Landscape lighting in Raleigh, NC.
Low-voltage path, accent, and security lighting that finishes the yard — installed clean and coordinated with your irrigation lines so nothing gets cut, flooded, or crossed.
What Raleigh homeowners should know
- Coordinated with your irrigation. We know where the sprinkler lines run, so lighting goes in without strikes, leaks, or crossed systems — the advantage of one contractor.
- Trenched for Raleigh clay. Clean, careful trenching on clay lots so wire is protected and the yard is restored.
- HOA-aware layouts. In communities with lighting guidelines, we design to fit — common across Raleigh-area subdivisions.
And the one that pairs naturally with irrigation
Good landscape lighting does three things at once: it makes the house look its best after dark, it makes paths and steps safe, and it adds real security. We install low-voltage LED systems — path lights, uplighting on trees and architecture, and security fixtures — laid out for how you actually use the yard.
Because we’re already in the ground doing irrigation, we install lighting without cutting a sprinkler line or fighting the buried system — the two are coordinated instead of colliding, which is exactly the problem when a separate crew shows up later.
Low-voltage LED, laid out for your yard
Path & walkway lighting
Soft, even light on walks, steps, and drives for safety and curb appeal.
Accent & uplighting
Uplighting on trees, architecture, and features to give the house depth after dark.
Security lighting
Well-placed fixtures that light entries and dark corners without glare.
Deck & patio lighting
Integrated lighting for outdoor living spaces you actually use at night.
LED retrofit
Upgrading old halogen systems to efficient, long-life LED.
Transformer & timer setup
Properly sized transformers and timers or photocells so the system runs itself.
Why the last fixture should be as bright as the first
The failure people notice on a low-voltage system is not a fixture going out. It is the far end of a run growing dimmer than the near end over a couple of seasons, until half the garden looks tired and nobody can say quite why.
That is voltage drop, and it is a design problem rather than a maintenance one. Every foot of cable costs a little voltage, and a run loaded to its limit delivers noticeably less to the fixture at the end than to the one nearest the transformer. Sizing the cable properly, splitting long runs, and using multi-tap transformers all cost a little more at install and remove the problem permanently.
The other decision worth making deliberately is glare. A fixture aimed so you can see the lamp itself lights the viewer rather than the subject, and it makes everything beyond it harder to see rather than easier. Shielded fixtures and lower output, placed to graze a wall or wash a trunk, do more with less and look considerably better from the street.
Landscape lighting FAQ
Do you install LED or halogen?
LED — it uses a fraction of the energy, lasts far longer, and runs cooler. We also retrofit old halogen systems to LED.
Will lighting interfere with my sprinklers?
No — that’s the advantage of using us. We know where the irrigation runs and install lighting around it, so nothing gets cut or crossed.
What does landscape lighting cost?
It depends on fixture count and layout. We design to your yard and budget and give a clear, upfront price.
Does the system need maintenance?
Very little with LED — occasional cleaning and re-aiming. We can fold it into a maintenance visit.
Can you add security lighting?
Yes — entries, dark corners, and approaches, placed to light the space without harsh glare.
How it works
Design walk (ideally at dusk)
We walk the yard and talk through what to light and how you use the space.
Layout & fixtures
A plan and fixture selection sized to the yard and your budget.
Clean install
Low-voltage wire trenched and protected, fixtures set, transformer and timer wired.
Night aiming
We return once it is properly dark to aim and balance each fixture, which is the difference between a lighting scheme and a row of lights.
Why the sprinkler company is the one holding the trencher
The honest answer is that most of a lighting job is work we already do. Cable pulled through a trench. Connections made to survive being wet permanently. A transformer on a wall, timed much like a controller. The lawn put back so nobody can see where anyone walked. Change the wire and that is an irrigation day.
Where it pays is mobilization. One crew, one machine off the trailer, one set of ruts, one restoration. If a trench is already open for drainage or a new zone, lighting cable shares the route for the price of the extra wire. Two trades on two visits will always cost more — and the second is guessing where the first buried things.
What we are not is a design studio. We do not produce renderings, and on a large property with a formal scheme in mind a lighting designer is the right call. What we do is conventional, durable lighting, installed by people who know what is already under the grass.
What we usually find on a system somebody else put in
Repairs outnumber installations here, and the faults repeat.
- Connections made with wire nuts. A twist cap in a wet bed wicks water up the copper. Strands corrode, resistance climbs, and the run fades over a season before giving up.
- A transformer that has been outgrown. Fixtures get added three at a time and nobody goes back to the box. The load ends up at the limit, everything runs dull, and the transformer runs hot.
- Splices nobody wrote down. Buried joins with no record turn every future fault into a small excavation.
- LED lamps on a halogen transformer. Swapping lamps drops the load to a fraction of what an old magnetic unit expects. Some hold voltage badly down there, the new lamps die early, and the lamps get the blame.
Most of it is a morning of work rather than a new system, and we will say so when it is.
Aiming is a second visit, and it is the one that shows
Fixtures go in during daylight, because nobody should run a trencher at nine at night. Whether they are aimed correctly is a question only darkness answers, so we come back and answer it then. It costs a visit. It is what separates a yard that has been lit from a yard that merely has lights in it.
Aiming is mostly done by walking. From the street, from the front door, from the kitchen window. A fixture that is perfect from one of those and blinding from another needs moving rather than dimming. A degree of tilt, a light set lower in the bed, an uplight pulled back a foot from the trunk: corrections that are invisible at noon.
No aim is permanent, either. A crape myrtle planted at eight feet is not eight feet in five years, and an uplight set for a young tree ends up washing the underside of a canopy that has climbed past it. Re-aiming takes an hour and folds into a maintenance visit.
Where we work
These link to our area pages — what yards are like in each part of the Triangle and how we handle them. Every service on this page is available in all ten.
Light up your yard
Tell us what you’d like to light — we’ll design it.
- Insured and licensed in NC
- Priced up front, nothing added later
- Twelve-month warranty on our labor
Ready to finish the yard after dark?
Call or text for a landscape lighting design walk.