The Benefits Of LED Landscape Lighting

LED landscape lighting is the latest and greatest improvement in lighting in decades. It is eco-friendly, bright, and lasts a long time. The benefits of LED landscape lighting are many and no lawn or garden should be without them.

Safety and Beauty in the landscape - lighting the lawn and garden keep the family safe. Unexpected obstacles will not surprise family members when paths are bright and easy to see. Outdoor gatherings need not end at dusk. They can continue until everyone is too exhausted to party. LED lighting keeps the dark at bay and increases the usability of the yard. People put so much work into a beautiful landscape and then night comes and it disappears. LED lighting shows off your perfectly manicured lawn or dazzling perennial beds. Up lighting highlights specimen trees and bushes. Homeowners should use landscape lighting as an integral part of the design process. Adding vertical elements that they highlight after dark makes the landscape gorgeous at all times.

The Environment and Cost Savings - Keep your home green using LED landscape lighting. Eco-friendly products, such as LED lights, are a big draw in today's market. Even if one is not planning to sell, adding eco-friendly elements shows that a family is doing their part to protect and save the planet. If one is planning to sell a home, anything that saves energy is a great benefit for buyers. They want a home that is already environmentally conscious so they do not have to invest additional capital into the home. Although LED lighting is more expensive than traditional bulbs, homeowners can offset the cost on energy savings. It takes little time for LED bulbs to pay for themselves. A few electric bills later and the bulbs have paid for themselves and are now working for you. The cost is the main factor that causes people to hesitate when choosing new lighting. Homeowners come out ahead in the end it is simply a matter of education and research. LED lights last for hundreds of hours. It is not something that one needs to replace often. One bulb will light the way for several years before it burns out. Do not let your home get behind on the technology curve. The best lighting that is available today is LED landscape lighting. Incorporating it into the garden does take a financial investment but that investment pays off in safety, energy savings and creating a more beautiful landscape.

Outdoor Landscape Lighting As A Security System

Outdoor landscape lighting can be a very decorative addition to any garden. But what about the additional benefits of the security and safety that it can also provide.

Security
Outdoor landscape lighting is one of the best security systems you can install. Landscape lighting can be used as a deterrent to residential crime. Correct proportions of outdoor landscape lighting surrounding your home, has been shown to minimize crimes by as much as fifty percent. Landscape lighting has two great uses to aid in the security of your home. The lighting can intimidate possible intruders to avoid trespassing on to your property. Should this fail, the illuminated areas will also make it possible for you or your neighbor’s to see any intruders as they trespass.

As well as lighting an intruder visually, they will also create shadows. At night when vision is limited a moving shadow is easy to see. Even though you probably won’t clearly make out the intruder in the darkness, your eye will be drawn to the movement straight away which will put you on alert immediately.

When designing your outdoor landscape lighting it is a good idea to light the pathways separately as to lighting individual garden features. This can be done using separate wiring circuits. To save power the feature lighting can be turned off very late at night, say after 1.30 am and the pathway lighting can remain on for safety and security.

Also remember when wiring your outdoor landscape lighting, make sure to bury the wiring. It is common for intruders to see this wiring an cut it knowing that it will blow the lighting fuse which will turn off all of your lights.

Safety
Typically low voltage lighting systems are used for outdoor landscape lighting around the home. The preferred light fittings used to create outdoor landscape lighting, are low voltage, weather resistant fixtures. The low voltage used reduces the risk of electrocution if live wiring or terminals are touched. Also if power supply transformers are used to reduce the voltage, then they also isolate the low voltage system from the mains voltage which increases safety.

Low voltage lighting outdoor systems around the home garden also use low wattage lamps. These do not heat up as much as the larger sized lamps commonly used inside the home. The risk of burning anyone is reduced. Also the risk of burning and damaging plants by the directed light is also greatly reduced.

Maintenance
Always check your low voltage outdoor landscape lighting regularly. Say once every week. Lamps eventually burn out and require replacement regularly. Another problem is that plants outgrow their original shape and form and you will need to re-aim the lighting again to suit. The neighbor’s cat or dog may also knock your lighting over if it is loosely installed.

Why Choose Solar Landscape Lighting?

If you're looking for a good introduction to the prospect of solar landscape lighting, the aim of this article is to give you some reasons to seriously consider the use of outdoor solar lights. The latest generation of solar-powered lights are naturally suited to almost every application and the variety of choices just keeps growing.

There are three main factors to thank for this:

(1) advances in battery technology,

(2) the rapid and continual technological advancements in solar panels (also known as photovoltaic cells), and

(3) next generation LED lighting, which makes low-power consumption exterior lighting increasingly more available.

How does Solar Landscape Lighting Work?

Outdoor solar lighting works by storing electricity in one of two ways:

(1) excess electricity is sent back to the main electrical power grid, or

(2) electricity is stored locally in batteries.

Outdoor Solar lights have three main components:

(1) the collection and conversion of sunlight into energy,

(2) the storage of electricity, and

(3) the expenditure of electricity.

In order to convert the sunlight into energy, one or more solar panels (photovoltaic modules) need to be installed. These panels convert daylight in direct current (DC) energy. The direct current is subsequently transferred to a storage component through an electrical cable.

The storage component then has two options:

(1) pass the electricity on to whatever unit needs power, or

(2) store the electricity in the main power electrical grid.

Here it's important to note that most outdoor lighting systems require a DC current, whereas most indoor electrical appliances require AC (alternating current). Even more, all batteries and outdoor LED lighting require a DC current (most commonly 12v low voltage).

So, at this point, you need to decide whether to leave the current as DC or convert it into AC through the use of an inverter. But it doesn't have to be one or the other. You can use dedicated solar panels for particular applications. In other words, one panel can be dedicated for AC, another for DC, and so on.

Whichever storage option you choose will dictate the end usage.

Reasons to Install Solar Lights

Solar power intrinsically lends itself to outdoor lighting. There are three main reasons for this:

(1) New generation solar LED garden lights require very little power and usually are low voltage (12 volts or less).

(2) It's the ideal, pollution less, free power cycle. When lighting is not required during the day, the batteries are fully charged by the sun. This stored energy is then used to power the lights at night.

(3) All you need is access to daylight to harness this power. And the daylight does not have to be direct sunlight. Any form of daylight will do.

So, once you get past the initial costs of purchasing the exterior solar lighting system, it will run itself cost-free for as long as you own it. And because the true cost of any lighting system is measured in terms of its continual operating expenses, this is a huge benefit. Over time, even the most expensive lighting systems have their costs dwarfed by the electrical expenses incurred by operating them.

Types of LED Outdoor Lights

If you are wondering what types of outdoor solar lights are available, what follows is a quick rundown of some of the most popular solar landscape lights.

Outdoor LED lighting made its first appearance a short while back with the introduction of low voltage garden lighting systems. Since then, it has become widely accepted and popular.

The advantages of LED garden lights include:

(1) easy installation,

(2) beautiful lighting effects,

(3) very low-cost operation,

(4) comparatively inexpensive to purchase, and

(5) safe for children, animals and plants.

Before the introduction of LED exterior lights, halogen and incandescent bulbs were used in garden lighting. These lights would many times be too powerful for the intended application. Not only that, their range of effects is more limited and the extremely high temperature of the bulbs can be dangerous for people, plants and animals.

On top of all this, halogen and incandescent bulbs cost much more to operate. This is because these bulbs need to be replaced regularly (LED bulbs can last 10 years or more) and use more than ten times the amount of electricity of LED garden lights.

Outdoor LED Lighting Choices

Wondering what choices are available in LED landscape lighting?

To begin with, you can try LED spot lights. Or, if want something a bit more powerful, you can select LED flood lights. Then there are LED deck and patio lights, which come in a wide range of colors and sizes. Additionally, you can opt for colored clear rock lights, lanterns, bollards, spikes and LED pond lights.

The options are only as limited as your imagination.

LED deck lighting is a good example to take a look at. These lights are not only easily attached to decking boards, but also can be installed to any outside wooden garden furniture. All you need to do to install them is to drill a hole in the board equal to the diameter of the deck light unit. Then drop the connecting cable into the hole, which is followed by the actual LED light. After that, it's simply a matter of enjoying cost-free illumination for years to come.

What makes these outside lights so great is that they are lightweight, durable, and robust. This means you are not limited to drilling them into regular deck boards that are walked on. You can also install them into side panels of the deck, upright posts, and even cross beams of pergolas, where LED deck lights can be installed at various angles to direct the light toward the ground.

Moreover, you can install LED deck lights into fence panel posts or use them to highlight objects like a garden shed if you so choose.

The point I'm trying to make is that LED deck lights don't necessarily need to be confined to a deck. They are one of the most versatile components used for lighting any part of your garden lighting area. So, if you want to install them into steps or stepping stones, use them for patio lighting, mount them into wood blocks, or even use them as standalone ground level lighting for flower or garden borders, there's nothing to stop you!

Solar post cap lights and solar deck rail lights are variants of regular LED deck lighting. These low power LED lights can be used to decipher the line of fencing and deck rails. They are easy to install, require a minimal amount of maintenance, and display an ambient light intended as an enhancing and finishing touch.

LED garden spot lights are an ideal substitution for halogen bulbs because they generate virtually no heat (which can be damaging to plants, hands and paws) and use a fraction of consumable power. Their light is easily directed and does not require fitted reflectors in order to focus the beam of light.

When considering the installation of LED spotlights in a garden, there are two important points to consider:

(1) LED light color, and

(2) beam angle (i.e. spread out light or tightly focused light).

When referring to color, the reference is intended more in terms of temperature, rather than specific colors. Color choices are available, though. Whether you decide to go with a "warm" or "cool" color will depend on the look you are after, which itself will depend on your personal preferences.

A dramatic feel is accomplished by using "cool" colors (e.g. pure, white light). This works particularly well to sharply define architectural garden objects and to produce a sparkling effect on water. "Warm" colors like yellow, amber, and even warm white work well to enhance the natural colors of flowers and trees.