Charlotte Christmas Light Installation: LED Lighting

If you've been inside a retail store lately, you know that the holiday season is well on its way. With Thanksgiving two weeks away and Christmas only six weeks away, it is only a matter of time before Santa makes his way down your chimney.

With the holiday season quickly approaching, now is a good time to start making plans for your Charlotte Christmas light installation. One of the first things you need to do is decide which type of holiday lighting to use.

"There are a lot of different designs, colors and types of holiday lighting," said John Minor of Irrigation and Lighting Specialist. "When considering which is best for you, don't pass up on LED lights. If you don't already use LED string lights, now is the time to jump on the bandwagon."

Reasons for Charlotte Christmas LED Light Installation 

LED lighting is the latest trend in Christmas lighting, and it is not hard to see why. They carry a lot of advantages over traditional lights and have quickly become a favorite choice of Charlotte homeowners. Here are a few reasons why you should consider LED lighting for your Charlotte Christmas light installation. 

• Energy Efficient - LED bulbs are up to 90 percent more efficient that traditional incandescent bulbs. By using 84 percent less energy, you won't have to spend a fortune on your power bill. 
• Affordability - In addition to the savings on your power bill, the price of LED lights are around the same as incandescent lights. Many also come with a rebate. 
• Longevity - LED string lights have a life of 35,000-50,000 hours, compared to only 2,000 hours for incandescent lights. In other words, LED lights will last 40 holiday season longer than traditional lights. 
• Safety - LED lights do not give off heat, which means you won't have to worry about them starting a fire. 
• Durability - In addition to their longevity, LED lights are also durable. The bulbs are made out of a thick epoxy casing that's nearly impossible to break. 
• No Burnt Bulbs - Instead of the filament used in traditional bulbs, LED lights use light-emtting diodes that don't burn out. So you don't have to spend your entire afternoon hunting one burnt bulb that made your entire string of lights useless. 

"We plan to install a lot of LED lights this year," said Minor. "If you don't already have them, don't worry. We provide you with all the necessary lights you need during our Charlotte Christmas light installation service."

To learn more about our Charlotte Christmas light installation service or to schedule a free holiday decorating consolation, call John Minor with Irrigation and Lighting Specialist at 704-747-0235 or 803-831-0506 or email John. We look forward to helping you create a beautiful and sensible holiday lighting display!

Charlotte Holiday Lighting: Lessons From Clark Griswold

With Christmas less than two months away, homeowners are starting to gear up for their Charlotte holiday lighting projects. This means several trips to the dusty attic, countless hours of untangling strands of lights, checking bulbs and a long weekend on the ladder. There is nothing like a house that is beautifully decorated for the Christmas season, but putting it all together can be a pain.

As Charlotte's top holiday lighting company, Irrigation and Lighting Specialist can help take the stress out of your holiday season with our decorating service. Our holiday lighting team specializes in creating festive designs that will compliment the exterior of your house and spread Christmas cheer. From Christmas lights to lawn ornaments, we take care of everything.

Charlotte Christmas Lighting Vacation

If you have ever seen any of the National Lampoon Vacation movies, then you are familiar with the Griswold family and their goofy world of mishaps and shenanigans. In the 1989 installment of the series, Clark Griswold, played by Chevy Chase, decides to host his family for the holidays in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. 

While Clark is hoping for a nice vacation at home with his family, we soon see that he has bitten off more than he can chew, especially when it comes to Christmas lights. Below, we explore some hilarious mistakes made by Clark in his attempt to create a memorable holiday light show. 

A Tangled Mess

Clark starts his holiday lighting adventure by unloading  and sorting through several boxes of extremely tangled lights. By the looks of it, his lights were just thrown into the box the previous year. 

To avoid a tangled mess, be sure to be carefully package your lights at the end of the season. It will pay off when you have to get them out next year. Irrigation Lighting Specialist takes down all your lights and decorations, wraps them up and safely prepares them for storage.

Dangers of a Staple Gun and Ladder

In the next part of Clark's holiday lighting project, he finds that hanging lights is harder and more hazardous than he thought. After stapling his entire sleeve to the house, he nearly tips the ladder over and falls.

This is just a movie. In real life, Mr. Griswold would be visiting the emergency room. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that around 18,000 individuals received medical care for holiday decorating falls. Don't hurt yourself, let the experts at Irrigation and Lighting Specialist handle the entire installation process.

Power!!!

After installing 25,000 Italian-imported twinkle lights, Clark calls the entire family onto the lawn to debut the fruits of his labor. After a family drumroll, Clark hits the switch to find that none of the lights work. He checks every bulb and still can't find the problem. We find out later that the outlet switch wasn't turned on.

When you hire Irrigation and Lighting Specialist for your holiday decorating needs, you can count on your lights working. We check all the bulbs for you and complete any maintenance to ensure you don't leave your audience disappointed.

Professional Design and Safety 

After a long and frustrating battle with his Christmas lights, Clark finally gets his display to work. But, as you can see in the video clip above, there are several things wrong with the Griswold Christmas abode.

In addition to the surge protecter at the back of the house, the electrical socket in the garage is far too overloaded. This is a huge fire hazard and can send your Christmas spirit to a screaming halt. When we install your holiday decorations, we always follow the strictest safety guidelines to guarantee the safety of you and your home.

Second of all, the lighting design is obtrusive. In comedic fashion, Clark goes a little overboard with the lights - so much that it blinds his neighbors. It may seem funny, but this actually happens. Novice Christmas light decorators end up creating something that is more offensive than pretty. Our lighting experts have years of experience and can create tasteful lighting scheme you'll love.

To learn more about our Charlotte holiday lighting service or to schedule a free holiday decorating consolation, call John Minor with Irrigation and Lighting Specialist at 704-747-0235 or 803-831-0506 or email John. When it comes to your holiday decorating, don't pull a Clark Griswold. Hire a professional! 

Charlotte Outdoor Lighting: Illuminate Your Home's Monthly Savings

Outdoor Lighting spaces of any size is a tricky task. Fixture angles, watt intensities, lighting patterns and power sources, can be a lot for any busy homeowner to keep in mind. Your outdoor space's design and decoration are visual renderings of you. When the nighttime arrives they deserve to be illuminated and brought to life. Unfortunately, accentuating your home with the perfect outdoor lightscape sometimes comes at a high monthly cost for Charlotte homeowners. We combat the high cost of lighting outdoor spaces with Irrigation & Lighting Specialist's Go Green Lighting system.

Irrigation & Lighting Specialist Go Green Lighting Systems

Go Green Lighting replaces conventional lighting products with the use of LED bulbs. These have an extremely long life, and require much less supervision. For example, an average six-watt LED bulb’s lifespan is 60,000 hours (about 20 years). How’s that sound for longevity?

This lighting system also alleviates you from the irritating chore of dragging the ladders out and scaling the side of your home to replace bulbs frequently while significantly reducing monthly lighting costs.

“Go Green Lighting rewards customers financially and environmentally,” states John Minor of Irrigation & Lighting Specialist. “Homeowners are saving substantial amounts on their monthly lighting costs, while working towards a more environmentally friendly future.”

Advantages of Go Green Lighting

Here are a few ways switching to our Go Green Lighting system can benefit the outdoor presence of your home:

• Safe – bulbs do not get as hot at normal light bulbs.
• Energy efficient – can reduce energy consumption by 80-90%.
• Low voltage - use around one tenth of available energy.
• Disposable – Compared to lights like fluorescents for example, LED bulbs do not contain environmentally harmful agents like mercury and can be recycled normally.                         

Outdoor Areas for Go Green Lighting

Below are spaces Go Green Lighting can be installed:

• Exterior walls 
• Decks
• Steps
• Underwater

Along with saving you money every month, retrofitting your outdoors with Go Green Lighting helps add that eye-popping, attention-commanding specificity that sets your home apart from others. Each of our lighting systems are different and shed that special shade of outdoor light that embodies the vision you have for you home.

"The goal is to have your ideal amount of outdoor lighting, at an affordable cost, and with as little maintenance as possible," says Minor. "With a Go Green Lighting system, this is now all possible!"

Charlotte homeowners can look forward to saving around 90% on lighting and electrical expenses! 

We look forward to retrofitting your outdoor areas with Irrigation &Lighting Specialist’s Go Green Lighting system. To learn more about our outdoor lighting services or to schedule a consultation, please call John Minor at 877-433-5833 or email John. We look forward to providing your home’s outdoor areas with an impressive, more cost effective lighting scene!  

pH Testing: Vital for Your Spring Start Ups

Lawns are the main ingredient of a home’s outdoor flavor. Under the sun, vibrant shades of green and soft-to-the-touch blades of grass sway around Charlotte homes every summer. To ensure your lawn reaches this level of aesthetic comfort, it’s vital that you complete a pH test prior to the installation of this season’s spring start up irrigation system.

Testing the soil determines whether your lawn can obtain proper levels of nutrients for optimal growth or not. For example, before we design an irrigation system for a client, this test is completed to determine what seed system to use, how much watering will be required, if spreading any lime is necessary, and the potential for fertilizer and/or herbicide consumption.

What pH Levels Mean

The scale of pH ranges from 1 to 14. A measurement of 7 is neutral, meaning the soil is stable and ready for seeding. Final readings any higher or lower than 7 denote excessive levels of alkaline or acidity. They are the foremost adversaries of exceptional grass growth more commonly referred to as “sweet” or “sour.” Presence of either and your lawn's output will suffer.

 “Too much of either and the lawn’s yield will be poor,” says John Minor of Irrigation & Lighting Specialist. “Depending on the test’s outcome, lime may also need to be applied in small, medium or large amounts.”

Benefits of pH Testing

Below are the main advantages of pH testing your lawn:

·      Identify and resolve soil problems prior to seeding your lawn

·      Supervise nutrient levels

·      Select the correct type of grass for your lawn

·      Figure out what key compounds are missing from your soil

Most home improvement stores sell test kits. They will guide you through the evaluation, and after a few steps provide you with an immediate analysis of your soil’s pH.

How to Test Your Lawn's pH Levels

Once you’ve obtained a test kit, here is how to conduct a pH test:

1. Dig a 2-4 inch hole
2. Fill hole with water
3. Insert test kit’s probe into mud mixture
4. Allow prove to read mud sample (60 seconds)
5. Sample multiple areas of the lawn

After these few easy steps are complete you can leave the rest of your spring start up needs to us. With the yard tested prior to our arrival, we will better be able to access your lawn. Since we take our irrigation system designs on a case-by-case basis, we want to be able to custom fit your lawn with a watering network that work best for the type of soil you have.  

“Think of pH testing as a yearly physical for your yard,” explains Minor. “Before the expectation of performance growth, you must determine if your yard is up for the challenge first.”

Doing so avoids an unnecessary hole in your wallet and avoids a headache later on in the spring and summer season.

If you would like to learn more about pH testing and its importance in the spring start up process, please call John Minor at 877-433-5833 or email John. What a relaxing pleasure it is knowing ahead of time that your lawn is going to produce this spring. We are here to provide you with that reassurance, and look forward to setting up your lawn for  success! 

Charlotte Spring Irrigation Start Ups

Charlotte winters are unpredictable to say the least. From one day to the next the weather can change from calm and mild to frosty and frigid. Just last week, for example, the temperature went from a beautiful 60°F to snowy 30°F. 

Regardless of what winter brings, Charlotte spring irrigation start ups are a great idea during March when the seasonal shift is ushered in that spring lawns everywhere have been patiently awaiting. Around this time, temperatures usually reach the 60’s and gradually continue to get warmer.

For proper activation, certain arrangements of spring irrigation start up changes are needed to promote maximum growth. Irrigation & Lighting Specialist has trained professionals ready to assist you in getting your lawn ready for spring.

Surprisingly, both humans and lawns share a common trait - warmer weather means more activity. Schedules can be hectic and often restrict the amount of time Charlotte homeowners have for the many steps required to ensure a bountiful summer lawn’s yield. Fortunately, Irrigation & Lighting Specialist is here to help! 

“We have perfected our spring start up system by approaching each individual lawn with an attention to detail,” says John Minor of Irrigation & Lighting Specialist. “Each lawn varies, and as such, requires a specific watering network which we systematically map out to fit your lawn like a hydrating glove.”

With six different types of spring irrigation start up installation systems, as well as the Rain Bird® Smart Controller, Charlotte residents experience multiple benefits:

• Easy water schedule programming. 
• Maximum water efficiency and durability. 
• Homeowners can relax while their lawns are watered routinely.
• Save up to 60% in water usage.

In addition to retrofitting your home's outdoor ambiance with Irrigation & Lighting Specialist services, you can also add outdoor landscaping and accent lighting at off-season, low prices!

Irrigation & Lighting Specialist is here to help with your Charlotte spring irrigation start ups. Put our proven methods to the test!

To learn more about our irrigation start up services or to schedule a consultation, contact John Minor with Irrigation & Lighting Specialist at 877-433-5833 or email John. We look forward to helping your lawn get an attractive jumpstart on the spring season!