22 Jan Preventive Maintenance Plans for Effective Landscape Lighting Systems
By Mike Gambino
At Gambino landscape Lighting, we strongly encourage proactive landscape lighting system maintenance due to many important benefits. Just as your vehicle needs regular service to ensure that everything is operating correctly, your low voltage landscape lighting equipment should be inspected and adjusted to achieve optimum performance. You might choose to put off that service on your vehicle, but you know that there could be serious consequences in the long run. Similarly, failing to regularly service lighting systems can lead to serious problems in the future. By choosing a maintenance plan, you can take advantage of timely preventive care while having access to important support services if your system has seasonal operating problems.
Optimization of Landscape Lighting Systems
Landscape Lighting maintenance enables you to begin the seasons with reliable and efficient service from your low voltage landscape lighting equipment. There are numerous benefits that result from regular preventive care, including:
- Improved efficiency – annual efficiency loss for normal system use can be 5 percent or more, and a tune-up can counteract this loss.
- Identification of faulty parts – a lighting system experiences wear over time, and regular maintenance allows for worn out or broken parts to be repaired or replaced as needed.
- Averting system problems – regular maintenance can reduce the potential for a later breakdown by as much as 95 percent. While it is impossible to avoid all repair situations, preventive care can save a lot of money on unanticipated landscape lighting emergencies.
- Electrical safety – Lighting equipment that operates through the electrical system of your home can pose a safety risk with unanticipated damage or wear, making annual inspections a crucial safety measure for your household.
- Longevity of your equipment – you can expect many years of service from quality landscape lighting components. Regular maintenance reduces the risk of early equipment failures and costly upgrade needs.
Through the optimization of your equipment and the early identification of problems, your maintenance plan allows you to be proactive in managing your enjoyment level throughout the year.
What Does a Maintenance Visit Entail?
A maintenance visit involves a thorough inspection of your system, including the mechanical equipment and system controls. Your technician will:
- Inspect all parts, noting those that may need to be replaced or repaired
- Lubricate moving parts and o-ring seals
- Clean fixture lenses
- Clean decorative garden fixture surface finish
- Inspect for moisture intrusion and clean drainage systems
- Test amperage at transformer
- Inspect and clean LED heat sinks
- Inspect and adjust tree and cable mounts
- Test electronic components and system controls
- Calibrate transformers as needed
- Evaluate system performance
- Tighten loose fittings and connections
- Evaluate fixture aiming and re-adjust
- Light plant and tree pruning around fixtures for optimum night effect
How Is a Maintenance Plan Helpful?
By selecting a maintenance plan, you can be assured of timely service prior to seasonal changes that bring people outdoors. It is easy to forget about household maintenance when temperatures are mild and other activities are pressing. However, failure to have your system’s tune-up completed prior to these peak times can lead to unexpected problems during those nights spent outdoors. A system that has a failing part, for example, might malfunction during an important outdoor night time event. However, preventive maintenance allows such an issue to be identified before that failing part can fail. For the individual whose schedule is busy, preventive plans allow us to handle the timing of the service so that your system gets the necessary attention in a timely manner.
Maintenance plans also provide our customers with access to priority service and related benefits. In case of a system malfunction, landscape lighting repair service is provided promptly and affordably to those who carry maintenance contracts.
Additional Maintenance Concerns
Although the primary focus of a preventive care plan is the mechanical portion of your landscape lighting system, it is important to remember that the performance of landscape lighting systems is dependent on the integrity of fixtures, lamps and transformers as well as other structural issues. Dirty and obstructed lenses can represent a 40 percent loss of light output, and dirt and plants obstructing lenses together can affect the performance and enjoy ability of your lighting in a very significant way. A proactive maintenance plan can be expanded to include regular inspections and lens cleaning to enhance the lighting conditions on your property. Lens cleaning is typically needed every maintenance visit. Landscape lighting maintenance is recommended as needed to improve both landscape lighting performance and outdoor light quality.
Planning for New LED Lamps
Although your selection of a maintenance plan can extend the life and enhance the performance of your system, it is important to keep the lifespan of your LED Lamp equipment in mind over time. Through regular interaction with our technicians, you can plan for the timing of a LED lamp replacement. Contrary to popular belief LED light sources do not last forever. In fact they do wear out and lose both brightness and color quality over an extended period of time. By having an ongoing relationship with your original landscape lighting system designer/builder you can ensure that your system stays looking its best for maximum enjoy ability.
This landscape lighting blog is published by Mike Gambino of Gambino landscape lighting inc. all rights reserved. Mike is a professional landscape lighting system designer/ builder and has been designing, installing and maintaining landscape lighting systems for more than 20 years. Mike resides in the Los Angeles area with his wife and 2 sons. To visit his website go to www.Gambinolighting.com . To inquire about hiring Mike please click here .
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