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May 2022 Contractor of the Month is: Rain Right Irrigation Service

Rain Right Irrigation Service has been in business for seven years. Founded by Tom Picciano, a Certified Florida Horticulture Professional. Rain Right provides irrigation, lighting, and drainage services for commercial and residential clients. We serve Greater Tampa Bay and down to the Fort Myers area.

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Tell Us About Yourself & Your Company

Rain Right Irrigation Service​ has been providing high quality irrigation, landscape lighting and drainage services to the Tampa Bay area and beyond since 2015. From simple irrigation repair to an extraordinary home lighting display, our dedication to client satisfaction is our number one priority. Our extensive experience in horticulture, landscape design, irrigation, lighting and drainage will provide the solution to enhance the beauty and functionality of each client's landscape.

The Interview

  • How did you get into the landscape lighting business?

    Our business plan from the start of our firm was to include lighting. We also own a horticultural consulting company that has developed relationships with several local management companies over the past 17 years, and these companies were looking for a firm to handle these three disciplines.

  • What percentage of your business is landscape lighting/what other services do you provide (ie: landscaping, irrigation, electrical…)?

    Our revenue is: Irrigation service 50%, lighting 35% and drainage 15%

  • How long have you been installing landscape lighting?

    7 years

  • What AMP products do you prefer to use? Which fixtures are your favorite?

    Our go to fixture is the AMP® PinnaclePro MR16 Spotlight (Lamp-Ready). We like the way it securely locks into position. For large tree canopies we prefer the AMP® ControlPro™ LED Spotlight (Lamp-Ready) line or the yoke mounted floodlights. We have also used the AMP wall wash fixtures, well lights and AMP® MagnumPro™ Path & Area Light (Lamp-Ready).

  • What tips or tricks have you learned that have benefited your work from a design/installation perspective?

    We prefer to install one larger centrally located transformer instead of multiple smaller ones. We will cut and patch the roads as necessary. All transformers are always over-sized for future system expansion. We only use 10/2 wire. We always bring additional lamps with us if our design intent is not met. We do a good deal of pool irrigation, drainage and lighting and we will place our wire and pipe in the same trench to minimize landscape disturbance and for ease of future maintenance. Our electrical testing equipment works for both irrigation as well as lighting, making service work on existing systems much easier. We do all our own shrub pruning during the installation process and contract with a local arborist to prune the trees we are lighting. A properly pruned tree with a strong branching structure, without a heavy moss load and dead wood, makes the trees much more expressive when illuminated. We also leave the transformer unwired until we are ready to do the nighttime adjustment.

  • Tell me about your sales process. How do you find your customers? What is your sales process? Do you use sales tools such as a free demo?

    Our residential work comes by word of mouth. Our commercial work usually originates with a proposal provided to a management company. We have advertised in a Tampa magazine in the past. We do not provide nighttime demos. We provide our clients with a before/after video that includes most any scenario they can envision from the smallest puck or bar light to a massive tree canopy. We also provide them with still photographs and bring them the fixtures to examine. Our proposals are also very detailed with pictures.

  • Where do you find inspiration for your lighting designs?

    The varying degrees of nighttime darkness whether a full moon or no moon are the best sources of inspiration, showing how landscapes are naturally illuminated. We also find inspiration from other designs we have done as well as other lighting professionals. In addition, finding the hidden architectural elements that a client might not realize. It may be the branching structure of a large oak or the dark upper eaves of the home that become invisible at night and would benefit by being illuminated.

  • What do you feel is the most personally rewarding part of installing a lighting system for a client?

    The most rewarding part for us is going out at nighttime and turning the lights on so the client can see the difference. They generally don't realize that such a visual difference could be made to their nighttime landscape.

  • Tell us a little bit about you personally: What do you like to do outside of work? What are your hobbies?

    When I'm not working, I like to be with my family. I play guitar and enjoy playing ice hockey.

AMP® Lighting appreciates the Professionals that make us who we are and why we strive, daily, to fulfill our vision statement. Our outstanding AMP® Pros deserve to be recognized for their exceptional landscape lighting work and to highlight some of our AMP® MVPs (most valuable professionals)!

Interested in being featured as an AMP® Contractor of the Month?

Contact Zach Evensen at: zache@amplighting.com

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AMP® Pros – a group of landscape lighting professionals authorized to purchase and install the industry’s best products.

AMP® Pros have the skills and experience to design and install professional landscape lighting. They are also committed to the use of high quality products and best practices in the design, installation, and maintenance of their work. These distinctions qualify them to become AMP® Pros.

The goal of AMP® Lighting is to elevate the profession of landscape lighting by providing AMP® Pros with the high-performance products and the professional support they need to succeed.

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