Proper illumination is vital for any outdoor living space. Essentially, lighting enhances beauty, provides security, and helps to create ambiance. When it comes to living spaces involving hardscapes, planning and installing the lighting fixtures can be a tedious task. Recently, the team at AMP® released a line of rotatable, brass hardscape lights. While mounting plates are offered with this line for mounting under capstones, the engineers at AMP® decided to offer a hardscape light with the mount integrated as part of the fixture’s design. With its latest release AMP® introduced the new, AMP® DescentPro Hardscape Light.
Features & Benefits:
- Sturdy, brass construction with a durable, antique bronze finish.
- Mounting bracket integrated as part of fixture design.
- Uses G4 Bi-Pin Bulbs – LED or Halogen (Rated for up to 20W)
- Dark Sky Approved – certified by International Dark Sky Association
- Lifetime Warranty
Professional Techniques:
Proper lighting can enhance any hardscape feature including: outdoor kitchens, pavilions, paver patios, pergolas, sitting walls, retainer walls, or fire pits. Linear hardscape fixtures such as the DescentPro are best used under lips, overhangs, and countertops to provide subtle illumination while remaining discreet. The most convenient way of installing these lights is typically to integrated the installation as part of the design/build of the hardscape feature itself.
Essentially, if your company is in the hardscape/patio and paver industries, offering low-voltage lighting such as linear fixtures is a simply way of expanding your business and boosting revenue with a service that is complementary to the projects you are already.
Quick Tips:
- 1. If you are unable to integrated the installation of lighting fixtures into the original design and build-out of a hardscape feature, work on existing structures around the client’s home. Any feature can be retrofitted to include lighting, no matter how long it has been there.
- 2. Proper spacing and proper brightness are both vital. While you want to give your client exactly what they want, as a professional designer you should know that hardscape lights are designed to create ambiance through subtle illumination and are best used this way. Using too many or too bright of fixtures can result in an overly illuminated area; which is not ideal for a comfortable outdoor living space.
- 3. Always plan accordingly for maintenance or upgrades. Should an issue arise with any installed fixtures or a client want to upgrade their lights down the road, you should always make sure that the fixtures are serviceable/removable. In hardscaping, this would mean that no fixtures are ‘locked’ in permanently by the stonework to the point where you can’t even remove a faceplate to swap out a light bulb.
