5 tips for a maintenance-free landscape lighting system
In regard to landscaping, maintenance is part of the whole package. If you want to enjoy your Rock Valley, Iowa, or Sioux Center, Iowa, yard, proper installation of the materials used, and routine maintenance are required. While there are ways to cut down on yard maintenance with proper irrigation and turf installation, some homeowners may not be aware of the fact that there are ways to reduce the maintenance required of a landscape lighting system.
Less time needed to maintain landscape lighting means more time to get back to firing up the grill in your outdoor kitchen. Like a car, landscape lighting requires routine maintenance to perform at the optimal level. By using the five tips listed below, you will be able to enjoy an (almost) maintenance-free landscape lighting system:
1. Inspect Your Lighting Fixtures
Your fixtures should hit their targets correctly and should be straight. If you live in a climate that is prone to freezing temperatures, over time your fixtures may be affected. When freezing and thawing cycles occur, the earth that surrounds the fixtures can shift or move. This can shift the fixtures every season. By inspecting your lighting fixtures regularly, you can avoid the seasonal shifts that occur.
Additionally, it is important to check your fixtures regularly to ensure that they are tight enough to seal out water. When moisture enters a lighting fixture, damage and corrosion can occur. Further, if your fixtures have built-up hard water deposits, those will need to be removed.
2. Clear Overgrown Vegetation
If you have added various vegetation to your landscaping, you are likely aware that plants grow. In order to make sure that your fixtures are not over-crowded or obscured by overgrown vegetation, it is important that you trim and prune your plants regularly so that the light has room to travel throughout your yard.
3. Take Care of Exposed Wires
While proper installation of your lighting fixtures will place the wires beneath the ground’s surface, root systems that are continuously growing and frost can both shift the wires and can eventually expose pieces of the wires over time. By routinely checking for exposed wires, you can quickly bury them so that no damage to the wiring occurs.
4. Take Landscape Changes into Consideration
Sometimes, your fixtures need to be relocated as your landscape changes. If your trees and/or shrubs become larger, you may want to place your lighting fixtures in places where they will not become engulfed.
5. Address Problems Early
In order to ensure that you are not having to spend large chunks of money on big repairs, routine maintenance is required. By becoming knowledgeable of your space and by simply looking after your lighting system, you will be able to catch minor problems before they become larger problems. Be sure to pay extra attention to your lighting fixtures when the seasons begin to change.
While no yard is ever completely maintenance-free, following the five tips listed above will help cut down on overall maintenance. This translates to less time fixing broken light fixtures and more time spent enjoying your landscaping efforts.