Outdoor Lighting Experts in Memphis, TN
Permanent LED, Landscape, and Pathway Lighting for Homes Across Shelby County
Outdoor Lighting in Memphis, TN
Nobody uses their backyard at two in the afternoon in August. Not here. You use it at nine at night, after the sun drops and the deck finally stops throwing heat back at you. That is the case for outdoor lighting in Memphis. The hours you actually want to be outside are the hours it is dark.
Precision Pools & Landscape has worked on backyards across Memphis and Shelby County for over ten years. Most of that has been pools, pumps, and equipment pads. We already know what the back of your house looks like and where the power runs. Lighting is the other half of the same yard.
We install outdoor lighting for homeowners in Memphis, Bartlett, Arlington, Germantown, Lakeland, and Collierville.
There are two ways to light a property, and they solve different problems.
Permanent LED Lighting
Permanent lighting is a low-profile LED track mounted under your eaves and behind the trim. It stays up all year. The track gets color matched to your fascia, so from the street in daylight you mostly do not see it.
What makes it worth the money is that one system replaces three separate things:
- Christmas lights in December, without the ladder
- Warm white accent lighting on the rooflines the rest of the year
- Bright white security lighting on the back of the house when you want it
All of it runs from an app on a schedule. Ever spent a Saturday in December on a ladder, stringing lights in the wind? Then you already understand the appeal.
Landscape and Pathway Lighting
Landscape lighting works at ground level. Uplights at the base of trees, path lights along walkways, and fixtures washing garden beds and the front elevation of the house.
Germantown and Collierville have the tree canopy for this. It is the single best return on a front yard we see. A mature willow oak uplit from two sides does more for curb appeal after dark than another round of shrubs ever will.
Pathway lighting is the practical half of it. Steps, walkways, and the strip between the back door and the pool deck are where people actually trip in the dark.
Why Memphis Is Hard on Outdoor Lighting
Anything you mount outside here lives through about fifty four inches of rain a year. Add summer humidity in the seventies, spring storm season, and the occasional ice event that drops power for days.
That matters more than most homeowners expect. Cheap fixtures do not usually fail in the middle of a run. They fail at the connection points, and they fail where water sits. Sealed housings, correct wire gauge, and burial-rated connections are the difference. Get those right and you forget the system exists. Get them wrong and you are chasing it every March.
The tree canopy cuts both ways too. It is what makes landscape lighting worth doing on the older lots. It also drops sweetgum balls, oak catkins, and pine pollen on everything you install. Fixtures in beds have to be placed where leaf litter will not bury them by November.
Then there is the power draw question, which comes up on nearly every quote. Modern LED fixtures pull very little. The Department of Energy puts quality LED lighting at roughly 75 percent less energy than incandescent. A full roofline at its brightest white still draws about what a couple of household bulbs do. Running them nightly is not what moves your bill.
What Actually Drives the Cost
We quote every job. No number printed on a page will mean much for your specific house. What moves it:
- Linear footage of roofline or bed run. This is the biggest single factor on both types, and it is why two houses of the same square footage can quote very differently.
- Roofline complexity. Dormers, multiple gables, and several roof planes all take longer than one clean run across the front of a ranch.
- Height and stories. A two story with a walkout basement is more work and more equipment than a single story.
- Fixture count and run lengths on landscape jobs, which also determine transformer sizing.
- Trenching through established beds and hardscape, which is the part homeowners rarely budget for.
- Add-ons like patio and pool area lighting, or tying the controls into a system you already run.
Two houses on the same street can land in very different places. A simple single story is not the same job as a four gable roofline. That is why the estimate is free and the phone call is short.
Why Memphis Homeowners Call Us
We have been in the trade over ten years across two counties. We look after more than a hundred properties a year, and we hold a 4.9 star rating on Google. Family owned, and the same crew that shows up for your pool shows up for this.
There is also a practical argument for using the company already on your property. We are in the backyard anyway. If your lighting controls and your pool automation live in the same place, that is one system to learn instead of two. It is also one number to call when something stops responding.
We will also tell you when a job is not worth doing. Want two path lights and a spotlight on a flag? Buy them at a big box store and do it yourself. Call us when the run is long enough or high enough that doing it properly matters.
Serving Memphis and Shelby County
We cover Memphis and the surrounding Shelby County communities within about a fifteen mile radius. That includes Bartlett, Arlington, Germantown, Lakeland, and Collierville. If you are just outside that, call and ask. The answer is usually yes.
Call (901) 599-2225 or request a free quote and we will come look at the property.
Common Questions About Outdoor Lighting in Memphis
The questions homeowners actually ask us, answered straight. If yours is not here, call and ask.
Published industry guides put professionally installed permanent roofline lighting between $2,500 and $6,000 for a typical home. It is usually quoted per linear foot. We do not publish a price, because the number that matters is the one for your house. A single story ranch with one clean run across the front is one job. A two story with four gables and a walkout basement is another. Roofline length, roof complexity, height, fixture count, and trenching through established beds are what move the figure. The estimate is free and the site visit is short.
It depends almost entirely on whether you currently pay someone to hang Christmas lights. If you do, permanent lighting tends to pay back in a handful of seasons. The recurring install and takedown cost disappears. Never hung lights and never planned to? Then you are buying it for the accent and security lighting, not the holidays. Judge it on that. What you are really buying is the removal of a chore, plus lighting you will use the other eleven months.
Barely, if it is installed properly. The track is color matched to your fascia and mounted under the eave. From the street in daylight, most people do not notice it. The giveaway on a bad install is not the track. It is the wiring: exposed power supplies, surface-run cable, and connections left outside the house. Ask any installer where the wire runs and where the transformer lives before you sign anything.
Usually yes, but get written approval first. And know that the holiday decoration rule in your CC&Rs is probably not the one that governs it. Holiday decoration clauses generally cover temporary décor, with the familiar thirty days before and take it down by January language. A permanently installed, hardwired system usually falls under architectural control instead. Many associations require approval for anything hardwired or spanning more than 25 linear feet. Where boards do approve, a common condition is that everyday use stays on static warm white. Color gets reserved for holidays. Submit the color matched track detail with your application. That detail is what usually gets it approved.
It adds enjoyment more reliably than it adds resale value, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling. The National Association of Realtors' 2023 Remodeling Impact Report puts landscape lighting at roughly 59 percent cost recovery at resale. That is one of the lower returns among outdoor projects, though it scores high on their homeowner Joy Score. You will find pages claiming outdoor lighting makes a home worth up to 20 percent more. That number has no source behind it. Buy lighting because you want to use your yard after dark, and treat the resale bump as a bonus.
Not meaningfully. The U.S. Department of Energy puts quality LED lighting at at least 75 percent less energy than incandescent, with up to 25 times the lifespan. Individual permanent-lighting LEDs typically draw under a watt each at their brightest white. A full roofline running nightly costs about what a couple of household bulbs do. Scheduling helps more than dimming does. Most people set them to run from dusk to around eleven and never think about it again.
Most single-family permanent lighting installs are a one day job. Larger or more complex rooflines can run into a second day. Landscape lighting depends far more on trenching than on fixture count. Established beds, hardscape, or an irrigation system all take longer than open turf. The part worth asking about is commissioning. Zoning, schedules, and an app walkthrough should happen before the crew leaves, not in a follow-up call.
It can, but the failure points are predictable, so install quality matters more than the brand. Memphis gets roughly 54 inches of rain a year and humid summers. Add spring storm season and the occasional ice event that drops power for days. Lighting almost never fails mid-run. It fails at connection points and anywhere water is allowed to sit. What matters is sealed housings, proper wire gauge, UL or ETL listed components, and burial-rated connections. Those separate a system you forget from one you troubleshoot every March. Ask what happens when a single light fails, too. Better systems keep the rest of the run working.
Size the transformer so total fixture wattage stays near 80 percent of its rating. That leaves headroom and room to expand later. LED landscape fixtures typically draw 2 to 10 watts each. Older halogen ran 20 to 50 watts. So a modern system runs far more lights on the same transformer. Twelve path lights at 4 watts plus six tree uplights at 7 watts totals 90 watts. That points to a 120 watt transformer, not a 100. Wire run length matters too. Voltage drop over a long run will dim the fixtures at the far end.
We serve Memphis and the surrounding Shelby County communities within about a fifteen mile radius. That includes Bartlett, Arlington, Germantown, Lakeland, and Collierville. Precision Pools & Landscape has worked on properties across this area for over ten years, mostly around pools and equipment. We already know these neighborhoods and these yards. If you are just outside that radius, call and ask at (901) 599-2225. The answer is usually yes.