You spent real money on the plantings, the walkway, and the front elevation, and for about half the year nobody sees any of it after five o'clock. Ocean-Side Electric handles landscape lighting installation across Rehoboth Beach, DE, and the surrounding areas, designing systems that make a property look its best after dark while holding up to salt air. Our crew walks the yard with you, explains where light belongs and where it does not, and gives you a flat price before anything goes in the ground.
Exterior design lighting is one of the areas Ocean-Side Electric focuses on as a veteran-owned electrical company based in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. Our crew designs and installs low-voltage landscape systems, sets and sizes transformers, runs buried cable, and selects corrosion-resistant fixtures for uplighting, path lighting, and architectural accents. Homeowners, property managers, and small commercial customers across Sussex County and into Milford hire us for that work, along with repairs, panel upgrades, rewiring, indoor lighting, EV charger installation, and home electrical inspections.
Two things usually go wrong out here. The first is nothing at all, where a well-kept property simply disappears at sunset and the approach to the front door becomes a guess. The second is a kit somebody installed years ago, with a dozen identical path lights marching down both sides of the walkway like a runway, half of them dim, a few tilted over, and the wire showing through the mulch in two places.
Landscape lighting fails for reasons that have little to do with the fixtures themselves. Undersized transformers and long cable runs cause voltage drop, so fixtures farthest from the source glow weakly while the near ones burn bright. Cheap housings made from thin aluminum or plated finishes surrender to salt air within a couple of seasons here, particularly anything within a mile or two of the water. Then there is the design itself, since spacing every fixture evenly treats a yard like a parking lot instead of highlighting what deserves attention. Buried connections made without waterproof splices corrode and fail one at a time until half the system sits dark.
Our approach starts with a walk at dusk, because a yard reads completely differently in daylight than it does when the shadows are real. We look at what is worth highlighting, whether that is a mature tree, a shingled gable, a stone wall, or the approach to the front door, and just as importantly what should stay dark. From there we calculate the run lengths, size the transformer with headroom for future additions, and lay out fixture positions with beam spread in mind. Cable gets buried at proper depth, connections get waterproof splices rather than pierce connectors, and fixtures come in brass or marine-grade materials that survive this environment. Transformers get placed where you can reach them, with timers or photocells handling the schedule.
The property looks intentional after dark, with light on the things worth seeing and shadow where shadow belongs. Guests find the front door without hunting for it, and the house holds its curb appeal through the months when nobody sees it in daylight. Because the system was designed around voltage rather than guesswork, the fixture at the far end of the run looks the same as the one closest to the transformer, and it stays that way for years.
Here is what a designed system does that a store-bought kit cannot.
Homes along this coast get photographed, listed, and shown at all hours, and a dark property makes none of the impression the daylight version does. Uplighting on architecture and specimen plantings changes that entirely. Listing photos taken at dusk become genuinely useful.
Grade changes, steps, and edges are where people actually trip, and low-level fixtures placed along the route handle it without glare. Light at walking level works better than a bright fixture aimed down from above. Guests navigate unfamiliar property without a phone flashlight.
Brass, copper, and marine-grade materials weather rather than corrode, which matters enormously within a few miles of the ocean. Painted aluminum fixtures pit and fail fast in this environment. Choosing correctly at installation avoids replacing the whole system in three years.
Proper transformer sizing and voltage calculations keep the last fixture as bright as the first. Systems that ignore voltage drop end up with a dim tail nobody can explain. That math happens during design rather than after the complaints start.
Transformers sized with spare capacity let you add fixtures when the plantings mature or the hardscape changes. Extending a run becomes a small job when the original design accounted for it. Retrofitting capacity into an undersized system costs considerably more.
Landscape work frequently pairs with the security-focused lighting described below.
Decorative lighting and protective coverage serve different purposes, and most properties benefit from both working together. Our outdoor security lighting installation service maps coverage around entry points and blind spots. The two systems can share circuits and controls when planned together.
Areas that need bright light occasionally rather than all evening are better served by sensors than by steady fixtures. Our motion-activated floodlight installation service handles driveways, side yards, and back entrances. Pairing motion fixtures with landscape lighting keeps the decorative layer subtle.
Complete exterior plans combine pathway fixtures, uplighting, floods, dusk-to-dawn units, and motion sensors into one coordinated system. Our outdoor and security lighting service covers that whole scope. Planning it together avoids the patchwork look that comes from adding pieces over years.
Exterior systems live outdoors in Delaware weather year-round, so the design matters as much as the installation.
Planning a lighting layout from a daytime visit means guessing at how shadows fall. Our crew comes back when the light is actually low and walks the property with you. That single habit produces better results than any amount of catalog browsing.
Lighting everything evenly flattens a yard and wastes fixtures on things nobody needs to see. We deliberately leave areas dark so the highlighted elements stand out. Fewer, better-placed fixtures usually cost less and look considerably better.
Waterproof splices and properly rated cable separate a system that works for a decade from one that fails a fixture at a time. Shortcuts here stay hidden until they are expensive to find. Everything we bury gets done the way it should be.
Walking the property, discussing the plan, and receiving a written price all come at no charge. Nothing about it commits you to hiring us. Comparing proposals gets easier when one of them includes an actual design.
Our crew is locally based and veteran-owned, working in the towns where we live. Anyone currently serving, along with veterans, first responders, teachers, and senior citizens, gets a reduced rate. Mentioning it during the consultation applies it.
Fixture material determines almost everything, since brass and copper weather gracefully while painted aluminum pits and fails. Properties within a mile or two of the water in Dewey Beach and Bethany Beach see the harshest conditions. We specify accordingly rather than using the same fixtures everywhere.
Low-voltage systems handle most residential landscape work, running safer cable at shallower depth with easier future changes. Line voltage suits certain applications, particularly longer runs and higher-output fixtures. Which one fits depends on the layout and the effect you want.
Timers, photocells, and app-controlled transformers all run the system without anyone present, which matters for second homes and rentals. Photocells adjust automatically as sunset shifts through the year. Our crew sets the schedule and shows you how to change it.
Fixture count depends far more on what deserves highlighting than on lot size, and restrained designs often look better than dense ones. A typical front elevation might use a handful of uplights plus path fixtures along the approach. We build the count from the design rather than starting with a number.
Low-voltage systems generally do not require one, though the circuit and transformer connection may, depending on the work involved. Line-voltage exterior circuits do require permitting through the state. Our crew tells you which category your project falls into before starting.
FAQs reviewed by Robert Miller, owner of Ocean-Side Electric, a local electrician serving Rehoboth Beach, DE, and beyond.
Reach out to Ocean-Side Electric for a free evening consultation and we will show you what your yard could look like. You will get a design and a flat price with no obligation attached.
Business Name: Ocean-Side Electric
Address: Rehoboth Beach, DE, 19971
Phone: 302-396-5889
Business Hours:
Monday-Friday: 7:30 AM to 4:00 PM
Saturday: 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Sunday: Closed
Emergency Service Available
Financing is available
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