LED Home Lighting

LED Outdoor Lights vs Conventional Outdoor Lighting

Outdoor LED lighting first started appearing as part of the range of low voltage garden lighting systems only just a few years ago, but has since become extremely popular. LED garden lights deliver beautiful after dark effects while being very easy to install, safe for plants, animals and children, fairly inexpensive to buy and very cheap to run.

Traditionally, garden lighting has relied on normal incandescent bulbs and halogen spotlights and as a result can overwhelm many normal sized family gardens. Also, unlike low voltage LED outdoor lighting, the range of effects possible is more limited, and even traditional 12v low voltage garden lighting can be quite hazardous on account of the very high temperatures of the bulbs. Finally, traditional out door lighting costs significantly more to run because incandescent and halogen lamps use easily ten times more electricity than LED garden lights and also need the bulbs to be replaced on a regular bases (some LED garden lights are capable of lasting a decade or more).

Outdoor LED Lighting Options

So, what choices do you have with LED garden lights? Well, there’s outdoor LED spot lights of course, LED flood lights (which are basically more powerful spot lights), colored clear rock lights, LED patio and deck lights in a variety of sizes and colors, bollards, lanterns, spikes, and LED pond lights, for starters.

Let’s just take LED deck lighting for example. These can be fitted very easily into decking boards or indeed any outdoor wooden garden structure. It’s simply a matter of drilling a hole the same diameter as the deck light unit, dropping the connecting cable thru and pushing the LED light itself into the hole. And there it will sit, quite likely for several decades, performing reliably night after night with absolutely negligible cost.

Because they are so robust, durable and lightweight, you can fit LED deck lights not only into the regular deck boards that you walk over, but into the side panels of your decking and even into upright posts and the cross beams of pergolas where you can install LED deck lights at different angles to direct light back down. Put LED deck lights into fence panel posts or even highlight a garden shed if you feel so inclined. You are limited only by imagination (and taste).

Many people assume they can’t use LED deck lights if they don’t have a deck - well, don’t let that stop you! LED deck lights are one of the most versatile components recently introduced into the outdoors and general garden lighting arena. I have seen them installed as patio lighting, fitted into steps and stepping stones, even mounted into wood blocks and deployed as standalone ground level lighting in among flower borders.

Interesting variants on regular LED deck lighting are solar deck rail lights and solar post cap lights which you can fit to pick out the line of deck rails and fencing. These are low power ambient LED lights that aren’t intended for illumination as such, more as a decorative finishing touch. They are easy to install and effortless to maintain.

LED garden spot lights have been around for a while of course, not least because the highly directional nature of LED light is exactly what is required in a spot light but without the need to fit reflectors to focus the light beam. Used outside in the garden, LED spots are a perfect substitute for equivalent halogen bulbs but require a fraction of the power consumption and generate negligible heat (which can otherwise easily damage nearby plants or curious fingers and paws).

The key points to look out for when installing LED spotlights in a garden are beam angle (do you want a tightly focussed beam of light or one a little more spread out?) and LED light color.

This isn’t just a matter of deciding on a color such as white, blue, red, green, yellow and so on, although that choice is also available. It is more to do with what is known as “color temperature” - whether the light appears “cool” or “warm” which depends on the sort of effect you are trying to create and is fundamentally a matter of personal taste.

There are some basic rules of thumb though. To create a “dramatic” look use very bright, pure white (if anything slightly on the “cool” side); this is especially effective on water and architectural garden features as you will get a sharply defined, quite sparkly effect. For plant foliage and flowers it’s more common to want to enhance natural colors so warm white or even yellow or amber spotlights can be used to uplight both leaves and branches.

How To Get The Best From LED Outdoor Lights

When installed in bollards and spikes - frequently for the purpose of illuminating pathways - outdoor LED lighting can be used to either replace normal garden lighting used for this type of application or to introduce interesting new effects. Conventional lighting simply can’t come close to matching the jewel-like quality of LEDs with their crystal sharp definition and rich colors.

Scatter a mixture of different colored LED garden spikes around your borders and also maybe use some diffusers to vary the intensity and your garden will be as colorful at night as during the day, if not more so. Which brings up another key point related to garden lighting, namely that artificial lighting really comes into its own when you let it be what it is - artificial.

Trying to recreate how your garden looks during the daytime is a) never going to come close to how your garden really does look in daylight and b) wasting an opportunity to take advantage of all the wonderful effects that artificial light brings to the outdoor night time garden party. Once you understand this you quickly realize another key factor in successful garden lighting - light intensity.

Human eyes adjust to night time conditions and simply banishing the darkness with a blaze of flood lights is most definitely not the route to a beautifully lit garden. Use lots of different types of LED garden light fixtures (spot lights, colored lights, accent lights etc) and vary the brightness to create effects that contrast, complement and generally work together with each other and your garden area. Blur the boundaries between house lighting and the garden by graduating the light levels rather than having an abrupt transition.

Above all, don’t make the common mistake of over illuminating your garden; keep the light levels relatively subdued when lighting outdoors(you’re not performing surgery out there) and leave large areas of darkness - you need a canvas to paint on and with garden lighting the darkness is that canvas. This works well with smaller gardens which can easily become overwhelmed by lighting, but it’s also effective in larger gardens. Rather than use brighter lights outside, just use more lights.

Because with outdoor LED lighting you can. As a general rule you can install 10 LED garden lights for 1 halogen fixture - that’s an awful lot more light fixtures to play with! But if you do want to mix and match between LED garden lights and regular halogen bulbs, you can easily do that too, with a few simple caveats as described below.

Typical Low Voltage Garden Lighting Installation

Many, if not most, home DIY garden lighting kits use a 12v (low voltage) transformer that has capacity to run a given number of watts. You simply run a cable around the areas where you might want to install lighting, connect one end to the transformer (indoors of course) and you may then attach outdoor garden lighting fittings to any point on the cable. So long as the total number of watts loaded onto the cable (i.e. the combined wattage rating of all your garden lights) is within the capacity of the transformer then you’re good to go.

It is sometimes possible to mix LED garden lights and incandescent lights on the same circuit, but this generally only applies in one direction; namely adding suitable LED units to a standard 12v circuit normally used for incandescent (typically low wattage halogen) lamps. An LED garden light that can be powered this way will have this noted somewhere on the packaging.

Normally however, you should power LED outdoor lights using only an LED transformer (these are guaranteed to supply a constant 12 volts) and similarly use ordinary 12v transformers (which may vary their output voltage in response to the load) only with incandescent bulbs.

In short, the best way to mix incandescent and LED outdoor lights is to lay two circuits, one powered by an LED driver and the other a regular low voltage transformer. If you put LED garden lights on a regular circuit you will very likely shorten the life of the LED bulb (to a matter of weeks) and likewise, attaching incandescent lamps to an LED driver is almost certain to wreck the driver.

Having said all that, there is no doubt that using both forms of garden lighting can produce a truly magical effect. Add in softer solar lighting (see below) and the mix of light quality, level and color gives you plenty to paint with.

A quick technical note here. In a 12v low voltage system, the cable itself applies a load to the transformer which you also have to account for. This is usually stated on the packaging and depends upon the length of the cable. It also means that lights furthest away from the transformer will tend to appear slightly dimmer than those nearer.

One way to both boost the current levels and spread them uniformly across the cable is to ensure the cable forms a loop, either all the way back to the transformer or to some point reasonably close. Obviously be sure to observe polarity if doing this (the cable is actually a pair of wires - do not cross connect the two wires). For this reason there is usually either embossed writing or a colored band on one of the wires - if never connect a marked wire with an unmarked one you won’t go wrong. If your lights flicker or seem unreasonably dim or bright then chances are you have a case of crossed polarity somewhere in the circuit.

Low Voltage Garden Lighting Applications

LED outdoor lights are ideal for garden water features - ponds, fountains, and running water - thanks to their safe low voltage; LED garden light units themselves are very robust and run cool, and the pure, sharp quality of LED light complements water perfectly with dazzling reflections.

There are all manner of outdoor LED garden light fixtures that are suitable for enhancing outdoor water features at night, depending on whether you want to uplight, downlight, backlight or actually immerse LED lights in the water itself. There are for example, LED pond lights commonly available that can either float on the surface or be submerged and provide internal illumination from the bottom of the pond. But even the common or garden LED spot light can be installed to produce brilliant effects in combination with water.

So, as well as lighting pathways, patios and ponds, and bringing key garden features and plants to life (some plants really lend themselves to artificial light and look far more dramatic by night than they do in the daylight), what else can you do with outdoor LED lighting? Well, there’s the obvious use of outdoor color changing LEDs in the garden. Used sparingly this can look really effective (though if over done it can make your garden look like Santa’s Grotto).

You can also play with outdoor LED wall wash effects - got a boring wall or fence or side of a shed? - bounce LED lights off it and turn it into a colorful backdrop. You can also use LED wall wash lighting to good effect on areas of well manicured lawn. Of course, should your lawn be other than well turned out then maybe you should consider a solution that looks good all the time, is maintenance free and ecologically sounder than you might at first think consider pairing artificial LED outdoor lighting with an artificial lawn - artificial grass saves water as well as many other hidden costs of maintaining a lawn.

Of course, some outdoor LED lighting fixtures, rather than be used to illuminate something else, almost beg to be the center of attention themselves. LED garden lights comprising small 1w single color LED bulbs work well as individual focal points - in a similar way that gardeners use bright colorful plants to draw the eye during the day time. Installed either with or without simple diffusers screens, the effect resembles a garden studded with rich blue sapphires, pure green emeralds, deep red rubies and a myriad other vibrant gemstones through every colour in the spectrum.

Some of the most stunning LED garden lighting designs at the moment are garden ornaments that complement their surroundings and look great by day, but that steal the show come the evening. Popular examples of these are LED tree lights that resemble regular garden sculpture during the day and are typically the size of a small maple tree (though size - and of course cost - are variable). At night and once lit however, they can mimic pink cherry blossom or bronze autumn leaves and are simply gorgeous, eye-catching centre pieces.

And finally, one other great benefit of outdoor LED lighting - the power consumption of LED garden lights is so low that you don’t necessarily even need to purchase a 12v transformer and lay a low voltage cable system. There are many choices available for solar garden lighting these days, not least with solar powered LED garden lights.

The downside to solar LED lighting is that it is in general not so controllable (i.e. you can’t turn the whole system on and off with a conveniently situated switch).

There are, however, solar powered garden lighting systems whereby you can hook up a number of outdoor LED lighting fixtures to a single solar panel, which has two advantages: you can place the solar panel somewhere nice and sunny regardless of where the light fittings are situated, and you can turn a set of outdoor LED lights on and off from a single place.

The great thing about mixing low voltage electricity and solar power is that provides a bit more flexibility to position outside LED lights exactly where you want in your garden without necessarily having to wire up the whole garden.

So there you have it: the perfect complement to home LED lighting - outdoor LED lighting.