The onset of daylight saving time combined with recent decisions by many homeowners to stay put for a few years is translating into big business for an often out-of-the-spotlight business segment.
As a labor-intensive and often unnoticed (unless it is missing) feature, landscape lighting has evolved little over the years as far as beauty and function, says John Dailey, who has worked in outdoor lighting for more than 30 years with his company, Robert Huff Landscape Illumination.
Although business is basically steady year-round, Dailey says, there is definitely an uptick when daylight saving rolls around and homeowners come home from work to a darkened yard.
“People spend money fixing up their properties with beautiful landscaping, and they want to be able to see it,” he says. “They want to look out over their property and enjoy it in the evening as well.”
For the past 12 to 18 months business in outdoor lighting has been even better as customers who were once wavering on selling their homes are deciding to stay put and invest in them instead, according to Dailey.
“They have decided to stay and get everything fixed up,” he says.
This applies to not only outdoor lighting but also to pools, landscaping and other exterior features.
“With lighting, especially, reliability and maintenance for a larger initial investment outweighs cheaper alternatives,” Dailey says.
'TIS THE SEASON
Companies that provide outdoor lighting usually also offer holiday lighting and can couple outdoor lighting services with other services such as landscaping or outdoor pest control. Thus, when the sun begins to set earlier and requests for other services decline, the lighting business takes up the slack as a revenue-generator.
“It’s a good match-up because lawn care typically slows down in the winter months and you lose employees,” says Brandon Stephens, director of franchise recruitment for Lubbock-based Decor Group Inc., which offers two franchise concepts: Nite Time Decor and Christmas Decor.
Nite Time Decor is expanding into the Houston market, with three to five locations set to open in the next four months. Christmas Decor, which currently has one location in Houston, offers homeowner planning for holiday lights, as well as installation, checkups and packing and storing decorations for the next year.
Regarding The Decor Group’s franchisees, Stephens says the company is seeing a significant effort to diversify service offerings. For example, 95 percent of the company’s franchisees also operate some sort of green industry business such as landscaping. Christmas Decor was founded in 1986 by Blake Smith in Lubbock to fill an off-season void and provide year-round work for employees of his lawn care company.
“The demand just went nuts,” Stephens says, “so they started franchising the concept. People who had a truck and a trailer for lawn care could now generate two or three months of revenue using that same equipment.”
SETTING THE STAGE
Much like stage lighting in a theater, the effect of landscaping lighting on a property can be dramatic, Stephens says.
“It has the same effect as painting your house,” he says.
For homeowners, Nite Time Decor installations run around $3,000, and Christmas Decor’s run about $1,400.
“Even in economically uncertain times, end-user clients are nesting — improving their homes,” Stephens says.
Unlike lighting sets purchased and installed by homeowners themselves, Stephens says, professionally trained landscape lighting companies create a “lighting portrait” with defined edges.
“Every design is a custom thing,” he says. “There are different levels of light and techniques you can use for effect. Sure, you can buy some plastic lights at a big box store, go out and stick them in the ground — and it’s going to look better than it did before. Compared to darkness, any light looks good.”
Decor Group’s franchisees cater to those who want a professional look without climbing ladders, trees or calculating how each light system should be safely wired.
“These are luxury services,” Stephens says. “Not everyone has them and not everyone can afford them, but in the green industry, your survival can depend on the affluence of your customers. Both our models give businesses the ability to bring in high-end clients, those who are less susceptible to upturns and downturns of the economy.”
IN WITH THE NEW
Having an additional positive impact on the outdoor lighting business — especially in mild climates such as Houston — is a trend in outdoor living that has recently been incorporated into home design. Outdoor kitchens and patios that are an extension of the interior in upscale homes also create a need for lighting.
“You have builders now that include landscape lighting as a standard feature,” Stephens says.
Although LED lighting has becoming a popular energy-saving alternative, Dailey predicts it will be three to five years until this type of lighting can be fully implemented into landscape lighting in a way that is cost effective for homeowners.
“Right now LED lighting is still in its infancy,” he says. “I think we are going to see a lot more of it in the next five years. It is lower-wattage, reliable and uses less energy — but still very expensive.”
Dailey says the overall energy consumption from outdoor lighting has never been a negative issue with customers.
“The question has come up,” he says. “But it’s never been to a point of having someone say, ‘I’m having to cut back on my energy use, can we cut some of these off?’ ”
Outdoor lighting is usually operated by timers controlled by the homeowner.
“Timers allows them to operate just during dark hours, or certain hours of the evening,” Dailey says. “Whatever their desires are.”