Landscape Lighting Transformer Deals

By greg, March 16, 2010 2:48 am

Landscape lighting is a fun hobby for many people and an exciting way to accentuate your yard.  There are thousands of different landscape lighting fixtures to fit the different styles that people have, but the one thing that makes these lights turn on is the landscape lighting transformer.  Without the low voltage lighting transformer, those expensive landscape lighting fixtures don’t even light up.

Why is a transformer needed?  The main reason is because landscape light fixtures use a very low voltage.  The reason the lights use a low voltage is because anything that uses a higher voltage would easily short out and stop working the second the sprinklers turned on.  Another reason that low voltage is used is that is saves you a lot of money on your energy bill and allows you to safely string up and connect several lights to each other without straining the circuit breakers of your home.

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What kind of transformer should you buy? This answer is totally dependent on your needs.  Do you need a transformer that turns on at a specific time?  Do you want the transformer to handle 30-50 lights or only 10?  By answering a few of these simple questions you can get a more clear understanding of what you want to accomplish with a landscape lighting transformer.  Most of the yard light transformers include features such as:

  • Day and night timers
  • Go up to 600+ amps
  • Use extremely low current
  • Energy Saver Mode
  • Work with rechargeable solar lights
  • Store solar energy in a battery bank

As you can see landscape lighting transformers have really improved.  Most of the time people plug these transformers into a wall plug in their garage, or in a wall plug out on a patio.  It is better to put your transformer outside if possible because many transformers have a light sensor to automatically turn on your yard lights when it gets dark.  We hope we have answered some of your questions regarding landscape lighting transformers and hope that you get to enjoy the benefits of landscape lighting soon!

What is Landscape Lighting?

By greg, August 21, 2009 6:49 am

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Have you ever been driving around at night and seen a home with a beautiful lit up yard?  This is landscape lighting.  Landscape lights are essentially the finishing touches to a landscape design.  Landscape lighting is an art and takes some engineering to make sure you get the desired effect when the sun goes down.

Landscape lighting is almost a status symbol.  Think about it, have you ever seen an expensive hotel without beautiful lit up landscaping at night?  For anyone that has done any landscaping it is easy to understand how much time and money is spent on making your yard and land look presentable and beautiful.  With all this time and money being spent, wouldn’t you want to be able to see the fruits of your labors at night?  We certainly hope that you do and landscape lighting will get you that desired result.

Before you go out and buy a bunch of landcape lighting fixtures, there are a few things that you need to do.  First of all you need to decide on what type of effect that you want.  For example, flood lights do not look as good on walkways, but they look excellent to show off large trees and even large plants.  Once you have decided the types of effects you want in each area of your yard you will be much more prepared to find the right kind of fixtures.

Many people are worried that landscape lighting is expensive.  This simply is not the case.  In fact many landscape lights utilize solar panels and charge during the day so that they don’t have to use any of the electricity from your home to power on at night.  The solar powered lights are definitely the most popular type of landscape light fixture as it pays for itself by how much you save on your electric bill.  Some solar power lights cannot produce certain effects.  Flood lights need a little more juice and must be plugged into electricity.  These types of lights will not hurt your wallet too bad as they run on super low voltage and hardly effect your electric bill.

We have one more tip for you before you run to the store to buy landscape lighting fixtures.  Try to buy fixtures that look like the vegetation.  You want your lights to be very discreet so you are more focused on what’s lit up than the light fixture itself.

Please refer to our other pages to learn about specific light fixture types and prices.

Outdoor Lighting

By greg, August 20, 2009 3:54 pm

Landscape lights are a great way to add more light to the outside of your house and accentuate your yard.  These lights can help signal where your driveway is, make it easier to find your walkway, or just spotlight the front of your house after dark. Landscape lights are important for lighting outside areas such as backyards, porches, decks, verandas and patios.

Solar landscape lighting is the perfect environmentally friendly option to lighting up paths and gardens. Solar outdoor garden lighting is low cost by having a built-in photovoltaic panel, which charges up during the day by converting sunlight into electricity. A battery is charged from the photovoltaic panel during the day, and then low-power LEDs can shine for up to 12 hours on a single battery charge. Solar lights get their power from the Sun which is free energy. They are a fantastic way to reduce electricity costs as they don’t incur electricity charges. Garden lighting should offer a blend of cool light sources for planting beds and landscaped areas and warm light sources for outdoor living areas. Individual light sources should be kept dim for compatibility with nighttime ambient light levels and to avoid glare and light pollution. Garden light devices are designed to deal with outdoor conditions, in rainy, freezing or hot areas.

If you have thought at all about installing landscape lighting you should absolutely do it.  You have probably spent countless hours working on your gardens and have definitely spent some money to make your yard presentable.  Why not show it off during the evening hours?  Landscape lighting is a great, low cost way to spruce up your yard at night.

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