To most home owners, outdoor lighting means a decorative wall sconce by the front door, a few lights along the walkway and perhaps floodlights for security.
Exterior lighting can do much more. It can make even a modest property look very attractive at night, increasing the home’s visual appeal and making it more salable in this buyer’s market.
Also, outdoor lighting can make a yard a more enjoyable place to spend time. And surprisingly, exterior lights even can make the interior of a home seem larger and more pleasant. When there’s little or no exterior lighting, windows become black mirrors at night for people inside, making the interior seem smaller. Outdoor lighting can make your home feel safer, too, by deterring burglars.
All of this can be accomplished without hiring an electrician. A handy home owner can keep costs as low as a few hundred dollars, though lighting will last a lot longer if you invest a bit more in well-made components.
The secret to attractive outdoor lighting is using a mixture of different lights and lighting techniques. Among the options…
Expert strategy: Many home owners put uncomfortably bright bulbs inside these fixtures. Instead, install 25- or 40-watt bulbs to illuminate entryways while minimizing harsh glare and shadows. If you are adding or replacing doorway fixtures, don’t be afraid to “buy big.” Fixtures that seem substantial in the store often look too small when actually hung.
Expert strategy: Use uplights to highlight the yard’s most neatly pruned trees and shrubs, giving them a sculptural quality. Position three uplights around a tree or shrub that’s in the middle of the yard. Use one or two lights if the tree or shrub is located along a fence or next to the home. Favor above-ground uplights over well lights. They’re easier to reposition if a tree being illuminated grows, and they tend to last longer. Position aboveground uplights behind small plants or shrubs, ideally in mulch beds, to keep them out of view.
Uplights and other landscape lighting can be wired in series, with each light connected to another light in the vicinity, and ultimately wired into a transformer either inside or outside your home that is plugged into an outlet (see “Power Options”).
Expert strategy: To achieve the desired “wall-washing” effect, the distance between uplights generally should be equal to the distance between the uplights and the wall.
Expert strategy: Vary the side of the walkway that path lights are placed on, and vary the distance between lights. This creates visual interest and breaks up the runway effect. For safety, place a path light at any point in the walkway where there is a step or change in surface. Select opaque mushroom-type or directional path lights that project light only down. These provide safety without calling excessive attention to themselves.
Solar-powered path lights are not ideal. They often are underpowered, particularly if trees or the house itself blocks the sun part of the day. However, solar path lights are easy to install and free to operate. If you use them, choose those that project the light only downward.
Expert strategy: Use adjustable straps specifically designed for this purpose to hang lights from trees. If you must screw downlights to trees, use galvanized screws, which are less likely than other screws to harm the trees.
Expert strategy: Mount these lights perhaps 10 to 12 feet up, where they are above the lowest branches but still easy to reach with a standard ladder.
Home centers typically sell basic outdoor lighting kits with six to 12 lights for as little as $90 to $125 — but these are low-quality fixtures that could start to fail in as little as two or three years, especially in harsh climates. Well-made outdoor lighting fixures can cost $100 or more apiece, but they can provide 20 years of service.
Halogen bulbs traditionally have been used in landscape lighting, but recent advances in LED lights make them a viable alternative. LED bulbs cost more than halogens, but they’re more energy efficient, more reliable in cold weather and can last more than 10 times as long. They also give off a whitish light that makes plants look healthy and appealing at night. Halogens give off a yellowish light that requires a “color correction filter” to achieve this effect. Fluorescent outdoor lights usually are best avoided. They often create light of an unpleasant color and fail in cold weather.
Good sources of outdoor lights…
FX Luminaire (858-535-8000, www.fxl.com) and B-K Lighting (559-438-5800, www.BKLighting.com) offer a range of very well-made but expensive landscape lighting fixtures, including pathway lights. Hinkley Lighting (800-446-5539, www.HinkleyLighting.com) offers solid quality landscape fixtures and pathway lights at generally lower prices.
Hubbardton Forge (802-468-3090, www.VTForge.com) and Hans Duus Blacksmith (877-640-0012, www.HansDuusBlacksmith.com) offer a range of beautiful hand-forged American-made lights, but they can be pricey. Murray Feiss (800-969-3347, www.Feiss.com) and Hinkley make attractive lights at more accessible prices.
Lighting Universe (888-404-2744, www.LightingUniverse.com) is a trustworthy online seller of a great selection of outdoor lighting, and 1000Bulbs.com (800-624-4488, www.1000Bulbs.com) is a good online resource for bulbs.
Outdoor lighting is available in 120-volt “line voltage” or 12-volt “low-voltage” systems. The 12-volt systems are the best choice for most home owners because they usually can be installed without hiring an electrician and without adding additional circuits to your electrical panel or following ultrastrict building codes. They also consume less electricity than 120-volt systems. For a tutorial on how to install low-voltage lighting, go to www.Lowes.com and search for “How to choose and install landscape lighting” from the videos in the “Help Center.”
The cords typically are buried, but if you use a 12-volt system, they don’t pose a safety risk and need not be buried very deep.
A 12-volt system will require a transformer, however, which will cost from $150 for a typical home center unit to more than $500 for a top-of-the-line unit, such as one from Semper Fi Power Supply that typically provides decades of service (603-656-9729, www.SemperFiPowerSupply.com). Transformers are about the size of gallon milk jugs. They can be placed in garages or basements, attached to exterior walls or positioned in the yard. Lights positioned more than 75 feet from a transformer sometimes are dimmer than those located closer. Installing multiple transformers is one way to solve this problem.
