The dirty little word in landscape lighting

Call it a referral fee, kickback, or "thank you" but ever since I got into the industry I've had to deal with these little moments. Now don't get me wrong, I have no problem paying someone or another company a commission on referring my landscape lighting company. However, I do have a problem when that person is directly involved in the project and retaining our services. It doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy when the architect, builder, general contractor, landscape architect, or landscape designer says "we'd love you to do the landscape lighting...how much will I get?"

Let me explain how the situation typically works. The architect, builder, GC and the homeowner predetermine fees for their responsibilities. Say a builder negotiates a 18% management fee for all his subcontractors, subcontractor sends an invoice, builder marks up the invoice 18%, and owner pays the invoice. Now say the builder also takes a kickback from the subcontractors, typically 10% of the invoice directly from the subcontractor. Now the builder is making almost 30% and the owner has no idea. There is nothing wrong with the builder making a "management fee" for all the subcontractors due to all the scheduling and time in meetings to coordinate the job, but it shouldn't be under the table.

Thankfully, having my own company, I can choose to just not work for that individual or job...and I have. In fact, I can honestly say that I have never paid a professional "kickback" in my career. It's just not worth opening that door.

I've found one way around the situation is to be directly retained by the owner. Most of the time, architects, builders, and GC's don't include the outside package (landscaping, irrigation, drainage, landscape lighting, etc.) in their scope of work and allow the owner to contract it directly. This saves the owner considerable dollars that can be applied directly to their project. The problem is owners retain the services of a landscape architect or designer who then includes the landscape lighting in their scope of work. Why is this a problem you may ask? Most landscape architects and designers don't have in-house professionals that can and do high-quality landscape lighting design. So they sub it out to companies, like myself, and then mark-up the proposal their 18-20%. It just never ends.

In the end, the owner is much better served by retaining the services of a landscape architect or designer completely separate from a landscape lighting company. This way all the money the owner spends is being directly applied to their end product. 

It's a tough game to play but over the years, I've learned who to work with and who to stay away from. There are a lot of really great professionals out there and it's not worth the risk of having your name associated with these types of dealings.

E2 Illumination Designs is a design-build landscape lighting company focused on bringing the finest landscape lighting design and construction to wherever our services are valued. Please contact us if we can assist you in your project.

The future of landscape lighting for E2 Illumination Designs

Company management is shaking things up recently as computers, iPads, and iPhones have taken over the minds of our crew. So official training to instill the work ethic, attitudes, and the occupational enjoyment we expect at E2 Illumination Designs has begun. 

On the ropes, the boys are finding out why dad loves hanging in the trees and the movie Swiss Family Robinson. They seem to be enjoying the job...maybe a bit too much. I don't think they'll be having this good of a time when the electrical trenching portion of their development begins!

The front office is in capable hands and I'm so proud of the teamwork shared between these two budding professionals. However, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of working getting done. We'll get to the office training (math homework) a bit later.

Design is always evolving, however a do believe we won't have a problem in this department as long as "drawing your sister" on breaks is allowed. 

So the team is in place, training has begun, and the future looks bright for E2 Illumination Designs. 

Landscape Lighting for your Garden Ornamentation

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While traveling through south Texas this week, I went to a clients and found a unique addition to the front garden. At first I thought it had to be a joke, but then I realized how it was securely mounted to the trunk. Brings a smile to my face and I thought how lucky I am to have such "cool" clients. 

Now don't get me wrong, I am not thinking of adding a light to enhance the viewing pleasure of the bicycle anytime soon. However, I do think it was the perfect lead-in to illustrate several examples of different types of landscape lighting for enhancing your garden ornaments and statues. 

First, I can't tell you all my secrets and I do have to give credit to the master John Robin Watson for his teaching. He truly was amazing!

Typically, a garden ornament or statue is an afterthought when added to the landscape and that is how the lighting of it is usually done as well. Put a light on a stake in front of it and let it shine!!!! The only time to ever consider doing such a thing is when there's considerable landscape around to conceal the lighting unit and there are no trees on the property. This means do all your feature lighting from the trees. The above statue was illuminated with a low voltage 50W Par36 incandescent on a dimmer. The key to this type of lighting is finding the correct location for the lighting unit and amount to dim for the appropriate affect.  

Below, this garden ornament on a west Texas ranch was illuminated with a medium 3,000 kelvin 24W LED spot with a special lens and dimmer. Again, location of the unit is extremely important to get the proper coverage and lighting intensity.

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While working at JWLI

The above feature is when you have to use everything in your arsenal so a 300W Par56 incandescent and 500W Par64 incandescent were used to achieve this result. Both lights are on separate dimmers and you have to determine the type of beam spread to use, for example spot, flood, medium flood, wide flood and narrow flood. Proximity to the feature and the feature characteristics will help you in determining which one to use.

Garden ornaments bring so much to an outdoor environment that it requires proper illumination or that ornamentation will turn into an eye sore in the evening hours. Just google lighting outdoor statue and look at the images. Most features are illuminated from the ground and the lighting creates a hot spot on the lower portion of the feature while the upper portion is either in the dark or shadowed. Also, most of the pictures are taken at dusk when the light intensity isn't showing as great. Little tricks the imitators try to use!

Illuminating garden elements is difficult and there isn't a one type or style of light for every type of feature. If we can help you in illuminating a special garden ornament for your home and garden, please contact us.

Landscape Lighting created specifically for you

Additional Security Lighting on a switch

Over the years, one of my favorite adds to a landscape lighting plan is separate security lighting...(in my presentations, I define security lighting as a brighter downlighting (moonlighting) effect) You can see the dramatic impact it can have on a landscape in these project photos.

This play set and trampoline were located across a creek and quite the distance from the homeowners viewing comfort level. The moonlighting we designed to the area provides a nice ambiance, but the client wanted to be able to pay closer attention to their kids. We added a couple security lights on a separate circuit the homeowner could turn on from the house to see just what the little hooligans were up to. By the way, I have five kids so I truly understand the value of this little trick!;-)

Below, the homeowner had a large family and enjoyed setting up tables and chairs in their wonderful back garden for family gatherings. They enjoy a softly illuminated back garden for their all night security and a security light on a separate switch they could only turn on when entertaining.

Additional Security Lighting for Entertaining

I've designed and installed this type of security lighting for homeowners throughout the country to illuminate motor courts for valet parking, sport courts, outdoor kitchen areas, putting greens, and even helipads. 

If you would like more information on this technique please contact us. E2 Illumination Designs is a design-build-maintatin landscape lighting company based in Dallas/Ft. Worth while continually working throughout the country wherever fine outdoor lighting design is demanded.