Designing Your Outdoor Landscape Lighting | Waccabuc Real Estate

Outdoor lighting isn’t just about safety and security. There’s no reason the curb appeal of your home should be limited to the daytime.

The tree you’ve also loved, the garden you’ve worked hard to cultivate, the pond you bought with your hard-earned money, and all the other landscape features you’ve painstakingly chosen for your home can achieve some of their best effects at night with good outdoor landscape lighting.

Low Voltage Outdoor Lighting The electricity running into your home holds a potentially dangerous 120 volts.

To create low voltage outdoor lighting you’ll need to install one or more transformers. This will reduce the voltage of your outdoor landscape lighting to a tame 12 volts. If your wiring gets exposed by inclement weather and the abuse of the elements, this voltage poses no danger to you, your family members, or your pets.

The downside to the low voltage outdoor lighting is that light fixtures become dimmer the further away they are from the transformer. If this becomes a problem, there are a number of easy solutions. You can upgrade to a higher-rated transformer or a heavier-gauge cable.

You can use multiple transformers. You can also simply reduce the number or the wattage of your light fixtures. Moving the transformer and/or rearranging the layout of the lighting system can reduce the cable length to each fixture, minimizing the dimming path.

You might also consider using the dimming as an intentional effect. This is popular in path lighting, where each light fixture gets stronger as you move closer to your home.