Aqueduct at a glance
- Serving Nashville and Middle Tennessee since 1988
- Licensed, bonded and insured, locally owned and operated
- Irrigation design, installation, activation, repair, winterization, backflow testing, coverage audits and pump service
- Landscape lighting design, installation, repair and Christmas light installation
- Service area covers Davidson, Williamson, Sumner and Cheatham counties
Why lighting needs maintenance at all
Outdoor lighting is usually sold as low-maintenance, and compared with a pool or an irrigation system it is. But it lives outdoors, and in Hendersonville that means lake-country humidity, heavy spring rain, summer growth that can swallow a fixture in weeks, and leaf drop that buries path lights every fall.
None of that breaks a system overnight. It degrades it. A fixture fogs, another gets kicked out of aim, a third is hidden by a growing boxwood, a cable surfaces where a dog dug. Each problem is small. Together, after two or three years, they turn a designed system into a random scatter of light.
Maintenance treats lighting like any other outdoor investment, alongside hardscape and pools, rather than something to call about when it goes dark.
The six-part walkthrough
A proper maintenance visit is a structured walkthrough rather than a lamp swap. Aqueduct Irrigation / Southern Light publishes the six items its walkthrough includes, and the list is a good standard to hold any provider to:
- Fixture examination. Checking every fixture for corrosion, broken lenses and dented metal.
- Transformer and wiring check. Weather, pets, wildlife and foot traffic expose wires. Technicians check wiring, rebury surfaced cable, and inspect transformers inside and out for debris and corrosion.
- Lamp replacement. Even LED lamps eventually fail, and every lamp is confirmed working.
- Coverage adjustment. Fixtures that shifted through settling, weather or bumps are re-aimed to restore the original design.
- Debris and foliage removal. Insects, leaves, mineral deposits and mud are cleared, and minor plant growth in front of fixtures is trimmed.
- System cleaning. Every lens and fixture is cleaned so the system shines as it was designed to.
The twice-a-year calendar
Two visits a year cover most residential systems, timed around the two moments the landscape changes most:
- Early spring: after winter weather and before leaf-out. Clear winter debris, check wiring and connections after freeze-thaw, replace lamps, and confirm timers are set for longer evenings.
- Late summer or fall: after the growing season. Re-aim fixtures that plants have grown into, trim foliage from beams, clean lenses, and get the system ready for the long nights of fall and the holiday season.
Properties used heavily for entertaining, or commercial properties where a dark fixture is noticed immediately, benefit from monthly attention instead.
What maintenance agreements cost
Unusually for the industry, Aqueduct publishes starting prices for its outdoor lighting maintenance agreements:
- Gold: two walkthrough visits per agreement year (spring and late summer or fall), priority scheduling and 10 percent off parts. Pricing starts at $634 per year.
- Platinum: twelve walkthrough visits per agreement year (monthly), priority scheduling and 20 percent off parts. Pricing starts at $2,988 per year.
Both are starting points. Final pricing is set per property, because system size and layout vary so widely, and agreements can be tailored to add other services. They cover all major brands, including systems installed by other contractors, so a Hendersonville homeowner who inherited a system with a house purchase can still enrol.
Choosing between Gold and Platinum
For most Hendersonville homes, two visits a year is the right cadence: the system is checked at both seasonal turning points, and priority scheduling covers anything that fails in between. Monthly service makes sense for large estates, waterfront properties with heavy entertaining, and businesses where lighting is part of how customers see the property every night.
Either way, the alternative is worth pricing honestly. Repeated one-off service calls cost more over time than scheduled visits, and the slow drift of an unmaintained system is a cost too, just one that shows up as a property that no longer looks the way it did on the night the lights were first switched on.
Aqueduct Irrigation / Southern Light lists Hendersonville, Gallatin, Goodlettsville and White House among its northern Middle Tennessee lighting service areas.