Find Houston-area outdoor lighting companies — and see which ones we've confirmed with the business.

Hiring a landscape lighting company in Houston

There is a licensing nuance here worth understanding before you get quotes. Most residential landscape lighting is low voltage — a transformer steps 120V down to 12V, and the wiring on the garden side of that transformer is not the same regulated work as household circuits. But the transformer has to be fed from a proper circuit, and that connection is electrical work requiring a licensed electrician (TECL) in Texas.

So the fair question is: who makes the connection at the panel or the outlet, and are they licensed? Plenty of good lighting companies have an electrician on staff or a standing relationship with one. A company that waves the question away is the one to avoid.

What separates a designed system from a row of lights

• Fixture material. Cast brass and copper cost more up front and survive Houston humidity and irrigation spray. Cheap aluminium and plastic fixtures corrode and fade, and replacing them costs more than buying properly once.
• Transformer sizing. Ask what capacity is being installed and how much of it the design uses. A transformer run at its limit has no room for the second phase you will want in two years.
• Aiming. This is the craft. The same fixtures aimed well and aimed badly produce completely different results, and it is the part that takes a second visit after dark.

Ask to see it at night

The only meaningful way to judge this trade is to look at finished work after dark, in person or in honest photographs. Ask for addresses in your area you can drive past. Good companies volunteer this.

The Houston seasonal overlap

Many landscape lighting companies here also install Christmas and holiday lighting, and the crews and ladders are the same. Two practical consequences: book permanent lighting work outside October through December when those crews are committed, and if you want both, ask whether there is a combined arrangement — there often is.

Practical

• Get the fixture count, model and placement in writing, plus the warranty on fixtures versus labour. They are usually different lengths.
• Ask about the timer or controller and whether you can adjust it from your phone.
• Ask who comes back to re-aim after the plants grow. In a climate with this growing season, that matters within a year.