming weeks for additional information.

The show’s hours are Saturdays (from 10am to 8pm); Sundays (from 10am to 6pm); and Monday through Friday (from noon to 8pm). We look forward to seeing you at the show!

Incandescent Light Bulbs Are Being Phased Out

Happy New Year from Outdoor Lighting Perspectives of Colorado! As we bid the year 2011 goodbye, we can also do the same for the energy-inefficient incandescent light bulbs.

Example of Color Lens Covers

Would you rather be watching a football game instead of dragging Christmas lights and extension cords all over your front yard in the snow? If you already own a landscape lighting system, you’re now in luck. Multi-color acrylic lens covers are available that will install over your existing well lights. The lens covers are available in green, red, dark blue, light blue, amber, purple and orange. In addition, color lens covers are also available for MR16 spot lighting fixtures and color LED bi-pin bulbs are available for path lights.

Red Lens Covers Used on Well Lights by Front Entrance

Red lens covers work exceptionally well on brick, stone and light-colored stucco. Green lens covers work very well on pine and spruce trees, some deciduous trees, and light-colored stucco. Of course, dark blue and orange lens covers are available to show your support of the Denver Broncos. Some college alumni like to select lens covers in their school’s colors to highlight their home during the college football bowl season. It’s fun and easy to mix and match different color effects from one season to the next. And, some of our customers use the orange lens covers during Halloween, in addition to showing their support for the Denver Broncos.

 

Red and Green Lens Covers

Whatever your holiday lighting needs (from color lens covers to a complete turnkey Christmas lighting design and installation), Outdoor Lighting Perspectives still has available inventory to get your home ready in time for the holiday season.

 

SHOW DATES AND HOURS

• Friday, September 9          (10:00 am to 8:00 pm)
• Saturday, September 10  (10:00 am to 8:00 pm)
• Sunday, September 11      (10:00 am to 5:00 pm)

LED Snowfall Lights

Our exhibit will be showcasing the latest in holiday and Christmas lighting products (LEDs, snowfall lighting, kinetic laser, garland, etc.); smart  phone and internet-based Lighting Control Automation(TM); and the latest in LED and halogen landscape/architectural lighting. In addition, we will also have an LED fixture on display that simulates the look of a gas carriage lighting fixture.

We hope to see you at the show – please stop by and say hello.

3.7W LED Illuminating Entrance Monument

For example, in the mountains of Colorado where the only ambient lighting originates from the moon or perhaps the Milky Way, a low voltage quartz halogen (20W) or LED (3.7W) lighting fixture would be more than sufficient to illuminate a community entrance monument.

Glare from HPS Street Light

Conversely, trying to illuminate a commercial building or community entrance with low voltage lighting that faces a row of 250W high pressure sodium street lights, just would not be very effective. In this situation, a higher wattage ceramic metal halide or metal halide fixture must be used so that the building or monument is illuminated to at least the level of the ambient lighting, in order to effectively highlight them.

The best rule of thumb for any good energy efficient and aesthetic lighting design is to use only the amount of lighting needed – nothing less and nothing more. Lighting designers and lighting contractors love to sell lights, but the operative phrase should be Less Is More.

When you are designing a lighting system in the city, ambient lighting may originate from a streetlight across the street or from the overall sky glow that envelopes the entire region. There is nothing that a lighting designer can do about that, except for possibly encouraging the city to adopt more energy efficient and sky-friendly street lighting, etc. However, some glare-producing and inefficient lighting may be self inflicted by the property owners themselves – and lighting designers can certainly make recommendations to improve the overall effect of this lighting so that the new lighting design will not be ruined by the glare-producing ambient lighting.

For homeowners, the glare from offending light sources such as carriage lights can be mitigated by replacing the fixtures’ clear glass panels with frosted glass panels, by decreasing the wattage of the bulbs, and/or by dimming the bulbs. The same thing can be done with offending soffit lights by using lower wattage bulbs and/or by dimming them.

For commercial building owners, the overall lighting effect can be enhanced by ensuring that all lighting is directed only toward its intended focal plane; e.g., area lighting with full-cutoff (parking lot lighting and walkway lighting) directed downward only (no spillage horizontally); architectural lighting that is directed only toward the building with no glare produced in any other viewing plane.

The National Energy Education Development (NEED) project has determined that the percentage of energy consumption in the U.S. dedicated to lighting is roughly 11-percent for homes and 38-percent for schools and businesses. That’s a significant percentage, so by reducing unnecessary glare that contributes to unaesthetic ambient lighting – we can begin to make our nighttime environment more attractive as well as save energy.

The goals of the National Night Out are to:

• heighten crime- and drug-prevention awareness
• generate support for local anticrime programs
• strengthen neighborhood spirit and police communication partnerships

Solidarity and support of NNO is commonly shown by the traditional display of outdoor lighting including front porch lights, landscape/architectural lighting and through the participation in front porch vigils and neighborhood get-togethers.

Landscape Lighting Makes This Home Safer and More Secure

As the owner of a lighting company, I’ve been trained and well-versed in the art of illumination to remove “dark and scary” spaces around the perimeter of a home and property. Local law enforcement repeatedly advises homeowners that lighting is a key component of crime prevention. The City of Golden’s Police Department states that:

it is a recognized fact that good lighting is a deterrant to crime. It not only makes the area safer for the homeowner, but also forces the intruder to work in an area where he may be exposed and reported to the police.

To participate in one of this year’s NNO 2011 events, please check one of the links below:

COUNTIES:     Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Denver, Douglas, El Paso,  Jefferson, Larimer

CITIES/TOWNS:  Aurora, Colorado Springs, Denver, Golden, Lakewood, Littleton, Lone Tree, Longmont, Parker, Sheridan, Westminster

Thanks in advance for your participation and for helping to make our communities safer.

That sensitivity of GFCIs is actually a good thing because it protects people from possible electrocution. When a hand tool or appliance is in use, the GFCI monitors the amount of current flowing from the hot to the neutral. If there is any imbalance in the current (as little as 4 or 5 milliamps), the GFCI can trip in as quickly as one-thirtieth of a second. If a person is standing outside on the ground and using an electric circular saw while it is raining, the saw is wet and a path is created from the hot wire through that person to the ground. If all of the current is diverted through the person, that could be fatal. That is why the National Electrical Code (NEC) requires the installation of GFCI outlets in new construction for electrical circuits in bathrooms, laundry rooms, kitchens, garages and on home exteriors. Older homes may only have one or two GFCI outlets (typically in bathrooms) to protect the circuits in the garage, kitchen and exterior.

So if your lights are not working, first check the outlet where your low voltage lighting transformer is plugged in. Plug in a radio or small appliance to see if you have power there. If there is no power, find and try to reset the GFCI. If the outlet where the transformer is plugged in does not have the GFCI test and reset buttons, you will need to find it. Remember that the actual GFCI for the circuit could be located in the garage, bathroom, laundry room, or on another outlet on the exterior of the house.

Once you have located the GFCI, push the reset button – and recheck the outlet by the transformer to ensure that the power has been restored. If there is still no power, you will have to keep looking for the GFCI that controls the circuit for the lighting. In newer houses, some garages may have as many as four or five separate GFCIs to accommodate power tools and central vacuum systems.

If you have reset the GFCI and the power has been restored, your lighting system is good to go. However, if your lighting system is controlled by a mechanical timer, you will have to reset the current time on the timer to ensure proper operation. If your system is controlled by a digital timer with battery backup or with Outdoor Lighting Perspectives’ (OLP) Lighting Control Automation™, just restoring power to the transformer is all you will need to do.

In the event that you tried to reset the GFCI and it would not physically reset, you should check your electrical panel to see if a breaker tripped for that circuit. If a breaker has tripped, reset it and then try again to reset the GFCI outlet. During this process if you have any problems resetting either the breaker or the GFCI, it would be a good idea to call in an electrician. Electrical breakers and GFCIs can break down and malfunction over time. In fact, the more times that breakers and GFCIs trip, the more susceptible they are to tripping the next time.

In the beginning of this article, I mentioned that 90-percent of the time that landscape lighting systems stopoped working due to GFCI outlets tripping. The other 10-percent of the time can be attributed to the fact that someone unplugged the low voltage transformer and neglected to plug it back in or to a problem connected to the control system.

Control system problems occur frequently with the older technology – mechanical timers, photocells, and X10. Those control system issues have been solved with Lighting Control Automation – but you still have to ensure that the automatic/manual controller inside your house has power 24/7 for the system to operate properly.

So the next time you have an issue with your landscape lighting system, try these steps first before scheduling a service call. However, please feel free to call our office at any time if we can be of further assistance.

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