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Low voltage lighting utilizes a transformer to lower typical 120 volt lines to a lower voltage. The most usual low voltage landscape illumination transformers minimize the voltage to 12 volts, which is what we used.


Abby and I chose to just set up the landscape lighting in the front of the residence. Later on we might add lights sideways and yards, but it had not been a priority now - Landscape Lighting Nashville. Abby then drew up around where she would certainly like lights and the number of. It was practical to consider pictures online to obtain a much better feeling for how very closely spaced or spread out the lights need to be.




When we identified where we desired the lights, we also had to make a note of where we had available outdoor electric outlets to be able to plug in our transformer( s). In our case, we had one electric outlet just to the left of our front door and one outlet on each side of your home that we might possibly utilize.


Ideally one transformer would cover every one of our needs. We would certainly plug in a transformer to outside outlets and run a line of all our lights from there. In our situation, this wasn't feasible considering that it would've required running a wire under our driveway and additionally under our front walk.

The smart Trick of Landscape Lighting Nashville That Nobody is Discussing

The transformers are the most costly component of the whole process, but there was little we could do about it. The light in zone one would certainly plug right into a transformer on the left side of our home. The lights in area two would certainly connect into a transformer by the front door.


Purchasing every one of the needed devices for this task was one of the most overwhelming component. There are just so many choices and options that it can be perplexing at. I'll walk you with our tools decisions. The very first thing I did was have a look at low voltage lighting options on Amazon.


After that Abby and I travelled to Lowe's and took a look at their "Profile" brand of landscape lights. While it was practical to see every one of the various illumination options in individual to get a much better idea of what we required, the Portfolio brand didn't appear like it was a better than various other brand names we had actually taken a look at, and the rates were definitely greater than what this contact form I was seeing on Amazon


Right here is everything we utilized to mount our landscape illumination: Transformers will certainly be the most significant expense of this job. There are a number of calculators online to help you identify the power (electrical power) of your transformer, yet it's extremely straightforward: Build up the complete electrical power of the lights utilized, multiply the total power level by 1.

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We looked at the Lowe's Profile brand name of landscape lights, we decided to acquire our lights from Amazon. The price was much far better and the lights had whatever we required.


The biggest negative aspect to LEDs made use of to be the cool shade temperature, yet now it's simple to discover LED lights in whatever color temperature level you prefer. Our lights really did not note a Kelvin rating for the color temperature, but they are listed as "cozy white." We more than happy with the color temperature, and it matches our veranda lights and lamp blog post light well.


I was actually happy with the high quality of our lights. They seem very durable and well made with hefty task stakes, an angle adjustment handle, and metal light bodies.


We got the 8 pack of lights but just wound up making use of seven for our design. Prior to buying our cable, I made use of a measuring tape to obtain an extremely rough price quote of check these guys out exactly how much cable I would need. I wished to see to it I had extra, so I purchased 100 feet visit of wire.

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The initial number is the scale of cord. A reduced number or "gauge" means a thicker cable - Landscape Lighting Nashville. 12 gauge wire is thicker than 14 gauge wire.




Every online resource lists somewhat various numbers, however if you are going to run near 200 watts or even more, 14 scale wire may be too little. I went back and forth between 12/2 and 14/2 cable. I wound up buying the 14 scale wire because some Amazon customers had commented that the lights we purchased used 14 scale cable.


Don't stress concerning the wire option. For the large bulk of domestic landscape lights projects, 14 scale or 12 scale will work simply great. The last thing you need for this task are the wire adapters. The good news is, they are affordable, and there are a lot of options. The cord adapters are made use of to attach both brief cable strands that extend from each light to the lengthy cable that provides power to every one of the lights in the strand.


The long cable is glided into a cable holder on the adapter, and after that you tighten down the adapter and the steel prongs tap directly right into your long cord. Even viewing Amazon for adapters, I still couldn't envision precisely just how this would certainly function, so I wound up getting two kinds of ports.