Our Landscape Lighting Nashville Diaries

The Basic Principles Of Landscape Lighting Nashville

Low voltage illumination makes use of a transformer to lower normal 120 volt lines to a reduced voltage. The most typical low voltage landscape lighting transformers lower the voltage to 12 volts, which is what we made use of.


Down the roadway we might include lights to the side and backyards, yet it had not been a priority right now. Abby then mapped out around where she would certainly such as lights and just how several.




When we identified where we wanted the lights, we also needed to make a note of where we had available exterior electrical outlets to be able to connect in our transformer( s). In our situation, we had one electrical outlet simply to the left of our front door and one outlet on each side of your home that we might potentially make use of.


Ideally one transformer would certainly cover all of our demands. We would connect in a transformer to outside outlets and run a line of all our lights from there. In our scenario, this wasn't feasible because it would certainly've needed running a cord under our driveway and also under our front stroll.

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Sadly, the transformers are the most costly part of the whole process, yet there was bit we could do concerning it. The light in area one would certainly plug right into a transformer on the left side of our home. The lights in area two would certainly link into a transformer by the front door.


Investing in every one of the necessary tools for this project was one of the most overwhelming part. There are so many selections and alternatives that it can be perplexing in the beginning. I'll walk you via our equipment choices. The initial thing I did was have a look at low voltage illumination alternatives on Amazon.


Then Abby and I travelled to Lowe's and took a look at their "Profile" brand name of landscape lighting. While it was practical to see every one of the different lighting choices in individual to obtain a far better idea of what we needed, the Portfolio brand really did not feel like it was a greater quality than other brand names we had actually looked at, and the prices were certainly greater than what I was seeing on Amazon


Below is whatever we made use of to install our landscape lighting: Transformers will be the biggest cost of this project. There are a number of calculators online to help you identify the power (wattage) click for info of your transformer, however it's extremely basic: Include up the complete power level of a fantastic read the lights utilized, multiply the overall power level by 1.

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We looked at the Lowe's Portfolio brand of landscape lights, we made a decision to buy our lights from Amazon. The rate was much far better and the lights had whatever we required.


The most significant downside to LEDs made use of to be the cold color temperature level, but currently it's easy to discover LED lights in whatever shade temperature you prefer. We're delighted with the color temperature level, and it matches our patio lights and light article light nicely.


I believe this provides the best effect of radiating up on the side of residence. A bunch of flood lamps shining up on your house might have bewildered everything. I was really pleased with the top quality of our lights. They appear very strong and well made with hefty task risks, an angle adjustment knob, and steel light bodies.


, I used a tape step to get a really harsh estimate of exactly how much cable I would certainly need. I wanted to make certain I had added, so I bought 100 feet of wire.

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For instance 14/2 and even 12/2. The first number is the scale of cable. A reduced number or "gauge" implies a thicker wire. 12 gauge cable is thicker than 14 gauge cord. The second number is the number of strands of wire in the cord. 14/2 suggests that it is 14 gauge cable with 2 hairs in the cord.




Every online source listings somewhat various numbers, however if you are going to run near to 200 watts or even more, 14 scale cable may be as well small. I went back and forth in between 12/2 and 14/2 cord. I finished up acquiring the 14 gauge wire due to the fact that some Amazon reviewers had actually commented that the lights we bought utilized 14 scale cable.


Don't stress concerning the wire option. For the vast bulk of property landscape lighting tasks, 14 gauge or 12 scale will certainly work simply great. The last point you require for this task are the cord adapters. Thankfully, they are economical, and there are lots of options. The cable adapters are made use of here to attach the 2 brief cable strands that prolong from each light to the long wire that provides power to all of the lights in the strand.


The lengthy cord is slid into a cable owner on the connector, and then you tighten down the connector and the steel prongs touch directly into your lengthy cable. Also viewing on Amazon for ports, I still could not picture precisely just how this would certainly work, so I wound up getting 2 kinds of adapters.