A post lighting project

A well placed post mounted lantern will bring your family, guests and friends safe stylish passage from the street to your front door. Whether your tastes are traditional, contemporary, mission art / deco or rustic you can be sure that there are plenty of styles and finishes available that will put your good taste front and center.

I started with a direct burial post that measures a universal 72” in length and 3” in diameter. My local code states that 1/3 of the post must be buried in concrete so that’s what I did.

My other option was to use a surface mount post and utilize the complete overall height of the post mounted to a cement pedestal. The surface mount was a little more decorative looking but the direct burial post I decided to use looked more uniform for my neighborhood. I trenched from my power source and fished the wires through my thick gauge conduit. I used a post hole digger to quickly dig my post hole then pulled my power up through the post once I was set to pour the cement.

Once the cement was poured and the post level straight up and down I let it set overnight before attaching the post lantern.

In the morning when the cement had cured I carefully wired the dusk till dawn photocell into the socket wires and tightened down the three collar screws on my mission style post lantern. I screwed in my clear 120 volt incandescent light bulbs and created an element of sparkle and brilliance. Easy!

I nearly went with a fluorescent post lantern that is ballasted and set up strictly for fluorescent lighting. Outdoors is the perfect setting to benefit from energy efficiency fluorescent but the truth is I couldn’t find a ballasted fluorescent style that my wife would approve and this was a project that had to be done pronto.

If fluorescent is of interest to you the best advice I can give is make sure the diffuser(s) panels in your post lantern are not clear. Clear glass/acrylic diffusers and compact fluorescents will be an unsightly glare bomb and defeat the warm inviting look that you are striving to create.

The upfront cost of purchasing a fluorescent ready post lantern will pay for itself in a couple of years of use and you’ll know that you’re doing your part in conserving our resources.

Good luck with your project!

Types of Home Lighting

There are four general layers of lighting that can and should be used to achieve the best lighting design. They are:
Ambient lighting
Task lighting
Accent lighting
Decorative lighting.

Ambient Lighting provides an area with overall illumination at a comfortable level of brightness, enabling one to see and walk about safely. Ambient lighting can be accomplished with chandeliers, ceiling or wall-mounted fixtures, recessed, track lights, and lanterns outside your home. A basic form of lighting that replaces sunlight, general lighting is fundamental to a lighting plan.

Task Lighting helps you perform specific tasks such as reading, sewing, cooking, homework, hobbies, games, or balancing your checkbook. Task lighting can be provided by recessed lighting, track lighting, pendant lighting, and portable lamps. Task lighting should be free of distracting glare and shadows and should be bright enough to prevent eyestrain.

Accent Lighting adds drama to a room by creating visual interest. As part of a decorating scheme, it is used to spotlight paintings, houseplants, sculpture, and other prized possessions, or to highlight the texture of a wall, drapery or outdoor landscaping. Accent lighting requires at least three times as much light on the focal point as the general lighting around it. This usually is provided by track lighting, recessed lighting, or wall-mounted fixtures.

Decorative Lighting draws attention to the lighting fixture itself, and can sometimes be the centerpiece or focal point of a room. A Dining Room Chandelier is a perfect example of this. It is very important that you select the proper type of decorative lighting to create the environment you desire.

Cove and Valence Lighting

Ever consider the soft indirect glow of cove lighting in your home?

Turn off the microscope that is direct lighting and relax under the soft indirect golden glow of cove and valence lighting.

Great for lighting ceiling perimeters, toe spaces, nooks and crannies and even under cabinets and counters.

Cove and Valence lighting done right is like a great book that you simply can't put down until you have read every page cover to cover. The soft yet striking indirect illumination follows the twists and turns of your home and bathes you in brilliant inviolate light. Render your home in great story book fashion.

Celebrate Earth Day with Energy Star Fixtures

April 22 is Earth Day. Changing the earth starts with simple actions.

When you replace light bulbs or entire light fixtures in your home with ones that have earned the government’s ENERGY STAR, you help preserve energy resources and reduce the risks of global warming while saving money and time buying and changing lights in your home.

ENERGY STAR qualified lighting provides bright, warm light but uses at least 2/3 less energy than standard lighting, generates 70 percent less heat, and lasts up to 10 times longer.

To save the most energy and money, replace your highest used fixtures or the light bulbs in them with energy-efficient models. The five highest use fixtures in a home are typically the kitchen ceiling light, the living room table and floor lamps, bathroom vanity, and outdoor porch or post lamp.

The smallest things can add up to a real difference. We encourage you to change out the light fixtures or bulbs at home that you use most with ENERGY STAR qualified models. If every American home changed out just five high-use light fixtures or the bulbs in them with ones that have earned the ENERGY STAR, each family would save about $60 every year in energy costs, and together we’d save about $6.5 billion each year in energy costs and prevent greenhouse gases equivalent to the emissions from more than 8 million cars.

FACT: The energy used in the average home can be responsible for more than twice the greenhouse gas emissions of the average car. When you use less energy at home, you reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants and help protect our environment from the risks of global climate change.

Buy Energy Star this month and Celebrate Earth Day.