Outdoor Accent/Landscape Lighting

[-Brent-]

I'm wondering if any of you have landscape or accent lighting at your home/garage? I'm in the process of planning my set-up and would like to hear what any of you have to say on the topic.

My home is brick and fairly small. There are currently no lights on the home other than the front and rear entrances but the artist in me sees the possibilities of accent lighting. My plan is to put well lights in the front and side(s) of the building lighting the brick areas and a bullet light to accent the chimney (where we'll have a patriotic metal star mounted).

I'm wondering your thoughts on things like transformers, light types, photo cells, etc.

 

[-Brent-]

No GJ members are into this stuff or have experience, huh?

Well, in hopes of shedding a little light onto this (pun intended ), here's my intended layout. The lines indicate the uplighting from the well lights. I'm no designer, but based on what I've read (not a ton of info for the DIY guy) and pictures I've seen this looks like the favorable set-up.

Now, onto the transformers. I spoke to a guy from Outdoor Lighting Perspectives and he said that the rule of thumb is to use 80% of the capacity of the transformer. So, at 35w per unit that'd put me a 150w on the 3-light side and 100w on the 2-light side. Does that sound copacetic? Also, I've run two power feeds to each side of the front. What you can't really see in this pic is the walkway that devides the yard, preventing me from running the wire over from one side to the other by digging up earth.

Lastly, I'm planning on running photo cells. I assume that I can figure out how to run one cell to activate the two transformers. I don't know much about the workings of photocells though. Any info there would help, too.

 

[csp]

My transformers have photo cells built into them. They are intended for low voltage outdoor lighting and are located outside.

35w per bulb seems awfully bright IMO. The way I look at it you're looking for accent lighting on the house, not trying to light it up brightly. It takes very little wattage to achieve accent lighting.

There are several methods to get a line run under an existing sidewalk also.

 

[-Brent-]

Correct, I'm not trying to light it brightly, just accent. The lights I'm considering are these:

 

[Jeff Ivers]

I use Malibu landscape lighting. Part of mine is on timers and part on photo-cell activation. If you use photo-cell, stick with the transformers that have the cell built in. I have modified small 10 watt spotlights to hang on my barn which is about 300 ft from the street to illuminate the old gas and tire company signs hung on the side. I have found the 10-watt to be adequate for my purposes. When you drive down the street at night you can see the signs on the barn. The transformers should be designed with a safety factor built into the rating, so I would not be afraid to put an 88 watt load on an 88 watt transformer. I would not go over the rating.

 

[-Brent-]

Jeff, do you have a pic? One thing I am wondering about is figuring on how to get the proper amount of light. I don't want too much, as was mentioned above, but I'm not sure how to figure what's appropriate.

 

[MatthewM]

I use the same system as Jeff. I like the system and believe it is available from HD, it allows you to customize the duration that the lighting stays on, and it automatically turns it on at dusk. My system has a sensor that is moveable, but for my application the sensor just sits on top of the box. The house looks great and I get lots of compliments on the lighting.

-Matt

 

[bigred292]

You're not alone-don't worry. I plan to use accent lighting on my house and garage this spring. I haven't started a layout yet though.
What I do is troll HD and Lowes- alot of times they have clearance prices on some items. Just recently I saw a deal on a transformer- Malibu 300 watt outdoor w/metal housing, looked pretty heavy duty. Reg price $130, on clearance for $29!! I bought 2 of them.

 

[MoonRise]

Low voltage transformer - check

Wire - check

light fixtures - check

I've given up on any of the plastic lighting fixtures. They have all cracked or broken. The 'clear' plastic seems to recrystalize and then falls apart (suspect UV damage doing it). Metal and glass for the lights themselves (knock on wood, those seem to be holding up).

 

[gabedad]

The wife and I just installed low voltage light in the front yard. Used one of those malibu kits box store. They do seem kind of cheap. We will see how long the plastics last

 

[BHR4CE1]

Do yourself a favor and buy the best fixtures you can afford. Those Malibu lights don't last very long at all. If you get pro/commercial stuff in the beginning, it will last you a lot longer than buying Malibu lights every year and think of the time you will save not having to replace them constantly. When I did my recent landscape project, we used these everywhere...
http://www.fxl.com/
The are amazing fixtures. The quality is top notch. We went with mostly LED fixtures and scattered in a few of the low voltage fixtures for different effects. Do it rich the first time and you will be able to enjoy it for many many years. We use Control4 to handle all the automated timer functions.

 

[Patrick00]

We just installed some accent lights in our backyard to uplight some trees. We used Allen +Roth 4w LEDs from lowes, and they are working great so far. LEDs are a little more expensive up front, but you can buy a smaller transformer to offset some of the higher light cost. The lights are metal and came in a 4-pack for $88.00.


Last week I found a 7w Malibu LED at HD for $14.97 and decided to give it a try. I hooked it up right next to one of the original 4w fixtures to compare and not suprisingly the 7w was significantly brighter, yet cheaper than the Lowes fixtures.

Both have a warm color tone, not the obnoxious bright blue color tone of some of the first generation LED lights. In fact, our next door neighbor has some halogen lights in his yard right next to one of my fixtures, and the color of the light is almost identical.