Low Voltage Lighting Powered by a Transformer Can Greatly Improve Your Home
There are many advantages to installing low voltage outdoor lighting in your yard over installing solar lights. You will have access to a greater range of light fixtures because they don’t have to contain a solar panel. You will also be able to place these fixtures wherever you want because you won’t have to worry about the fixture getting direct sunlight. However, low-voltage systems also come with significant setup costs and part of this setup cost is installing a landscape lighting transformer. These transformers can be bought online for fairly cheap but make sure you’ve done all the proper research and know which one you want first.
Low Voltage Transformer Basics
The landscape light transformer is going to be the single largest investment you make into your lighting system. You can expect the costs per light fixture to be about the same as those as if you were installing solar garden lights. On top of this you must budget around two hundred dollars for a transformer and the more money depending on the amount of wiring that you need to run.
The high cost is because landscape lighting transformers play a vital role in powering your garden lights. It steps down the power from the deadly 120 volts that comes in off of a normal power line into your house to a much safer 12 to 22 volts. This ensures that you don’t have to bury cables far underground and removes almost any shock hazard from the power chords if they have to be run out in the open.
Placing the Transformer
You are going to want to place your low voltage transformer in the most central location you can find in your yard. Make sure it is safe, out of the way, and has easy access to your home power. A shed that has already been hooked up with lights is ideal for this. With a normal transformer outputting 12 volts, you can run about fifteen feet of cable per wire from your transformer. If you need to run more cable than this, you should buy what is known as a multi-tap transformer. These let you increase the voltage up to 22 volts, giving you several hundred feet of cable that you can work with.
The transformer is the most important part of your low voltage lighting system. Make sure that you plan out your lighting design first so that you know which model you need to buy and how many volts you need it to output. Once you’ve done this and found a safe place to install the transformer, make sure to buy a quality model because it’s what the rest of your outdoor landscape lighting system depends on!
