Latest / Watts Up with Bowling Green Winlectric / Lighting Your Outdoor Living Space: Design That Works After Dark
Transcript
- Savannah Gillispie: Hey WCLU listeners, this is Sean with Bowling Green Winlectric ⁓ at you again for another episode of What's Up with Wind Electric. This is season two, episode four, if I'm counting right, episode four, okay? Today we're being joined by David Dubert with Elite Hardscapes. ⁓ if you could please tell us a little bit about yourself. So, it's a family-owned and operated company where my dad, me, a couple guys, when we need the extra help, but pretty much we're family-focused, so it's very detail-oriented, very quality. We pride ourselves on giving great quality to the customers. And we're basically giving you the dream backyard is kind how I design it, sell it least, that's I work it. ⁓ It's so that the customer gets the best out of their property. as they can because sometimes you buy a property, it's a good price, good deal, but you got a hill. So a lot of stuff like that makes it difficult to kind of, what do you do with your yard? What do you do with your landscaping and stuff like that? So I try to give them as many options as possible. Right. Well, so your name being Elite Hardscapes kind of makes you think that all you guys are doing is like stonework and stuff, but you do a lot more. Yeah. It's a lot more than just a lot of people. When I tell them they think masonry like brick and block. And actually I don't do a whole lot of brick. It's it's time consuming and there's a lot of companies out there with bigger manpower that can knock out the whole McDonald's in a week. Something like that is just too big. We're more, like I said, smaller, more detail oriented. So blocks, retaining walls, patios, nothing, no project's too big, no project's too small for us, which is good too. Well, mean, mentioning no project is too big is very telling with the project you're working on right now, as a matter of fact. You're working up at Nolan Lake on a project, right? Nolan Lake project. decided that he wanted to carve out an entire hill and put stadium style seating and a fire pit with a giant cornhole area. And he wanted it all lit, is even more of a crazy act. I never would have thought at the lake putting some kind of spotlights to be able to entertain out there. Right, right. And so, ⁓ you you've been a customer of ours for a long time now and, you know, we've got a great relationship and there's times that, you know, you've asked for things, you know, that you needed. And there's times that You know, I'm like, get interested in projects you're doing. asked you some questions, but I'm amazed at some of the projects you guys have done. recently, maybe this is a project. It's not the project you're on right now, I don't think, but the one you did with the big pirate ship. Yep. Had a customer who decided to, he bought two separate properties and conjoined them with a building in the middle, with a pirate ship, with a spa in the center of it, lighting galore, lights on all the trees, lights on all the steps. multiple wall tiers, it's massive. Right. So what I didn't mention earlier was the title of our episode, which is called, Lighting Your Outdoor Living Space Design That Works After Dark. Which quite frankly, ⁓ you know, is the biggest part of landscape lighting is lighting after dark. Why would you need to light outside when it's sunny? Yeah, that's true. ⁓ Yeah, no, you don't see much of the ambient lighting and you could keep it running 24 hours. I don't know how long the lights would last that doing it that way. But, um, no, it, people are very, a lot of times they don't really think about using the space after dark until I mean fire pits, stuff like that. But when they think about their walkways and getting from their car to their house or just being able to entertain out back, they don't think about just the ambience of having your tree, let your trees light up in the middle of your backyard. And Some customers, as soon as I do one or two lights, they want every tree lit. Or they want just a space where they can entertain outside without being blinded by lights. Well, yeah. Our area is not traditionally a heavily landscape lighting area, right? So I didn't grow up. I was never around landscape lighting as a kid, young adult. I mean, literally until... 20 years ago, I don't even know if I ever saw landscape lighting. Yeah, and a lot of people are, when I bring up the option, well, what does that even look like? So I have to reference pictures and stuff like that, or even, and then some customers know exactly what they want and some stuff is beyond what I've even seen. And I'm like, got a call Sean? Yeah. Cause I'm like, I'm not sure even if I can even get these things. So. Well, and quite frankly, sometimes I don't have, I don't know what it is, you know, but the good thing about that is I have other people that I can call as well. ⁓ But you some of that pause is what you're just talking about. mentioned that you do the hardscaping, which is the stonework, the patio stuff, the pathway, and then you do landscape lighting, but you guys also do landscaping as well. So I was telling somebody in the hallway, it's hard landscaping because we do a lot of work for landscapers. It kind of can step on people's toes a little bit sometimes, so sometimes we like to We don't necessarily advertise that we do landscaping, but when we have our own personal customers that aren't like a reference lead or something like that, we do, they ask us, Hey, do you do some landscaping? And absolutely. can do a full extension. do all the planning and designs and stuff like that. Right. I get it. So, so I just never thought about this. You work in conjunction with landscape. So a lot of landscapers don't do hardscapes. don't do patios or right borders around a bed edge is tip similar, a typical landscape stuff, but when they go to say they want to walkway, some of them are like, it's just too much time to have them teach a whole crew to how to do it versus just bring me in to get it done for them. So if I come up there with a late landscape company truck, they're gonna be like, why don't I just hire you to do both? So we had to dim that down a bit. After five, six years away, we dropped the landscape part of it and just did elite hardscapes versus. Well, I mean, quite frankly, if that's what you're, you know, best at doing and you know what you're known for then and that's what you enjoy doing it. mean landscaping it's good and all but like it's just like the brick you got to be quick at it to make it a profitable business. So when you guys are on a job site with a customer and what is the point where you might suggest to them they've called you in for maybe a patio let's say what is the point to them that are the point at which you might ask them, would you be interested in some lighting? a lot of times I see, I'll see solo lighting or something like that. Something that doesn't look, just fallen over lighting. then I sometimes like, would you like some options for better lighting? Or if I'm in the middle of doing a patio, if it's just a simple fire pit, I usually don't bother to try to add on stuff. Cause I know sometimes they're budgeted to certain amounts they can spend. ⁓ so budgets do come to come into play, but sometimes they don't even know that they even want it until you're like, Hey, this would look really cool if you had this lit up. And they're like, this sparks an interest. And sometimes they're not given the budget. And sometimes it's more than they're expecting. Sometimes they're like, you know what, let's just do it. It's worth it to get it done now than later. Sometimes I throw a wire and just like for later. That's exactly what I was about to say. You might prep for it for future. And then they call you back out. So much easier when you prep ahead of time. If sometimes just a simple tube underneath the patio so you can get a wire from one side to the other. So much more worth it. Listen, if I could ever get a chef's kiss about something, it would be that. If you're ever doing a sidewalk, if you're ever doing a retain a wall, if you're ever doing a driveway, a piece of pipe under that thing in case you ever, ever want to run wiring through. It'll cost you five, maybe $10 to put that pipe in that would save you So many hundreds of or thousands of dollars in the future to get why I get a power under that. absolutely. There's and there's some difficulty, some of that stuff like you can't run a wire through steps ahead of time. It would just be in the way of trying to put caps and stuff like that. But having a wire just in the wall in general, yeah, makes so much easier just to be able to, ⁓ OK, we want to add lighting this year. There you go. in. Now tree lights and stuff like that, obviously that's all done by case by case, but that can be rented anytime. So one of the things you mentioned a moment ago was solar lighting, seeing solar lighting on a job site. What would be your reasoning for a customer not to use solar lighting? If not to use solar lighting, I would say if they had tree coverage, super heavy dense, like at the lakes and stuff, particularly houses are tucked in there, they have too much tree coverage. Trees, not just because of sunlight, you may even have a couple hour window where sun's hitting perfect spots, sure, but the moss and all the pollen that falls from the trees and stuff just clouds them out and you gotta clean them all the time. They don't, and I think, I have not tested anything recently, but I think that they don't last quite as long, longevity. So, yeah. That's one of the things, one of the customers that we come in that we are almost guaranteed sales from, it seems like, is customers that had solar lights and they just don't last very long and it's just because of the technology where it's at now. And I also tell customers all the time, not just the price but the quality you're getting in the light. You can get a light from say a big box office store, we won't say their name, but sure you get the light it's cheaper maybe by 30-40 dollars per light cheaper but It doesn't last as long. doesn't come with a warranty. just the quality of it, feel it just so much different than the quality I get from you. So it's like, just, I probably tell people all the time, I wouldn't sell this stuff if I didn't trust and think it would be quality work to put in your house and just fail you in a year. So maybe you can tell our customers or excuse me, our listeners about ⁓ why you ⁓ trust the lighting from us. and why you like to use it. don't think there's been a real issue ever in the past. When I've come to companies and I go to request some kind of information or something, you guys are usually getting back to me. Even if I forget to even call you or whatever, I come in and you guys remind me of things that I've ordered. It's always been a friendly place. It's always easy to talk to people there, run ideas. But even just the guys behind the desk, they're always great. I know you're always swamped. it's like, so getting into you, but yeah, when I get to you and we get on the truck and about talking about projects and stuff and we get into all that, it's, fun to be there. And I enjoy the, that was, ⁓ you do the customer appreciation lunches. Those are always awesome. Cause I never remember when they are until I come in and like, I'm coming back. So, but no, the quality has always been good. I mean, I tried outsourcing in the past, different companies, but it's all online stuff and you can't get quite that. hands-on personal touch that you usually get with showing here this is what it'll look like and I don't know it's for the stress of trying to order something online versus being in person and talking with you and going over things it's just easier to go through you and you've always I mean you gained my trust over the years it just anytime I have a problem just call Wayne Electric. Yeah yeah appreciate that so obviously this is what you do all the time every day day in and day out What are some of the mistakes that you may have seen that customers have made? ⁓ I wouldn't even say customers had made mistakes typically. I don't usually have the customers, usually because like I said, lot of the customers don't even know much about outdoor lighting. It's usually either other companies that have tried to do work or even tried to repair my own work that I've done and repaired it incorrectly. It's it's I would say there's a learning curve to kind of learning how to do it properly and I don't I don't think people ask enough questions. I think that they should. mean, if you don't know how to hook it up, call with Kim McCall. Hey, how does this work? Right. mean, I don't think there's necessarily licensing for lighting. I I think sometimes there should be. Well, there's general contractors license that kind of covers low voltage lighting. But it's like I think that even low voltage people don't realize they're still current in there. You put the wires together wrong, you're not necessarily always going to short the box. I've had connectors melt that I never thought they would. Right, of course. There's some crazy things I walked through like, how'd you melt the connector? Right, right. And it just took time to figure it all out, just backtrack it all. Yeah, for an example, the fixtures that we sell you, when you're talking about quality, the fixtures that we sell you have lifetime warranty on the fixture. lifetime warranty on the transformer. So what does that mean for the homeowner? And when I tell them that yes, this is what it costs and this is, but all this comes with a lifetime warranty for these and bulbs have a certain warranties for them as well. And I think it gives them a peace of mind knowing that they're getting something high quality. I tell them, sure, you can shop around, find another options. I always give customers the same thing when I give them an SM, more than welcome. Go check out some other hardscapers. what I mean. I'm not. the cheapest in the place. not trying to be the most expensive and trying to be the cheapest. Just trying to make a living and, and you know, produce good quality work and having that kind of lighting source as a good quality source to produce scent and show them some high quality lighting helps. Right. So, ⁓ what, what can happen if a customer, let's say a customer falls in love with a specific look of a landscape light, ⁓ versus what that light, how the light looks at night, know, the output of the light, the beam spread, the color temp, all those things you guys are familiar with. Sorry, what was the first part of that? No problem. I was listening to the end part of it and I was like, wait a second. Yeah. No. So, uh, uh, what happens if, uh, if a homeowner may fall in love with the physical appearance of a fixture, you know, but maybe don't understand. didn't ask the question very well. You were fine. I was focused on the latter part of the question. So, know, um, when they find the light that they like, and there's times when I've presented something and they. the internet is a blessing and a curse because they see things online and sometimes it's something I can't quite produce the exact image of what that light may look like and I tell them that sometimes, mean some of these pictures you see that from Europe and other countries, so some stuff we can't get here, which I wish everybody could just get things from anywhere when they but sometimes it is kind of a down, you gotta be like, well I try to give them the best quality light and spacing and everything makes it big difference when you're doing these lightings. Like you said, the shade, how much it casts off, the warmth of the light. there's a lot of, some customers are very particular how they want their lighting to look and have a certain look and it's just trial and error, constant tweaking it, making sure it works good. And that's where the Elite Hardscape kind of comes into it. Yeah. So at what point in a project, if a customer comes to you, let's just, let's just set a scenario. You're, you've got your Elite Hardscape shirt on. and you go out to eat one night and somebody stops you while you're waiting in line and they're like, hey, I see you got elite hardscapes. I've heard about you guys. You know what? I was thinking about doing some outdoor lighting in my home, but I was going to get a patio done as well. At what point should they really be thinking about the lighting portion versus the hardscapes and, you know, making the decision, do I 100 % want to do the lighting or? Is that something that has to be done at the very front? No, and it doesn't. I tell customers all time, I give them the option in the estimate as an add-on. So it's always an add-on to the estimate because I don't, like you said, I can always throw a pipe in the sidewalk, stuff like that. And I don't even have to tell them I'm even doing it. But I know that, OK, they're interested in lighting. So if I know in the future they may give me a call, even if they call somebody else, I know that there's a pipe in there for them. And I even let them know, hey, there's a wire in here if you want to do it. It's ready to go. So you're saying that a lot of times you do that prep work for him. Just for the homeowner in general or just for future possibly. What an benefit. Sorry to interrupt what you were saying, but I'm like, I had to stop you there because that is such an added benefit that a lot of guys just want to get in and off the job as fast as possible because time is money and all that stuff. That is true. But like you said, it's five bucks and saves me hours of work trying to pull apart a patio. I have had issues in the past where I've put in patios and customer wants to change something. I don't put patios in incorrectly. So everything is in and down. So pulling things apart that I do are very difficult because it's done right. It's done glued. It's everything solid. So pulling things apart, I break things, pull things apart. So it can be time sensitive when I have to do more work than necessary. So if I can add a wire in and pull one cap versus all my caps on a wall. It saves time and money. So gotcha, gotcha. So is there a kind of minimum amount of landscape lighting that someone needs to do? Or is there like a certain package that you recommend? ⁓ I've never put together an actual package for something because it, every job I do is so very, I like to use the word custom because it does, it changes so much. It's there's no straight sticker, take this patio one and that one. they may have a little longer walkway. So if I did some kind of package with lighting, it would be like, well, I to add more lights to this. So I kind of customize each one to that job and tailor it to the customer. Yeah. Well, that's, mean, that makes sense. And I love what you said before about that you pretty much every quote you offer the landscape lighting as an adder, you know, instead. they, have that broken out and they know what each thing is versus just a lump sum. And it does make it easier to be able to. do it of course at that time because we're there, everything's easier to go and just knock it out while we're doing it. But I can always come back later if it's a budget thing where they can't afford a little bit extra for that. I always tell them it's going to add so much more. I wish I could just, you know, set up a couple sample lights real quick, some kind of battery hookup thing. Sure. Because running all the wires stuff to do just a couple of little spotlights would might be difficult, but maybe I can look into maybe some kind of quick little battery charge for the night so they can see it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, mean, quite frankly, that's something. I can hook you up a little display thing. for sure. Anyway, that's a side note. Note to Sean. And well, one of the things I want to go back to is you were talking about the job at Nolan Lake. And I was kind of a little bit surprised, and I don't know why I was, but I was kind of a little bit surprised that you guys do fireplaces and things like that as well in outdoor living spaces. Outdoor living spaces go from full pergolas to ⁓ outdoor couches and cabinets and... I mean, I always say it's endless. I could make an entire outside space that you would want to spend more time than inside. And they can go crazy budgets. Right. I've seen, also talked to you and seen some jobs that you guys have done where you mentioned out at the lake, like Barren River, where there was a big long pathway going down and you lit this path all the way down to the lake that just was amazing. I liked it. you can do, lighting the steps are very different. You can do steps. light path on the sides, we like to do every step if we possibly can so that way there's no tripping and then kind of that. Safety. Safety issue. If you don't, like you said, it limits your usability throughout the day. You can't use it at night because you can't see going down there. So, mean, if you can access your little dock at the lake and can't see going down the steps, even if it's wood steps, just throwing a little ledge light in there makes a world of difference being able to go down there and join at night. can, timers make it better too. So don't have to worry about. setting them for daylight savings time. don't have to worry about night and day. They're on when you need them and off when you're not using them. So because you use our digital astronomical timers in the landscape transformers, maybe you can tell listeners a little bit about what that product, that specific product does for the landscape. Well, what it does, it takes the stress of if the time changes over or if you want it to be ⁓ I think you have them set to customized to like coming on five minutes before dusk and five minutes after dawn You can have it turn off at one in the morning if you want. It's very customizable And for a while I had a hard time kind of understanding some of the instructions at first But then there's simple YouTube videos out there that I think the company even made yes to just go through and just Each night now I almost do it in my sleep right right and if I can't get out to the person like fix it for a customer I send them the video and if they have any issues I still go out there afterwards but for most part it's easy. I tell customers, any problem with them? Let me know. I'll swing out there. Yeah and so going a little bit more, ⁓ it's basically I tell customers that it almost has a built-in farmer's almanac in it and it self adjusts through the season. So if you tell it you want it to come on 15 minutes before dusk, it'll come on 15 minutes before dusk in the summer or 15 minutes before dusk in the wintertime. So it's self adjust, this is pretty cool. So if you could ⁓ give one piece of advice to somebody that's planning an outdoor living space, what would that one piece of advice be? Hmm. I don't think I got that far when I looked at the questionnaire. That's a good question. ⁓ I liked the guy at the lake. He asked me, was he crazy for investing the amount of money that he was putting into that project? And I told him, yeah, you're absolutely crazy. I told him, absolutely crazy. But I said, if you look at it this way, we're going to spend money no matter what. We're going to go to Cabo. We're going to go to Jamaica. We're going to spend money going places. If you're using your property as your getaway or your escape, you're investing into your own personal getaway space, kind of to just enjoy hanging out with the family. It's worth the money spent because, go big, I wouldn't say go big, but dream big. And then we can dial it back, can customize your estimate to fit what you want and still give you the things you kind of want. And add as you go. Yeah, and add as you go with the patios and walls. We can do stages. I've had customers, I do stages for every year. They get tax money back and they want to add more patio. a little more complications and drainage and water and all that kind of stuff. But if you know that ahead of time, you can prep. So, and I tell them it's worth the money invested to enjoy it. If you're not going to spend, if you're not going to be using it just to flip the house, still do it to flip the house because you'll make the money for the outdoor space living. And there's a whole nother side of that, that bunch of studies that say whether it actually adds value to the home, whether you can use the space outside or not. But some of these customers want so much extravagant stuff that it can outweigh a market. But if you're going to enjoy it and you're going to keep it and you're going to keep the property forever and just enjoy your outdoor space, it's worth the time and money spent on being able to use it all times of the day, including night, which is what the lighting's for. But go dream big. Yeah, well, I think that's a very, very valid point that if, you know, it's a whole lot less expensive to... pay the money once for that outdoor living space that you're going to enjoy possibly every day that it's not four degrees outside. Maybe even them. Hey, there's outdoor heaters. True, true. But I mean, that's that is I mean, and we all spend a lot of time around our homes. Yeah, we go vacationing all the time. We buy cars that break down. I mean, this is something that's going to last 15 to 20 years with no problems. So I have had A designer tell me before when I have made a comment about sometimes even as a lighting salesperson, I don't understand why people get so worried about each individual thing. Right. And I've told the designer that once and she said, Sean, you, you don't understand it maybe, but lighting is literally the jewelry of the home. It does add a sense of polish to it. Cause my hardscapes and stuff, look nice, sure. But it's flat. It's very one dimensional wall flooring, essentially, even in your house, same type of thing. It's just a flat. Yeah, I've seen y'all's work. It's not just, it's not, it's not boring, but you add lighting to it. It just adds an extra, like she said, jewelry to it. That polishes it up, makes it stand out a little bit more. And I don't, I don't know how the market goes with other companies and stuff like that. So I don't charge crazy for my lighting because like I said, it lifts my product up, shows my quality of my work more. So I'm not charging crazy rates for the stuff. I mean, I've been told by other companies that we don't charge. I'm like, I just, it adds more to my work. I mean, not my workload, but it adds more value and sure. That takes to my work. So I think it's more quality. So that's how he's looked at it. Well, want to tell you, I really appreciate you, ⁓ visiting with us today. I'd like to give you a chance to mention again your company and maybe your phone number so customers can reach out to you. We're Elite Hardscapes and my name is David Dubert. My dad is David Dubert as well. His number is 270-576-1523. Yeah, have you in my phone as David's son and then him in my phone as David's dad. you get owner operators right there on the ground with you on every job. Yeah, I actually asked you just the other day. I was like, what all kind of equipment do you guys pull around the jobs? And I was like, well, you got that and that and that that and that. So you're like, you guys handle all of it. Anything from big to small. So big walls, 10, 20 foot walls to little garden walls that are foot tall. Yeah. And sidewalks. I walked up. Wow. Fire pits. Amazing stuff, man. Appreciate it, David. Thanks for joining us today. Guys, that's going to finish up our fourth episode of season two in What's Up with Wynlektrik. And again, I'm Sean, Bowling Green Winlectric We're at 1052 Pedigo Way Stop by and see us. Thank you.