Why the term tells you nothing
Custom appears on almost every outdoor lighting quote in existence. It costs nothing to say so it has stopped carrying information. The test is not what they say. It is what you get to look at before you were asked to decide.That is the whole distinction, and it is worth holding onto while you compare quotes. A package starts with a number and works backward. A design starts from the property. Both can be perfectly honest pieces of business. Only one of them is designed for you, and you deserve to know
https://evercrestlighting.com/ which you have.
What you should be looking at
A plan is specific to your building. Scope should be itemized, because the front of the house means two different things to two people. It says what color temperature the everyday setting will be. It says where the controller mounts and how the wiring runs. And it says what is deliberately being left dark.
Order of operations
A price without a design is a guess wearing a decimal point. Two quotes a few hundred dollars apart can describe completely different jobs. With a plan on the table, the number means something. When the price comes first, scope gets trimmed to hit it.Once the plan is written down, the install has a standard to meet rather than a memory to argue with.
Your part in the design
Expect questions, not just told things. How you use the outside of your home, where you actually go after dark, and what the main job is. Those answers shape the design as much as the building.
Design lets one plan cover several jobs
Most properties need more than one kind of lighting. Piecemeal buying produces a property with lighting rather than a lit property. Designed together, they read as one thing even when the budget spreads the work across phases.
The design is a conversation
A design is the start of a conversation. If a run looks wrong to you, cut it. If it comes back to you unchanged, with no room to adjust, that is worth noticing. Ask how many rounds are normal before you sign anything.
The plan should end up in your hands
A design should exist on paper or a screen after the conversation ends. It is useful down the road in ways that are not obvious at the time. A company that will not give you the drawing is telling you something about how they see the relationship.
Getting a design drawn
It starts at the house, which is the only place the useful questions can be answered. EverCrest Lighting does custom outdoor lighting design and installation across permanent, landscape, accent, patio and security work for residential and commercial properties throughout Upstate South Carolina and Western North Carolina, from Greenville. The consultation is free. Call (864) 252-1732 or email
[email protected].