Electrical Industry Articles and Stories

Outdoor landscape lighting is not just about illuminating the exterior of homes and businesses; it's a burgeoning market with a glowing future.

Wall pack lighting is installed on the exterior walls of buildings where it provides needed illumination to ensure safety and security. This type of fixture is perfect for parking lots, pathways, exits, entrances, or wherever nighttime visibility is crucial.

As I pondered this topic, I was relaxing in our side yard, gazing at the garden in the dark. Well, not totally in the dark. The garden was delightfully illuminated by flickering tiki torch lamps … lit by LEDs, charged by the sun. Spotlights shone on my miniature windmill as it lazily spun in the evening breeze.

Recently, my wife and I had the “pleasure” of visiting a relatively new hospital complex. For almost a year, I watched the 5-story edifice being built as I traveled up and down Highway 49 in Northwest Arkansas.

Lighting without wires – that’s the promise solar-powered security lighting offers homeowners. If you’re an electrical contractor, you might see that lack of wires as a threat to your installation business – after all, if there aren’t any wires, why would customers turn to you for help?

Lighting the great outdoors requires a bit more thought now than it did a couple decades ago. The goal used to be simply packing as many lumens as possible into a landscape fixture. That was the entire point. Photocell sensors might have been used to ensure lights didn’t stay on during daylight hours, but keeping outdoor space fully illuminated – even when no humans were around – was seen as a key safety measure.