Landscape Contractor / Design Build Maintain

APR 2014

LC/DBM provides landscape contractors with Educational, Imaginative and Practical information about their business, their employees, their machines and their projects.

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Left: Creative Nightscapes of North Richland, Texas, illuminated this residence in Southlake Texas, with 356 lights on the home and property, and 129 lights in the water features. All fixtures are from Kichler's Design Pro Integrated LED line and all the lamps are 3,000 Kelvin. There are a variety of up, down, wash, path, deck, arbor, hardscape and waterproof fixtures with various degree spreads. 2 in 1 accent lights were mounted on top of the rain gutters to highlight the dormers and chimneys around the front and back of the home, which helps to make the residence stand out. In order to hide some of the wire, stonemasons were called in to remove stone from the façade and replace the stone once the wires were installed. Right: 4.5 LED accent fixtures were mounted under the eaves to highlight the walls and illuminate the walkway areas. April 2014 35 Creative Nightscape removed the existing 60 to70 halogen lights. The installers started with the front yard landscape. Every wire run was hand dug with trenching shovels. The house's façade was next in line for illumi- nation. This included mounting Hardscape fix- tures under the eaves of the garages to accent the doors and illuminate the walkway areas. 2 in 1 ac- cent lights were mounted on top of the rain gut- ters to highlight the dormers and chimneys around the front and back of the home to give it a little extra punch. In the backyard, there were not only landscaped areas, but also a number of arbors and a sport court. Down lights with special mounting brackets were used on all the arbors. The wiring for those lights was installed on top of the arbors to hide them. The final phase was highlighting the two water features with Design Pro 2 in 1 accent lights. One of the challenges faced by the installation crew was making sure all of the 129 fixtures and all of the connections inside the water features were completely watertight. They had been constructed of concrete with overhangs to create dramatic cas- cades. Only after it was built did the client decide to add lights. To run the wires, Creative Nightscape had to drill into the concrete. They also were able to tuck wires under the over- hangs and secure them with brass fasteners mount- ed with a pneumatic gun. After the first attempt, water was still able to seep into lights because of the high water pressure so Creative Nightscape searched for, and found, lights that could stand up to the pressure. Hiding the wiring for the lights that illuminated the peak of the front entry presented another chal- lenge. To solve it, stonemasons were called in to remove some of the façade's stone. Creative Night- scape then ran the wiring and the masons rein- stalled the stone over it. "We're very fortunate… that there's a lot of really beautiful homes to light." When all was said and done, the property ended up with 485 fixtures: the 129 in the water features and 356 spread throughout the other areas of the residence. It took the five installers only 15 days to do most of the work. A few extra trips were needed to add some lights and to adjust others. 034-037.indd 35 3/28/14 8:55 AM

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