By the Unique Outdoor Lighting crew — NJ installs · Updated 2026-07-18
Searching for the best landscape lighting company in your town gets you a page of companies calling themselves the best. A checklist works better than a superlative. Here is what actually separates installers — and the questions that surface the difference before you sign anything.
What should you look for in a landscape lighting company?
Six things separate a company you will be glad you hired from one you will be calling someone else to fix: proof of insurance, an in-house crew, a designer who actually designs, night focusing after the install, service for the life of the system, and a quote based on walking your property. The rest of this guide takes them one at a time.
Fully insured, with documentation available on request
Installs with its own crew — no subcontractors
Designs the system in-house, on your property
Aims and dims every fixture at night, after the install
Services what it installs — and ideally other systems too
Quotes only after a walk-through, in writing, itemized
Why does insurance matter for a lighting install?
Because the crew is trenching, wiring, and working around your home, your plantings, and everything buried in your yard. If the company is not insured, its problems become your problems. Insurance is the difference between an incident being handled and an incident being a dispute.
Unique Outdoor Lighting is fully insured for every project, including liability coverage that protects your property throughout the installation. We are happy to provide documentation on request before any work begins — and any company worth hiring should be, too.
Should the crew be in-house or subcontracted?
In-house. When the company that designed your system also installs it, there is one standard of work and one place where accountability lives. With subcontractors, the person who sold you the design and the people digging in your beds may never have met.
Every system we install goes in with our own crew — no subcontractors. Buried wiring, transformers sized with headroom, and beds left the way we found them.
Who actually designs the lighting system?
Ask this directly, because the answers vary more than you would expect. Some installers sell a fixture package and place it by habit. A real design starts on your property: the sightlines, the architecture worth tracing, the trees worth lighting, and how you actually use the space after dark.
We design every system in-house, composed on the property it will live on. No templates, no cookie-cutter layouts — the finished system should read as part of the home, not bolted onto it.
What is night focusing, and why should you insist on it?
Night focusing is the final pass where every fixture is aimed and dimmed after dark — when you can actually see what the light is doing. A layout that looks right on paper at noon almost never looks right at nine at night without it. Skipping this step is how you end up with glare and hot spots.
It is a standard part of every install we do, not an add-on. The system is not finished until it has been focused at night.
Will they service the system after installation?
The install should be the beginning of the relationship, not the end of it. Outdoor systems live outdoors: fixtures get bumped, connections corrode, timers fail. The question is whether the company that put it in will pick up the phone when that happens.
We service what we install — one call, handled, for as long as you own the system. We also service all brands and all system types: low voltage, line voltage, LED, and halogen, including systems other companies put in.
How should the quote process work?
Be wary of a number quoted sight-unseen. A real quote follows a walk of the property — ideally around dusk, when you can talk about what the space should feel like after dark. Then it arrives in writing, itemized, so you can see exactly what you are paying for.
Ours are free, transparent, and itemized with no hidden fees, and most clients receive theirs within about 24 hours of the consultation.
What questions should you ask before you sign?
Take this list to any company you are considering — including us. A good installer will have quick, specific answers. Vague ones tell you what you need to know.
Are you insured, and can I see documentation before work begins?
Who designs the system — and is the design built for my property?
Is the crew in-house or subcontracted?
Do you aim and dim the fixtures at night after the install?
Do you service what you install? What about systems you didn't install?
Is the quote itemized? What exactly is and isn't included?
Does local experience actually matter?
Yes. New Jersey is hard on outdoor systems — freezing winters, wet springs, humid summers — and mature NJ properties bring real design problems: long approaches, specimen trees, period architecture that cheap fixtures cheapen. Experience here is not the same as experience anywhere.
We design and install lighting across Morris, Essex, Somerset, Union, and Bergen County, from Bridgewater, NJ out through the surrounding towns.
