Every once in a while we begin an installation that gets more difficult at each turn. Unanticipated challenges arise, coinciding projects are changed, and the bar which is already set high, is raised another level higher. As a small business owner who prides himself in his work, I like to think that these unexpected challenges are ways to further hone my skill set and knowledge in different, and sometimes unusual, applications. As the saying goes “When life brings you lemons, make lemonade!”
This particular challenging installation took place last week and began as somewhat typical. The clients lived in Woodbridge, Virginia and were warm, kind people that had a patio installed in the last few years and wanted to enhance their outdoor living area. They were looking for some subtle, low profile fixtures to encompass their patio. The wanted some up lighting on some outlying trees and some deck lighting.
They did want each section to have the ability to be controlled on a switch, and that did present some challenges, but it was not anything too difficult. The difficulties came in when I was introduced to their under cover deck guy.
He was putting in a cover to go on the underside of the deck. We would then come in behind him and put in recessed lighting. When we have put recessed lights in deck covers in the past, the “gutter” fit underneath the deck. This carried the water away. These systems have a three inch space between the gutter system and the ceiling which gave us the perfect place to put a small low voltage mr-16 recessed fixture.
Since this other system at our client’s home used the ceiling as the gutter, we needed to turn from our normal recessed fixture, to a fixture that could sit in water. We also needed the fixture to form a seal so that water would not drip down.
There are very few lighting fixtures that meet these specs on the market today; we either had to back out of the job or find a way to make it happen. We turned to our exclusive LED manufacturer. They had a fixture specially designed and machined just for this job. We went with a 3-watt LED light with a 70 degree spread. This fixture was water tight and low profile. In fact, this light is only 1.5″ diameter. It’s constructed from solid brass and we had the brass flange cover powder coated white to match the underside of the deck.
Each light gave a 10′ circle of warm light that beautifully lit the area under the deck. We also managed to finish the job for $450 less than what I quoted them, which the customer was pleased to find out.
We are thankful to have such great manufacturers available to us to make certain our customers are receiving the best outdoor lighting products possible.
Check out the pictures below (taken with my iPhone so perhaps not the best quality) to see how this small and efficient fixture looked after installation.
