Choosing Low Voltage Outdoor Lighting
Another way to set off your home landscaping is with outdoor lighting. There is a wide range of types and styles of outdoor lighting fixtures to choose from. You can choose from solar, or low voltage or commercial professionally installed outdoor lighting. There are many styles of lights within these choices and it will be easy to find the perfect outdoor lighting style to enhance your home. Choose from modern or vintage or antique lighting. There is also a large selection of different finishes, nickel, brass or aluminum. Outdoor lighting can be used throughout your yard for a variety of reasons. Some people use outdoor lighting outside for strictly decorative purposes such as around gardens or to illuminate decks, patios and pools. Some install outdoor lighting for safety, to illuminate walkways and stairways. Over the past five or six years solar lighting has become very popular with homeowners. These lights are simply placed outside, and viola! at dusk they give off light from the photocell that charged a NiCad battery during the day. Most solar lights have built in NiCad batteries and will need direct sunlight to work. They may not light after two cloudy days, but never fear, a day of sunshine will replenish the battery. Some manufacturers now offer solar lights that have a remote solar panel. These lights can be plugged into each other and daisy-chained back to the solar panel or plugged directly into the solar panel. These lights can be used in any areas, but are specifically useful in areas of your home where there is shade above where you wish to put the lights. As long as the solar panel is in the sun the lights don't have to be. Low voltage outdoor lighting is another one very popular with homeowners. These are very easy outdoor lights to install. The lights run along a cable that is plugged into a transformer that is plugged into an outside outlet of your home. Low voltage outdoor lighting uses only 12 volts so you will need a GFCI receptacle to plug it into. A GFCI is an outlet that has a ground-fault circuit interrupter or breaker built in. As there is some digging and a cable involved it's always best to have your layout planned before you start installing. Once the cable is laid the lights are positioned you can then snap the lights into the cable. It's very easy for anyone to do. Deck lighting is another very popular type of outdoor lighting. Deck lights can be placed on top of posts or recessed into the wood of a deck. Post deck lights are very popular with homeowners as they are very easily installed. Recessed deck lights take a bit more expertise in installing as they sit into the deck floor. Holes will have to be cut in the deck floor to accommodate them. |
