Where homeowners go wrong
Outdoor lighting gets quoted fast and understood slowly. A package price and a plan drawn for your house can land within a few hundred dollars of each other, and look nothing alike at night.
Start with the design
Ask to see what they are proposing for your house. If somebody can walk you through why each run is where it is, that is a good sign. A company that will not is selling you the same job they sold the last house.
Ask what happens after the install
Everything mounted outdoors has a day when it needs attention. Ask now who that is. For seasonal work, ask who takes it down and where it lives until next year. For permanent
https://evercrestlighting.com/ systems, ask how the app works and who supports it.
Ask what they are set up to do
The trades are related without being the same: seasonal displays, yard lighting, permanent LED systems and security work. It matters since a company with one product will find a reason to sell you that product.
Ask about the kind of property they usually work on
A house and a storefront need different designs. At a house, the goal is how it looks from the street and how it works at night. A business wants to be visible and to look open, often in company colors. Ask which one they do more of, and weigh that against what you need done.
Red flags
A price that only holds until the end of the visit says more about the company than the job. If nobody will write down what gets lit, there is nothing to hold anybody to. Vagueness about support down the road is the third.Plenty of honest companies are just disorganized. But lighting is going to live on the front of your house, and the paperwork is the part you rely on when something goes wrong.Two quotes are worth the trouble, as long as you read past the price line. A custom design and a stock package are different products, even when the numbers are close. Ask each one what they would leave out if the budget were tighter, because the answer tells you what they think matters.
Local matters here
Local is not just a nice sentiment here: the crew that works your county knows the houses. EverCrest Lighting is a lighting contractor based in Greenville, South Carolina, serving Upstate South Carolina and Western North Carolina. They do permanent LED lighting, holiday lighting, landscape lighting, patio lighting, accent lighting and security lighting for homes and businesses. The consultation is free, and the design gets drawn before anybody quotes. Reach them at (864) 252-1732 or
[email protected].