Can Decorative Holiday Lights Be Used in Outdoor Trees Year Round?

Posted on December 21, 2012 by outdoorlightingofcolorado

Today is Friday, December 21st – the winter solstice – on which day we will experience the shortest number of daylight hours and the longest number of nighttime hours. It is not surprising that many homeowners and businesses like to keep their decorative holiday lights installed for a longer period of time, especially in trees. Today you will see trees (primarily deciduous) illuminated throughout the year along city streets in shopping and arts districts, at restaurants, and at private residences.

Permanent Tree Lighting

Permanent Tree Lighting

Many people ask whether you can use the same type of lights used at Christmas – and just leave them installed in the trees after the holidays. Many people do use these regular lights, but these lights are not certified for year-round use and are not very well-protected from long-term damage caused by moisture or the sun’s UV rays. Invariably, these lights will begin to fail in six or nine month’s time, and the lights will need to be removed and replaced with new ones.

A much better option is to use professional-grade line or low voltage incandescent or LED mini lights that are permanently sealed and watertight, have IP44-rated coaxial connectors, and are UL and CSA approved.  IP44 is the Ingress Protection rating for a connector that is protected from water spray from all directions; i.e., it is a very good choice for an outdoor installation to be used long term.

One of our first installations using these year-round lights was back in 2001. Our customer’s kitchen window looked out into a dark void between her house and the adjacent property. But in this dark void were two beautiful ornamental trees that were invisible for most of the year in the evenings. We could have uplighted them with our standard low voltage well lights (uplights), but the homeowner decided that she wanted something more decorative and whimsical. So we decided that low voltage incandescent clip lights would create the ambience that she was seeking. Except for minor annual adjustments as the trees have grown over the years, these lights have worked well during the last eleven years until recently. In fact, our one crew is back there today to remove the old lights and install the new. So eleven years has been a pretty good run for this type of decorative lighting.

So here’s to enjoying all of the beautiful lighting – and Happy Holidays from everyone here at Outdoor Lighting Perspectives of Colorado.

Mead's signature

Filed under: Christmas Lighting, Commercial Lighting, Garden Lighting, Green Energy, Holiday Lighting, LEDs, Party/Speciality Lighting, Residential Lighting | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Holiday Lighting Made Easy in Metro-Denver and Along the Colorado Front Range

Posted on November 3, 2012 by outdoorlightingofcolorado

Residential Christmas Lighting

Fall is in the air and in recent weeks, a few snowflakes as well. Outdoor Lighting Perspectives of Colorado is your full-service design and installation contractor for holiday and Christmas-lighting decorations. We specialize in residential, commercial, and municipal outdoor and holiday lighting projects. In addition, we have the products and materials to provide interior decorating services as well with our full line of wreaths, garlands, decorated trees, bows etc. to make any interior a festive space during the holidays. 

While OLP of Colorado can also do the standard C7 and C9 design treatments (incandescent or LED) that everyone else provides, we like to provide our customers additional options to set their house, business, or community apart from all the rest with truly unique designs and light treatments. Our LightLinks products provide unique designs such as snow flakes, Christmas stockings, bow and swag, etc. to truly highlight your house or business.

For decorating trees, we can light them with LED multi-color starbursts or oversized lighted sculptures that will make them a highlight of your neighborhood. For commercial spaces, we can also provide large lighted sculptures to promote the holiday cheer and make your business a focal point.

Holiday Commercial Sculpture

OLP of Colorado provides full service design, installation, take-down and storage services for our holiday lighting customers. However, if you are a do-it-yourselfer, we can also sell you any product on a retail basis as well.

For more information, please call us at 303/948-9656 or check out our holiday web site.

 

Filed under: Christmas Lighting, Commercial Lighting, Community entrance lighting, Do-It-Yourself Lighting, Holiday Lighting, LEDs | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Mockingbird Lane Entrance Lighting Retrofitted to Induction Fluorescent Bulbs

Posted on October 30, 2012 by outdoorlightingofcolorado

Outdoor Lighting Perspectives of Colorado recently completed Phase I of a project to enhance the lighting at the Mockingbird Lane entrance of Cherrywood Meadows in Cherry Hills Village. The entrance has a set of four beautiful copper and brass carriage lights over two feet tall that had been installed initially with 75W high pressure sodium (HPS) bulbs. HPS bulbs cast an orangish/yellowish glow which might be great for Halloween, but not so great during the rest of the year.

Fortunately these carriage lights were configured with a reflector in the top of the light (similar to the shoe box lights used for parking lots), and we were able to remove the previous HPS socket and replace it with a new socket compatible with our new self-ballasted induction fluorescent bulb. This particular bulb is a 40W bulb with its own built-in ballast, and it has an average life of 60,000 hours with a Color-Rendering Index (CRI) of 80. By replacing these four carriage lights with the new induction fluorescent bulbs will result in an energy savings of 47-percent for just this phase of the project.

You can see the completed installation for one of the carriage lights in the photo on the left, and in a nighttime view below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When the rest of the project is completed, we’ll post additional photos showing the lighting effect from our energy-efficient, high lumen-output low voltage LED fixtures.

Filed under: Bulb Technology, Commercial Lighting, Community entrance lighting, Green Energy, Induction Fluorescent, Lighting Retrofits | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

New Outdoor Lighting LED Fixtures on Display at the 2012 Colorado Fall Home Show

Posted on September 9, 2012 by outdoorlightingofcolorado

There is still one day remaining to attend the 2012 Colorado Fall Home Show – and to see all of the new LED lighting products in the Outdoor Lighting Perspectives exhibit.

To take a tour of our exhibit and learn more about our company’s products and services, please take a minute to watch the video below:

 

 

 

Filed under: Architectural Lighting, Community Events, Garden Lighting, Green Energy, Holiday Lighting, Landscape Lighting, LEDs, Lighting Control Automation, Lighting Retrofits, Residential Lighting | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Outdoor & Holiday Lighting Specials at the 2012 Colorado Fall Home Show

Posted on September 7, 2012 by outdoorlightingofcolorado

 

The 2012 Colorado Fall Home Show is underway and Outdoor Lighting Perspectives is running some exciting outdoor and holiday lighting specials for those folks who stop by to see us at the show.

We are exhibiting the latest in outdoor lighting solutions and technology including –

  •  Architectural & Landscape Lighting – LEDs and quartz halogen
  • LED retrofits for gas lanterns
  • Lighting Control Automation™ to control interior and exterior lights
  • SmartPhone control of your lights – or of any other devices
  • Holiday Lighting including LEDs, LightLinks, laser lights, lightsculptures and snowfall lights

 7-Light Special (Halogen)  

  • 7 well lights with acrylic lens covers
  • 300W multitap transformer
  • Timer controls
  • Wiring and complete installation – total price installed=$1,499 (Regular price $1,985) – offer good thru October 31, 2012

10-Light Special (Halogen)Holiday Lighting Special

  • 7 well lights with acrylic lens covers
  • 3 copper path lights
  • 600W multitap transformer
  • Timer controls
  • Wiring and complete installation – total price installed = $2,100 (Regular price = $2,995) – offer good thru October 31, 2012

Holiday Lighting Special

Get a free 3-foot lighted wreath with each turnkey holiday lighting package at or above $1,500. This special cannot be combined with any other holiday lighting offers. Offer good through October 31, 2012.

In order to qualify for these specials, you must register at our exhibit at the show. We look forward to seeing you there.

Filed under: Architectural Lighting, Community Events, Garden Lighting, Landscape Lighting | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

See the Latest Landscape, Architectural and Holiday Lighting at the 2012 Colorado Fall Home Show

Posted on August 18, 2012 by outdoorlightingofcolorado

The 2012 Colorado Fall Home Show is less than 3 weeks away – so plan on visiting Outdoor Lighting Perspectives (OLP) of Colorado (Booth #514) at the Colorado Convention Center in downtown Denver. 

 

Show Dates and Hours

  • Friday, Sept. 7           10 a.m.  –  8 p.m.
  • Saturday, Sept. 8      10 a.m.  –  8 p.m.
  • Sunday, Sept. 9         10 a.m.  –  5 p.m.

Multi-Color Glowing Christmas Orbs

At the show, OLP of Colorado will be exhibiting its latest energy-efficient products for architectural, landscape, and holiday lighting including new LED landscape lighting fixtures and LED retrofits, internet-based Lighting Control Automation™, LED retrofits for architectural lighting, and the latest LED holiday lighting products such as the glowing orbs shown at left, as well as wreaths and lighted sculptures.

Discounted tickets are available at King Soopers, at the ticket counter at the convention center by donating canned food, or by clicking on and printing the discount coupon below:

2012 CO FAll $2.00 off Online Coupon

Stay tuned to our blog to see a listing of our show specials. We hope to see you at the show!

Filed under: Architectural Lighting, Christmas Lighting, Community Events, Green Energy, Holiday Lighting, Landscape Lighting, LEDs, Lighting Control Automation, Lighting Retrofits, Residential Lighting | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

National Night Out 2012 in Colorado

Posted on August 6, 2012 by outdoorlightingofcolorado

Please join your neighbors and other community members in Colorado on Tuesday, August 7th to help celebrate National Night Out 2012. Please click on Local Registered Sites to see if your local Colorado community is listed.

Started in 1984 by the National Association of Town Watch (NATW) (a non-profit anti-crime and anti-drug organization), National Night Out is also known as America’s Night Out Against Crime. Over the years, people have participated by turning on their porch light and other outdoor lights and standing watch by conducting front porch vigils. Sometimes it’s as easy as strolling down your street on a warm summer evening and introducing yourself to a new neighbor – or to someone who’s lived there for ten years that you never got around to meeting.

In recent years, these events have  become more all-encompassing with neighborhoods and communities offering block parties, BBQs, parades, neighborhood walks, and anti-crime and safety talks by law enforcement officials. We at Outdoor Lighting Perspectives certainly appreciate the role that proper lighting can play in deterring crime, but we also know that knowing your neighbors and being aware of any suspicious activity can go a long way in making our Colorado communities safer.

Filed under: Community Events, Landscape Lighting, Residential Lighting, Security/Safety | Tagged: , , , , , | Leave a comment »

LED Makeover – the Outdoor Lighting Perspectives Way

Posted on June 29, 2012 by outdoorlightingofcolorado

LED Replacement for Path Lights

In a recent blog posting, I mentioned that we were retrofitting one of our customer’s low voltage quartz halogen landscape lighting systems to LED. We originally installed the system in June 2001. Our Outdoor Lighting Perspectives’ (OLP) copper BB-07 path lights manufactured by our factory (B&B Manufacturing in Nashville) had used the 20W quartz halogen G6 bi pin bulbs with corresponding sockets. The retrofit is as simple as sliding out the old socket and wiring harness and replacing it with the new LED (4W Cree), electronics, driver, and wiring harness assembly.  

With the introduction of OLP/B&B’s PAR36 LED (6W Cree) bulb retrofit earlier this year, our company can now offer customers a truly sustainable way to upgrade to this new, energy-saving technology – without having to discard the old quartz halogen fixtures. The customer’s system that we recently converted to LED was initially installed in 2001. That system included a total of 17 fixtures – eleven 35W quartz halogen well lights and six 20W quartz halogen path lights, for a total power usage of 505W. For the new installation/retrofit, we added 11 new LED fixtures to the 17 existing fixtures that we retroffited, for a total power usage of 176W. Interestingly, we increased the size of the system (total number of lights) by 65-percent while at the same time we reduced the energy usage by 65-percent.

PAR36 LED Bulb

Heat is the number one factor that can adversely affect the life of an LED. As you can see in the design for the PAR36 LED bulb as well as the path light LED replacement, the thermal heat sinks are a prominent part of the final manufactured product. As a former aerospace engineer who performed thermal analyses of jet and rocket engine, high-energy laser, and orbital spacecraft, I wholeheartedly give these products a two-thumbs up sign of approval.

The other important thing about these LED retrofits is that our customers are in no way sacrificing the actual lighting effect. In fact, our factory (B&B) conducted an experiment by taking nighttime photos of the same house. On one evening, the lighting fixtures had quartz halogen bulbs installed and on another evening, the fixtures had been retrofitted to LED. Interestingly, most people viewing the sets of photos side by side guessed wrong. The LEDs actually looked better.

 

 

 

Filed under: Green Energy, Landscape Lighting, LEDs, Lighting Retrofits, Residential Lighting | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Saving Energy Increasingly Becoming More Important for U.S. Families

Posted on June 12, 2012 by outdoorlightingofcolorado

In a recently published study by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research entitled ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND INDEPENDENCE: HOW THE PUBLIC UNDERSTANDS, LEARNS AND ACTS, has indicated that American families rank energy issues very highly after the economy, education, and health care.

As reported by Dina Cappiello of The Associated Press, she writes that

as summer beckons, it seems Americans are thinking more about the stifling cost of energy than about making tracks to the beach.

In the bar graph above, you can see that saving money on energy costs is the second-highest ranked priority by the respondents to this survey. At Outdoor Lighting Perspectives (OLP) of Colorado, we have seen a very strong demand by both new and existing customers for the latest LED lighting fixtures. In almost every case, the homeowners expressed a strong desire to decrease their energy usage.

In the U.S., previous studies have determined that residential lighting accounts for as much as 15-percent of a household’s total energy budget. Until recently, almost half of this energy usage dedicated to lighting had been wasted due to the use of inefficient bulbs (incandescent), the use of higher wattage bulbs than needed for effective illumination, and the fact that lighting systems were not automatically controlled.

The low voltage LED lighting systems (new and retrofit) that OLP of Colorado has been installing will provide a homeowner an energy savings of as much as 82-percent over the previous quartz halogen system. Later this week our crews will be retrofitting an existing customer’s lighting system to LED, and I will report our progress in a future blog post.

Filed under: Architectural Lighting, Bulb Technology, Green Energy, Landscape Lighting, LEDs, Lighting Control Automation, Lighting Retrofits, Residential Lighting | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

Outdoor Lighting Again Ranked in Top 5 by 2012 Landscape Architecture Trends Survey

Posted on May 29, 2012 by outdoorlightingofcolorado

Landscape Lighting Makes Outdoor Spaces More Inviting after Sunset

While it’s certainly no surprise to those of us here at Outdoor Lighting Perspectives of Colorado, a recent survey of residential landscape architects has again ranked landscape and outdoor lighting as one of the top 5 trends for outdoor living features. In the 2012 Residential Landscape Architecture Trends survey conducted by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), lighting (outdoor and landscape) was ranked #5 (93.1-percent) as being somewhat or very much in demand. The list of the most popular features across all categories follows below:

  1. Grills                                                  97.4%
  2. Low Maintenance Landscape      96.6
  3. Fireplaces/Firepits                          95.8
  4. Dining Areas                                    95.7
  5. Lighting                                             93.1
  6. Water Features                                89.9
  7. All-Weather Outdoor Furniture      81.2
  8. Pools                                                 79.2

We’re very pleased of course to see that residential landscape architects are beginning to stress the importance of professional landscape lighting to their clients. Surprisingly, most college bachelors degree programs in landscape architecture only require one course in lighting, and most of the students we’ve spoken with tell us that they wished their programs included more. Typically, landscape architects receive more exposure to lighting after they’ve begun their career and taken advantage of the outreach and educational programs offered by ASLA and lighting companies such as Outdoor Lighting Perspectives. The good news is that whatever we’re doing, both landscape architects and homeowners are becoming more aware of the importance and necessity of good landscape lighting.

Filed under: Design, Garden Lighting, Landscape Lighting, Residential Lighting | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

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