Landscape Lighting Design
With landscape or garden lighting, when completed the effects are usually either under or over whelming. And in the vast majority of cases, my opinion is most people put out a few pathway lights or some up-lighting on a couple trees and call it good. Well it’s not! I have driven by some million dollar homes at night, a very large house setting on a very large lot and all you see are some trees with up-lighting causing light pollution.
Landscape lighting should be in each major area but restrained, not obtrusive but soft, not distracting but tasteful, not brilliant but appealing. Well you should be getting the idea. Landscape lighting design is a little like art, just the right amount in the right places with the right allure.
Garden Lighting Design
Planning - Number one on the list is to have a plan. Most home owners will spend more time on picking the color of their house paint than planning the landscape lighting. Landscape lighting should make you home, your landscape look elegant, dreamlike, pleasing, restful, peaceful or what other adjective that best describes your pleasant feelings. Start your plan by walking around your home and lawn at dusk; choose areas that would contribute to a night time landscape. Yes a nighttime landscape will look different than a daytime landscape. Use a portable small light to help you decide exactly what the best placement would be. You can even temperately locate your landscape lights using an extension cord and turn them on before you make any final decisions.
Stop Glare - You should never be able to see the true light source, the bright spot like looking at the sun during the day. If you can see any light source, it causes glare, like looking at oncoming car lights on a dark country road. Garden lighting is best as indirect lighting where you see the light reflecting off the ground or objects.
Direct The Light - All lights should be shrouded to direct or diffuse the light where you want it to be and only where it should be. If the light is too bright or not directed, the whole area can be flooded with light and the proper effect is lost.
Accentuate - The main idea is to accentuate objects; paths, flowers, shrubs, trees, walls or what you consider important. Try to contrast objects with its surroundings, not to blend things together.
Limit Light - The area should be a mixture of darkness and light. You don’t want your complete yard glowing with hundreds of watts of electricity.
Draw Attention - Landscape lights should accentuate specific small areas or objects, to draw attention to the objects and not the light itself.
Low Output - When is comes to light output, more is usually not better. A low wattage light will have a better effect than a high wattage bulb, to some extent. You will still need sufficient light output to get the effect you want. Now this somewhat depends upon the object but as a general rule, less individual light output is better.
Control - Use a control box to limit the time your lights are on. There is absolutely no need to have your lights on during daylight and it wastes energy. Have the lights turn on dusk. Some lights may be left on until dawn for security reasons but many of the lights could be turned off after five or six hours.
Light Pollution - Some cities have local codes that limit the amount of light going off your property. This means to not have your lights shine into your neighbor’s home or into the night time sky. Light pollution is bad for your neighbors and bad for the environment. Try to keep all light directed down and not up. And as stated before, use lower wattage lights.
Transformers
To determine the size of the transformer required, add up the wattage of all the fixtures and pick the next highest wattage transformer. If you have 10 fixtures and each fixture is rated at 12 watts, this is a total of 120 watts. In this case you would purchase at least a 150 watt transformer, 200 watts would be better. Add at least a 10% margin.
Transformer size = (total fixture bulb wattage X 1.1)
Transformers come with additional features:
- Timers that can be set for the exact times the lights turn on and off. This can be good to help save power.
- Photocells that allow the lights to turn on at dusk and off at dawn. These are good for security purposes but use more power when lights are on all night.
- Multiple taps lets you adjust output voltage for longer runs to help reduce voltage drop.
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