The Right Landscape Lighting Installation Can Add a New Dimension to Your Home
Once you have sketched out your plan for where you want to put your outdoor lights, landscape lighting installation is actually much easier than your think. If you have chosen to go with solar lights, installation will be a snap, especially if you don’t have much shade in your yard. But even if you’ve decided to go with low voltage garden lights, installation will not be nearly as much of a problem as you may think. Most home improvements stores and even some websites sell kits that can get you started.
Installing Solar Garden Lights
Installing solar lights is relatively simple, but care must be taken when you are trying to decide where to stick them. Make sure that your solar lights are going to be getting direct sunlight for several hours a day. Before you install them you might want to check out where the shadows fall in your yard at certain times of the day, especially if you have a lot of trees on your property.
Once you’ve made sure that your lights are going to be getting the right amount of sunlight, installation of the solar garden lights is a snap. Simply stake the light into the ground, sometimes this might require a shovel for larger fixtures, and forget about it. The light will turn itself on and off every night with a sensor and automatically charge itself during the day.
Low Voltage Landscape Lighting Installation
Installing low voltage system for your outdoor landscape lighting is quite a bit more difficult than installing solar lighting, but if you don’t have an intricate system and already have a grounded plug somewhere sheltered, preferably a shed, you shouldn’t need to call an electrician. In fact most home improvement sites and even brick and mortar stores should be able to sell you cheap kits that will get you all the basic materials you need to light up your yard.
The first thing that you are going to need to get for your system is a landscape lighting transformer. These cost about two hundred dollars and step the electrical current the wires down from the standard 120 volt household current to a much more management and generally shockproof 12 volts. Once you have your transformer, you are going to need to install it somewhere with access to your yard and preferably a central location. For most people this will be a shed.
Make sure you pay attention to what kind of wires you buy for connecting your garden light to the system. Low quality electrical wires can actually leak quite a bit of electricity out of the wire before it even reaches the lights. Normally, this is barely noticeable, but the voltage in these wires is so low you can only run about 15 feet of cable on the lowest setting. Any leakage from the system will be immediately noticeable. Don’t fear if you plan on running more than 15 feet of wire though, you can still up the voltage running through the wires to 22 volts and be safe from shocks. With 22 volts you can run well over 100 feet of wire, which should be enough for most home systems.
After you have the transformer in place, all that left to do is place your light fixtures and run the wires to them. Try to hide or bury the wires as much as you possibly can. Not only will it make your garden look better, it will remove a major tripping and electrical hazard for your family and pets. This is the most time consuming step, but it also doesn’t require a high degree of skill and you should be able to do it yourself.
When you finally hook up your lights, absolutely do not use any light fixtures intended for indoor use outside. The light fixture and the wires in it are not made to stand up to the daily pressures of sun, rain, and wind as other outdoor lights are. At best they will only work for a limited amount of time, at worst they could become a very serious shock hazard.
Installing a landscape lighting system is much easier than most people think. There is almost no technical knowledge needed, even if you are planning on installing a wired low voltage system. Solar powered lighting is even easier to install. Just make sure to buy a quality transformer and wires and they will pay you dividends for years to come.
