1.  Invest in a Few Strategically Placed Garden Lights–Do not over light your landscape. Be sure to check the “dark sky”* ordinances in your town so that your landscape lighting design will be within legal limits of illumination.  Try a few garden spread lights to softly highlight flowerbeds, rock gardens and sculpted shrubbery.

2.  Work It Wisely—Put the ultimate control in the palm of your hand. Whether hand-held or on automated timers, outdoor lighting controls are the utmost in energy-saving and convenience to promote safety and security effortlessly and instantly.

3.  Prepare Your Patio for the King of the Grill—Task lighting is often neglected when planning your landscape and outdoor lighting design. While aiming for subtle illumination in most backyard areas, you need shielded, but plentiful focused task light over outdoor cooking stations.  An adjustable spot light installed in a rooftop corner or an attached grill light will help you to see that your chicken is thoroughly cooked and your burgers are not too well-done.

4. Watch Your Step and Provide Shielded Path Lighting —LED path lights and strip lights are available in a variety of colors and sizes to uniquely define and expand the boundaries of your outdoor living space while providing nighttime illumination for safe navigation.

5.  Go for the Life Time Guarantee—Superb new vendors are featuring landscape lighting products guaranteed to withstand the elements and weather naturally overtime without peeling or rusting.  Check out new post lamps from Northeast Lantern–all parts, with the exception of glass, are guaranteed for life!

 Say “Happy Father’s Day!” and bring it on home. Great landscape lighting will truly make his home feel like his castle. 

 Best Landscape Lighting Finds For Summer 

Path Lighting: “Nexus,” new from Hinkley Lighting featuring LED and a Bronze finish; “Dwell”  1547 from Hinkley in a Buckeye Bronze or Hematite finish.

Garden Lights: “Intaglio” Brass Crook Neck 1543 landscape light in Olde Bronze from Kichler Lighting; Tiffany path light in Antique Bronze with Green Faux Tiffany shade (P5271) from Progress Lighting.

Grill and Wall Lights: Barn Lantern from Northeast Lantern available in a choice of unique finishes including: Antique Brass, Dark Antique Brass, Dark Brass and Verdi Gris.

Step and Deck Lighting:  LED-TO24-5 Tape Lights from WAC Lighting, available in Amber, Blue, Green, Red, and White.

 Be sure that your new outdoor lighting purchases are in keeping with the dark-sky outdoor-lighting codes in your community.

*The latest landscape light fixtures are energy efficient and in keeping with new “Dark Sky” regulations.  “Dark Sky” ordinances continue to spread across the country in an effort to reduce light pollution.  Check the latest nighttime light restrictions in your town, to make sure your outdoor and landscape lighting is in keeping with new code laws.  Call your local government’s community planning and zoning office.  Fines for violating dark-sky ordinances may cost up to $100–Consumer Digest Communications, LLC.

The emergence of shielded dark-sky-compliant fixtures makes it easy to update your landscape lighting in keeping with the new laws. In addition to being environmentally friendly, these fixtures reduce glare, and they are affordable and energy saving.

Museums have a hard line to walk, exhibiting items for public education and enjoyment while protecting those same collections from damage. Today’s museum also carry the additional weight of safeguarding the future of the environment – as well as their financial future – against the dangers of unnecessary energy consumption. What advancements have been made in preservation lighting technology to help accomplish these goals?

Light, including all three types: ultraviolet (UV), infrared, and visible light, causes permanent and irreversible damage to museum pieces. Cumulative and dependent on the intensity and duration of exposure, light affects chemical composition, physical structure, and, the appearance of a collection. There is no conservation treatment that can repair it. Light damage is forever.

Only complete darkness ensures conservation, since exposure to light in any form naturally breaks down items. However, keeping pieces locked away in the dark defeats the mission of the museum – sharing those works with the public. It is thus a museum’s dilemma to find a suitable solution that balances the best of both worlds, in addition to considering energy costs and the environmental impact of its lighting selection.  

In your search for preservation lighting, you will find that a great deal of lighting solutions involve UV (ultraviolet light), the most energetic and destructive form of light. These include natural light, fluorescents, HID, and tungsten halogen lighting. Fortunately, the effects of UV can be controlled with simple filters, offering a greater variety of lighting options. UV filters are hard plastic tubes or soft sleeves wrapped around bulbs/light sources, which filter and block up to 98 percent of UV light, preventing its damaging effects. NOTE: UV filters lose efficiency over time and must be replaced every eight-10 years.

Specific, detailed recommendations for preservation lighting levels based on your collection type can be found from various sources, including the Library of Congress, National Park Service, UNESCO, and more.

Good News! Electric vehicle-related jobs in Los Angeles grew by 15.3% between 2007 and 2010. While the number of these jobs is still small, totaling a little over 550 in 2100, the growth rate is a hopeful sign and is a small part of the overall growth in our green economy jobs. The growth rate in L.A.’s green economy jobs between 2007 and 2010 was 7.1%, yielding a total of over 89,000 jobs in 2010.

L.A. scored #3 in growth rate for electric vehicle-related jobs between 2007 and 2010, with Kansas City at #1 and Phoenix at #2. “Electric vehicle-related jobs” includes manufacturing of electrical equipment and other parts for electric cars. It doesn’t include, for example, what we at The Electric Connection do, install chargers for electric vehicles (EVs), nor the selling of electric cars. Nor does the 2007-10 growth rate include small companies of 5 or fewer employees. For these reasons, the 15.3% figure for 2007-10 is undoubtedly an underestimate of job growth in the Los Angeles area related to electric cars.

However, the figures are an indication of an exciting phenomenon occurring all over the country — the growth of the green economy. The green economy encompasses recycling, energy audits, solar cells, and other industries which, like EVs, have an environmental benefit. The growth of the green economy benefits not only the environment, but also has a particularly welcome benefit of creating middle income jobs that don’t require higher education.

Yes, many green economy jobs go to environmental engineers, computer programmers, and others who have gone to college. In fact, many of these college-educated people are the innovators who create the green jobs to begin with.

But many green economy jobs, like in the manufacturing of electrical parts for electric cars, don’t require a college education. People are calling them “green collar” jobs — jobs that can be filled by people who might otherwise fruitlessly look for blue collar jobs that have been lost to robots in manufacturing plants or have been shipped overseas to people who make low wages.

We’re experiencing a process that has repeated itself throughout history — innovation seeding job creation. When Scottish engineer James Watt created innovations that made the steam engine useful commercially, he made the Industrial Revolution possible. The Industrial Revolution started with steam-powered textile plants. Textile and other steam-powered manufacturing plants led to the creation of factory jobs, which at that time, required limited education. This allowed subsistence farmers to leave their fields and begin (in an admittedly arduous path!) upward mobility. This was the rise of the Middle Class.

Today, the green economy, created by innovation, yields both green collar jobs and those requiring higher education. The growth of jobs in the EV manufacturing sector in L.A. is good over the long term not only for our environment, but also for our job market, providing work for people with various levels of education.

For more information about the growth of electric vehicle-related jobs in L.A. and the rest of the country as well as other green economy jobs, go to the report, Sizing the Clean Economy, by the Brookings Institution, July 2011.

Click here for more information about installing a charger for your electric vehicle.