The month of December is humbling. One minute you are celebrating and the next you are up a ladder in the cold one strand of lights that were fine last year and this time will not light at all. No one ever speaks enough about that aspect of the holidays. The Everlights are present since this is an all too frequent scene.
What they provide is much more than merely hanging a few strands and receiving a check. It has more than just a show of real strategy to make people slow their cars down. Positioning, distance, choice of colors, quality of the fixtures – each choice counts. A professionally-lit house does not only appear brighter. It looks intentional.
Equipment is a larger aspect than what most homeowners are aware of. Lights sold at the big-box stores are constructed to be used casually, a season or two before something fails to work, or a connector corrods. Commercial grade equipment is in a whole new world. It is more robust, is brighter and can be used with long outdoor exposure without going into a temper tantrum in the face of a cold spell. It is used by professional crews since the alternatives are cheap, and no one would want to have a callback.
More credit should be given to the design process than is usually the case. A home is a particular project and not a template of a good lighting company. They examine roofs, tree location, and structures, and the proportion of the property, and then give one suggestion. Warm white is not going to show the same on a stone facade as it does on painted siding. What may be gorgeous on one house may be plane on another. It takes an eye and not simply passion to get it right.
When a crew is aware of what they are doing, installation is a quick process. Areas where ordinary homeowners would not dare to put a footstep, such as high-pitched areas, tall trees, overhangs, etc., are tackled without a second thought. The confidence is through repetition. It is hundreds of times that they have done it.
The structure of pricing is different among companies. On a per-linear-foot basis, flat project prices, package deals – it is all there. Find several quotes and analyze. More to the point, enquire about mid-season service calls. A company that is responsive when it comes to dealing with issues is worth a little more. One which becomes silent after installation is not.
When shopping around, takedown usually goes unnoticed. It shouldn’t. Nobody likes the month of January to work outdoors. Companies that are taking away, storing equipment during the off-season and doing the booking of the next year actively make the entire process really painless.
It is difficult to find such reliability. Keep it when you come across it.
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