Landscape lighting project

[bleedingheart]

okay hubby and I are going to light up our yard with some landscape lights.

Any advice before we start?

I am looking at some Kichler lights and am thinking I am going to need about 600watt transformers for one area and another for the other side of the yard..

[blondeatlast]

1. We used solar lights (of course I live in AZ)

but they really are quite nice. The only problem is if they are in a shaded locaation--they need about 8hours of sun to give off a decent light.

[radwriter0555]

3. Yeah the solar thing never really worked too well,

did it?

[bleedingheart]

5. pittsburgh isn't as sunny as AZ

I do have solartubes and a solar fan (out of the way of the trees) and am a big advocate of solar energy but my yard has a lot of trees so it wouldn't be of use where I need them most.. (trees help keep the house cooler ...another good conservation method)

[radwriter0555]

2. Make sure the cable is LONG enough, and when splicing to

branch off, lay the wires on top of each other.

Better too long than too short.

Check your connections as you go along.

It's not really all that hard. I got confused about the splicing off, and it suddenly came to me when I was in the shower how I had to splice the wires back to branch off. I've installed some 30 lights in my yard by myself, including running wires from the transformers under the house, out to the front yard.

Outdoor receptacles are VERY handy for this sort of thing. Best to have a licensed electrical dude put them in.

And I'm a chick! :)

[bleedingheart]

7. cool...

I am going to measure for cable today to get an estimate of how much I will need.

[radwriter0555]

9. eh the cable is the cheap stuff... it's the lights that will end up

costing a LOT of money... Just 10 (and I have 30) at $20 a piece adds up real fast.

[trof]

4. Do you have a cat?

Our house came with a low voltage system in place.
The lights were just the right height for our cat to rub against and knock the lights off the stalks. They were held on with a kind of slide/rotate tab. When he'd rub, it would rotate the light and it would fall off. Every morning I'd come out to see 3 or 4 lights on the ground. I tried duct tape (natch!) but that didn't work.

Finally ripped them all up and used house mounted lights too high for him to reach.

I like the solar lights and have them in places that it's too hard to run wires to. They illuminate for about 4-6 hours after dark.

[bleedingheart]

6. no cats

[northofdenali]

8. In addition to Kichler

which is a very good company (I used to work in a lighting showroom) check out OptiLED - http://www.optiled.biz/lighting/statues.html

They have some awesome outdoor stuff.

Have fun!