Do People Actually Light Up Their Chimneys?

Posted on May 19, 2012 by outdoorlightingofcolorado

Chimney Lighting in Cherry Hills Village

Well, believe it or not – they do and for good reason. Most landscape and architectural lighting professionals tend to develop their list of favorite things to light up, and for us it has been residential chimneys. Many custom home builders in the Denver market (Suderman Homes, Bond General Contractors, etc.) have also taken chimney design and construction to a whole new level. And since the chimney is the highest and most visible architectural feature of the house, it definitely creates a focal point of the house and property – during the daytime and after dark with lighting.   

Close-Up of Lighting Fixture

On some houses, the chimney is not visible on the exterior of the house until it emerges from the roofline. With regard to lighting the chimney, that creates a challenging but not insurmountable problem with mounting the lighting fixture to achieve the proper lighting effect. In the photo, you can see a close-up of our factory’s cast brass spot light (20W MR16) that is mounted in the copper gutter along the eave of the home. After the fixture develops a patina, it will blend in perfectly with the rest of the gutter.

The good news is that most chimneys are visible on a home’s facade all the way to the ground level, and these of course are much more easy to light up. For this configuration, well lights can be installed in the ground to provide up-lighting on the chimney. 

Oftentimes, surprises can occur during evening lighting design demonstrations when you are setting up the lights for the chimney. On several occasions we have awoken nesting birds and have irritated bats. But the most memorable occasion was when we set up the lights for the chimney and noticed an impish gargoyle sculpture playfully smiling back at us. We still have homeowners ask us whether we were the ones who lit up the gargoyle down on so and so street. So just remember, with evening lighting design you are painting with light – and there’s absolutely no reason that you cannot make it whimsical and playful. 

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

How Does Ambient Lighting Affect the Design of Landscape and Architectural Lighting?

Posted on August 18, 2011 by outdoorlightingofcolorado

According to Webster’s, the definition of ambient is surrounding; on all sides. For a landscape lighting or architectural lighting designer, ambient lighting typically represents the baseline amount of illumination on a particular property or structure in question – for which the designer may or may not have any control. We’ll talk more about this later in this post. The most important point is that it would be just as irresponsible for a lighting designer to design an outdoor lighting system for a home or business without first knowing the level of existent ambient lighting – as it would be for an architect to design a custom home or commercial building without first having a contour and site plan.

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.

Filed under: Commercial Lighting, Design, Landscape Lighting, Residential Lighting, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »