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5 Ways Outdoor Lighting Can Elevate Your Space

5 Reasons To Upgrade your kitchen with under cabinent lighting

Enjoying the great outdoors and fresh air is a simple luxury that we take for granted with so much of our time going elsewhere–usually dedicated to some sort of technology. With outdoor lighting, you can extend your time spent in your outdoor spaces and truly make them an extension of your home. 

Elevate Safety

In the darkness of late night hours, many hazards can arise. With the right outdoor lighting, you can move much easier and safer in the dark. For your driveway or stair railings, places where slipping, tripping, and falling are common, outdoor post-mounted lanterns are a great way to illuminate your way. For the steps themselves or for other walkways, path and step lights help you see where you’re going. For your doors and entryways, outdoor wall lights can help you better see door handles, knobs, and especially, keyholes to help you get inside faster and easier. And finally, to make your home easier to find, address lights are a great addition.

Elevate Security

There are outdoor lighting options that are triggered by motion or timers to protect you and your home from intruders. These lights offer increased security without having to sacrifice looks–outdoor wall lights can be carefully added to the design of your home to keep you safe and light up your home in style. 

Elevate Aesthetic

Speaking of looks, outdoor lighting is a great way to elevate the natural beauty of your home’s architecture. With it, you can highlight your favorite features: add a glow to the welcoming ambiance of your home with an illuminated path and entry, spotlight the hard work you’ve done on your garden or landscaping, or capture the beauty of a water feature with underwater LEDs. The options are endless and can be customized to perfectly suit you and your home. 

Elevate Home Value

Outdoor lighting is one of the easiest, most affordable ways to boost your property value and curb appeal. When you can highlight your design elements, make areas look larger, heighten beauty, increase the usability of outdoor spaces after dark, and skyrocket your security and safety with this one strategy, why leave these benefits on the table? With Coffin Electric, we can help you elevate your home in more ways than one simply by enhancing your home’s outdoor lighting.

Elevate Your Enjoyment

Even after all of these amazing ways your home will be elevated, above them all is the increased enjoyment you can get out of your home. Now you can maximize your time in the great outdoors since you don’t have to retreat inside when it gets dark. Cozy up, grab a drink, relax, or have a meal with your loved ones, and enjoy the new glow of your outdoor spaces.

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Safety

Home Reno Projects You Should Leave to the Experts

Home Reno Projects You Should Leave to the Experts

At Coffin Electric, we’re all for DIY. However, while we love to see your home renovation projects, there are a few jobs that we suggest you get professional help with, for your safety and for the success of your home renovation!

 

Outlet and Switch Changes

In a renovation in any room of your home, changes to your outlets and switches can actually make a huge difference when you can make them match the design of the room, you can include USB outlets, or even dimmer switches, which add ambiance as well as help you control energy.

 

Light Fixture Installation

Why risk damaging your wiring or brand new light fixture by doing it yourself, when you can rest assured that it will be installed properly by a trained and trusted electrician? Taking out your current light fixture exposes wires conducting electricity, so if you are going to attempt to replace it, before working in that area you should make sure to cut off the power. However, to prevent damage to the wiring or to your fixture, getting the help of an electrician is your best bet. 

 

New Wiring

Whether you’re looking to upgrade your old home or are just making changes to your home that require updating your wiring like adding outlets, the assistance of an electrician is crucial. Wiring is a delicate matter, and may also require changes to your fuse box due to additional energy demands. It’s better to work with a professional electrician who will be able to not only assist you with ensuring your wiring is correct, but also any further changes that need to be made. 

 

Electrical Panel Upgrade

Your home’s electrical panel houses your circuit breaker, a crucial element of your electrical system. If you install a major household appliance or build an addition to your home, you may need to give your panel an upgrade so that it can hold a higher electrical capacity. This undertaking is a service you’ll definitely want professional help with. Even a minute mistake in this upgrade can take out the power in your house or even cause serious damage to your home’s electrical system.

Kitchen Remodels

For simpler aesthetic changes like new countertops or flooring, we’ll leave it to you. But if you’re adding appliances, giving them an upgrade, or even just adding new lighting appliances, enlisting the help of an electrician will boost the success of your kitchen remodel. With an electrician on your side, you can make more ambitious changes like countertop outlets, new light fixtures, dimmer switches, upgraded circuits dedicated to your appliances, and many other options. 

 

Basement Conversions

When you’re transforming your basement space, we often see a lot of big, exciting changes. With those changes though, comes a lot of important and intricate electrical work. With new wiring, lighting appliances, fans, outlets, and more, the assistance of a trained electrician will benefit your conversion greatly. 

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Safety

So You Want to Save Energy at Your Commercial Building

So You Want to Save Energy at Your Commercial Building

When you own a business or other commercial building, saving money is probably one of your top priorities. If you want to reduce your excessive electricity bills, you’ve got options. Here’s 3 tips for you to not only save money, but to also reduce your negative impact on the environment. 

 

Upgrade the lighting

How many hours a day do you think the lights in your space stay on? If the lights are flickering, a few years old, or often forgotten and left on, installing motion-sensing lighting is a good next step. Rooms that aren’t in constant use, like conference rooms and breakrooms eliminates human error and helps you save big on lighting costs. Your lightbulbs in your space also makes a big impact on your electricity bill. Switching to efficient lighting options like LED bulbs last longer and require less maintenance in the long run compared to traditional incandescent bulbs, so making this change can reduce the lighting portion of your electric bills up to 60%. 

 

Check Your Thermostat

As much as you might try, you probably won’t be able to make everyone in your business or commercial space happy–someone will always feel too hot or cold. What you can do is ensure you have programmable, energy-efficient thermostats and make energy-conscious choices as to the setting throughout the year. There are even ‘smart’ thermostats that will make those settings for you.

 

Manage Office Equipment

Most computers, printers, and other office equipment have energy saving features available so that they aren’t draining your wallet when they’re not in use. You’d be surprised how much energy that screen saver on the computer’s sleep mode is spending over time, so the blank black screen will be a welcome sight. But you’ll have to be careful and keep checking in on your equipment, as these settings can get reset or overridden every once in a while. It’s good to double check these settings once a month, especially when the seasons change, just to be safe. 

 

Every commercial space and business is unique, and while these tips will help you make a dent in your energy bill, getting an inspection to dig into the details will give you a huge boost. Coffin Electric works with both commercial and residential spaces, so give us a call and we’ll be happy to give you a hand!

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Safety

Should You Switch to Energy-Efficient Lighting

Can lighting change your home?

Energy Efficient appliances are one of the quickest and simplest methods to improve efficiency in your home, with a wide array of appliances and products that provide increased performance while also using less power. There are even high efficiency light bulbs that will help you make the switch to energy efficiency without having to make big changes like replacing your kitchen appliances. There are two main options for these bulbs, CFL (compact fluorescent light) bulbs and LED (light emitting diodes) bulbs. LEDs are the best option on the market today, as they generate light without generating heat, which is a big issue with standard incandescent bulbs. These incandescent bulbs use energy to run power through its filament, which is that little metal wire you can see in the middle of your bulb. This results in light from heat generation, which is where the inefficiency lies–most of that power is lost in the heat that is produced rather than the light generation. CFLs are similar and also highly efficient, but are often outlived and outperformed by LEDs.  Taking the plunge in including energy efficient appliances in your home, even just in your lighting, will provide great benefits to you and the environment.

 

Less Energy

The greatest benefit to adapting your lighting to energy efficient solutions is that both LED and CFL bulbs consume energy at a much lower rate than your traditional incandescent bulb–as little as a tenth or less wattage for LEDs and half to an eighth for CLFs. While replacing just one fixture’s bulbs won’t do much to your energy bill, upgrading your whole home to energy efficient lighting will make a drastic difference in your energy costs. 

 

More Life

Energy efficient bulbs, while more expensive than the traditional bulbs you might have in your home now, are a great investment in your home because they outlive those cheaper traditional bulbs by years. After you’ve made the switch to LEDs or CLFs, you won’t have to regularly repurchase bulbs to replace the burnt out ones for years to come.

 

Increased Stability

All of these energy efficient bulbs also outperform incandescent light bulbs in extreme temperatures. Whether in freezing temperatures or sweltering heat, they fail far less often than a traditional bulb. Furthermore, because they produce less heat, you might even save a bit on your cooling costs over the summer without the added heat of lighting. 

 

Better for the Environment

Not only will you be doing your part for your wallet, energy-efficient lighting will help you do your part for the environment. With these bulbs, you’ll be replacing them less and consuming less power, which will make a dent in your carbon footprint. 

Categories
Safety

Can Lighting Change Your Home?

Can lighting change your home?

If you’re looking for a way to revamp your home that’s a little less complicated than knocking down walls and replacing floors, you might want to consider changing up your lighting. There are a lot of different creative ways to change up the feeling of your space with light, from temperature to brightness. We can help you utilize these techniques to suit your home, your needs, and your budget. 

 

Brightness

Installing dimmers in your home allows you to control the brightness in your space, so you can customize the ambience of your space.

The level of brightness in your space is actually correlated to emotional response, partly due to the association with heat. During the day, you might notice the natural light helps put you in a good mood. In the same way, bright, glowing lights in your space can significantly improve the general atmosphere of your home.

On the other hand, if you’re looking for a more cozy setting, low level lighting helps to make your space feel warmer and cozier. With a dimmer, you can change what kind of feeling you want in your home through the brightness of your lighting with the simple touch of a finger.

Bulb Type

The temperature of the lighting in your home is also an easy way to transform your space. For warmer, yellower light, the type of bulb you might be looking for would be something like a fluorescent light, while an LED bulb will give off a cooler, bluer glow. The room that you’re lighting might play into your decision on bulb type and temperature. For example, lighting in bedrooms is more likely to be softer and comforting, while your kitchen’s lighting is usually brighter for functionality. 

 

Placement 

The placement of your lighting can make a big impact on your home and is an easy process. Adding ambience can be as simple as adding accent lighting to give your space a focal point. In your kitchen, a great way to elevate your kitchen is to install under cabinet lighting. It’s easy to install, cost-effective, energy-efficient, and helps to increase safety, while also making the space feel inviting. In other areas of your home, like your living room, accent lighting helps to highlight your favorite parts of your home and create the ideal ambience. Spotlighting a focal point, like artwork or a unique architectural feature draws the gaze to these areas and can completely transform the feeling of the room. 

 

If any of these ideas sound like something you want to tackle to change the feel of your home, call us at Coffin Electric. With the help of our professionally trained technicians, you can have peace of mind knowing that your transformation will be safely and correctly installed, and will look great too.