LaGina Glass Landscape Lighting: San Diego LED Outdoor Lighting, Distribution & Design

LED Landscape Lighting: Real Life-Installation

Here are some tips for installing LED landscape lighting. Keeping these things in mind will help you to save time, energy and supplies.

Consider this when installing outdoor led lighting:

How many lights will you install (based on your design)?
How far (distance) will you run your lights (from transformer to last light)
What gauge of low voltage landscape lighting wire will you use?

Things you’ll find helpful:

LED landscape lights save up to 80% in energy; where you may use a 20 watt halogen, you can now use a 3 watt LED. A 10-light LED only uses 30 watts.
Last up to 35k – 50k hours (over 10 years in most cases).
Use smaller transformers because you are using fewer watts; 150w transformers will be sufficient for many job up to 30 lights (more savings).
More fixtures on a line equals less wire (more savings).
Use a smaller gauge wire – 12-2 works very well.
One 12-2 wire run can handle 185 watts up to 100 feet; no fancy wiring
LEDs operate between 10v – 15v; no dim lights on the line.

For existing (12v) low voltage systems:

No need to re-wire your outdoor lighting system; remove the old and place the new
Be sure your voltage is between 12v-15v

“So easy, a Caveman could do it…”…Lol…can I say that?

Do not hesitate to contact us for more information….glad to help.

LaGina

Loves Butterflies

Low Voltage Lighting Maintainence Tips

Quick Tips for Troubleshooting your landscape lighting system:

If you have a 12 volt light system you have probably had this scenario happen. You notice one night a light has gone out. It’s just one light so you don’t think much of it. A couple nights later you notice another has gone out and you think, okay I’d better get those changed.

The next night you go out and change the two you noticed were out before and sure enough, everything is nice a bright again. Until a couple of nights go by and a few more start to burn out. Annoying…..

So here’s what going on. You now have what I like to call the domino effect. When one goes down it triggers a response from the other lights on the line. That is the non-technical version.

What is actually happening is the the voltage used at the burnout spot is no longer being used so it travels down the line. When it hits the next bulb on the line it increases that bulbs’ voltage. When a bulb operates over 12 volts it will begin to burn at a higher rate (shortening the bulbs’ life).

What to do? First you want to use good quality bulbs, have a regular maintenance program in place (like you change the oil in your car), and pay attention to your lighting so you are able to notice when something has gone out.

My favorite suggestion is for you to consider changing your system to L.E.D. landscape lighting. LED landscape lighting fixtures do not use bulbs and run up to 50,000 hours ( 10-20 years based on how many hours per night you run your system). Visit other posts to learn more about LED lighting and the many benefits it offers.

The Future of Lighting

Our need to conserve energy has been a hot topic for a long time. I’m happy to see people taking more interest in LED lighting and the positive impact it has on our environment. With up to 80% savings in energy it is fast becoming the wave of the future in lighting.

When you consider using led lighting as recessed lights, under-cabinet lighting, track lighting, etc. also take a look at your landscape lighting system. Anyone who enjoys their outdoor lighting system can enjoy a huge savings in energy costs by upgrading to LED. For example, a 20-light halogen system can use 400watts (20 fixtures x 20 watts) of lights. That same system in LED would only use 60 watts (20 fixtures x 3 watts).

Enjoy the same design, brightness and ambiance without the additional costs or energy usage. Fairly soon, led landscape lighting will be the only landscape lighting so why not get on board and start saving. Visit our led facts for more information.

A great resource for learning more about the future of lighting is LED Magazine. It can be a bit technical but has excellent information about where we are headed and what we can do now.

Happy Savings!

LaGina

Loves Butterflies