Pool lighting is one of the most impressive outdoor lighting projects you can take on and can totally change the look and feel of your backyard. Pool lighting is also a great way to show off your creativity, and your lighting system can be customized to create any mood you can think of. The following are some of the best pool lighting tips we’ve found, but don’t be afraid to think outside the box!

Some people may be used to having only one light at the deep end of the pool and a few at the shallow end. While this is certainly an option, it’s not a hard rule! Try adding more light throughout until you get the effect you want.

If you have a sitting area on one side of the pool, make sure you point your pool lights away from it. Pool lights tend to be especially bright, so they should be installed facing opposite where people might be sitting.

Using too few lights, or having lights that only face one direction, can create shadows that highlight flaws in your pool’s liner or surface. Shining lights from multiple directions will eliminate these shadows and make the bottom of your pool look flawless.

The color of your pool liner will make a dramatic impact on how the pool looks, day and night. Light colors reflect light and dark colors absorb it, so go light if you want your pool to look bright and exciting at night and choose dark if you want a more subdued landscape.

Pool lighting is one of those projects that many people either put off or try to cut corners on. But if you want a pool that you can really get a lot out of, we recommend spending the extra money. Even though the upfront costs may be higher, you’ll be able to enjoy your investment for years to come.

Back in April, a young boy in South Florida was electrocuted by a faulty pool light while swimming in his family’s pool. Reportedly, the light had been fixed by a contractor the year prior.

While incidents like this are exceedingly rare, we want to use this as an example of why you should always work with an electrical company you can trust. Lighting isn’t the only danger zone in the pool—other potential hazards include:

At Kolb Electric, your safety is our highest priority. We will acquire all necessary permits prior to your pool wiring job, then finish off with a detailed inspection so you can enjoy your pool or hot tub without having to worry. We also recommend having your pool’s electrical system inspected once a year.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission has a detailed list of pool safety tips to prevent electrocution:

If you’re thinking about installing pool lighting in Maryland, Virginia, or Washington, DC, call Kolb Electric! We can design a beautiful, long-lasting, and safe pool lighting system that you can enjoy for years.

When the power goes out, it is a bit of a novelty. It can be kind of romantic and does bring families together for a short while. You may pull out a couple of candles and sit around and chat for a bit about your day or your child’s day. It isn’t bad and is almost a welcome respite from a fast paced world. And then after about an hour or so, you and the kids start to get a little bored. You are probably thinking of the 101 things you need to get done, but can’t because you don’t have power. The batteries on the various gadgets that have been keeping the kids occupied will die and you are going to be left with some bored, cranky family members. An electrician in Los Angeles can help you avoid all of that with the installation of a standby generator. At The Electric Connection, you will discover a team of knowledgeable and professional staff who are ready to help you.

A standby generator keeps your home powered during a power outage so you can continue with life as you know it. You can choose the size of your generator based on the size of your home and your home’s power needs. If you want to power just one room and the essentials like your refrigerator and freezer, you can or you can buy a generator that will power the entire house.

Families with small children who may be afraid of the dark and don’t appreciate candlelight dinners or reading a book by candlelight will certainly benefit from a generator installation. Because there is some Los Angeles electrical wiring involved, the generator will need to be hooked up to the home’s main power by an electrician. This ensures your generator is safe to use. If you would like to learn more about generators, give The Electric Connection a call today.

Jewelry doesn’t sparkle and shine on its own – the reason a gem looks radiant is because of the way it reflects light! That being said, lighting is integral to retail design in a jewelry store. You want your displays to entice customers and show off your products in all their brilliance! Hopefully, we can help. This post will lay out options for various jewelry lighting displays.

puck lights to call attention to individual pieces, as seen in the photo to the right. Puck lighting above jewelry creates beautiful silhouettes and puts a spotlight on each piece.

If you love the look of evenly illuminated in-wall shelving displays, there is a way to avoid the spotlight effect. For a more subtle glow, install light fixtures on the inside edges of your shelves. See Xenon Low Voltage Light Strip or any of our

You’re showing off your most valuable items in the counter-style showcase, so it’s important to get the lighting right. However, make sure the actual light fixtures do not become focal points.

With a glass showcase, you need to integrate the lighting so that your display will shine, and so that it’s not blocked in any way by wires or lamp heads. The best way to do this is to install thin lighting strips inside the showcase, just below where the edge of the counter is. You can see an example in the photo to the right.

Our Your window display can be the number one determinant of store traffic. Like the counter showcase, it’s ideal if the light fixtures aren’t visible at all here so that your most alluring items take center stage.

You will likely have wall space to work with on all four sides of the window display, so it wouldn’t be too difficult to align microfluorescent fixtures against the edges for even illumination.

Depending on what types of items you are featuring, you might want to incorporate some spot lighting as well. You could use an adjustable adjustable recessed lights in the ceiling above the window display.

When you’re shopping for new heating and air conditioning equipment, you may want to give a second thought to a heat pump. Heat pumps use electricity to heat a home, but they do not use nearly as much energy as conventional electric furnaces. Plus, a heat pump is primarily an air conditioner, so you get an all-in-one system that requires less maintenance and works more efficiently.

Want to know more? Our heating and AC technicians are here to answer all of your questions and make sure you end up with the right home comfort equipment for your home. For more information, contact our friendly technicians, and read on for a brief overview of the heat pump system.

A heat pump uses your central duct system to move heated or cooled air out to the various rooms of the home. It also has an outdoor compressor unit, just like a conventional whole-house air conditioning system. The indoor unit is joined to it by the refrigerant line.

Refrigerant is a chemical blend capable of moving heat from one place to another. When in cooling mode, refrigerant absorbs heat from the inside of the home and moves it outside. That’s how the cooling process is started.

A reversing valve works along with some other parts to give a heat pump the ability to switch into heating mode. The refrigerant can work in reverse and also absorb heat from the outdoors and move it inside for whole-home heating.

What makes a heat pump so efficient is that the process of moving heat from one place to another uses so much less energy than the process of generating heat (like furnaces and boilers do). When you examine other electric heaters, like portable units and electric furnaces, there is no comparison in the amount they are able to save each month.

Sometimes, a gas heating system is a better option. Efficiency does suffer as temperatures drop, and the cost of gas heating is typically lower than the cost of electricity. Ask a technician to help you decide what the best choice is for your home.