# Online source for landsacape lighting



## vilasman (Mar 28, 2010)

Hi, I am new here. I am an electrician in the Washington DC suburbs. I need to light up some trees and foot light along a drive way. 120v maybe 25 watts along the drive way, 60 watts up into the trees. 
My Client dosent like anything they have seen at the big box stores and the selection at the supply houses is limited and generally not that low in voltage.
Anybody have any ideas?


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## B4T (Feb 10, 2009)

Welcome to the forum :thumbsup:

Low voltage I use this

http://www.hadco.com/Hadco/Public/P...Id=&CategoryId=&ProjectNoteId=&CategoryNoteId=&


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## egads (Sep 1, 2009)

First you say you want to do this 120v with low wattage. Then you say that your supply house does not have anything low in voltage. So which is it? what is the length of the driveway?


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## vilasman (Mar 28, 2010)

I wrote my question wrong. I don't want low voltage. I want low wattage. Let me describe it better. Big House... probably on the order of 7,000 square feet sitting on maybe an acre of land. The driveway is probably 200' long it ends in a circle with a planter in the center with a fountain in it. If I can find a decent pict of it I will post it later. There are probably 4-5 trees on either side of the driveway. There 2-3 more trees in the front of the house.

There are two thing that the owner wants to accomplish. He wants to up light the trees, not bright, but so they just sort of glow. Soft lighting. Then in front of each tree he wants to cast a little bit of light on the driveway. 
We have tried solar lights, they were to flimsy, they didnt give off enough light, they didn't work after an overcast day...
We tried low voltage lights. Not quite as flimsy, but he would like something a little more robust... and the whole timer thing frustrates the heck out of him. Also there is no place to really hide the transformers which was bad planning.

The house is new... I finished the electrical work last june.

He wants to the same thing in the planter that surrounds the fountain, and in the trees in front of the house and along the walk way leading up to the house. 
Now. There is a stone knee wall surrounding the front yard with two slightly taller post, one on either side of the walk that have post lights on them. At the end of the driveway, on one side their is a tall post light, on the other side, there is a stone work thing probably for a sign, that also has two post lights in it. All of these lights match. 
There is a three car garage built in on the left hand side of the house and a bit of parking area, You could fit 10 power company bucket trucks in there... cause at one point there where that many there. There is a light over each garage. There also three sodium chloride lights up high to sort of light up the parking area.

The idea here is to create mood lighting for the grounds, but not to light up so that you can see it from space, or even well enough that it stands out from a helicopter. Also he wants to use fixtures that are un obtrusive.

There are 2 circuits in the ground going down the driveway, there are 2 gong out to the fountain, so I am not short on feeds... but I am at a loss on where to look for fixtures. I have Rexell Branch, and Electrical Wholesalers and 4-5 other smaller supply houses and HD can supply several brands but i have to get a part number.


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## egads (Sep 1, 2009)

OK, thanks for the clarification. It does sound like the distances would make line voltage fixtures the best idea. To run low voltage that far would require expensive heavy cable. Besides Hadco, you can look at other landscape lighting manufacturers that may be known mainly for low voltage stuff. Many make some fixtures that are line voltage. There are also well lights that have built in transformers and use an MR-16 lamp. Using a fixture with that lamp gives you a lot of flexibility. Wattage, beam spread, there are fluorescent & LED versions of those lamps. I know I used a 10 watt MR-16 for a client that just did not want as much light as the typical 20 watt BAB gave off. They also make well lights that can be driven over. This can be a good thing even if they are only at the sides of a drive. Someone is going to knock over whatever you put there at some point. Hadco also makes an in ground transformer:

http://www.hadco.com/Hadco/Public/ProductDetail.aspx?pid=378


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## vilasman (Mar 28, 2010)

thank you for the tips


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## bobbyho (Oct 15, 2007)

First of all, you do want low voltage and not line voltage. A 200 foot long driveway is nothing to light with low voltage. When you are lighting the landscape it is not like lighting a kitchen. The landscape can and will change. Trees will grow and die, gardens will expand and change with the season. As for fixtures, I have used Hadco with great results but there are something like 101 manufacturers of landscape lighting fixtures. A couple that you can look at online is CAST and Unique. These are some of the most popular fixtures. Security lighting does not have to be ugly and the right balance of light to create a scene is as imperative if not more than on the inside of the house. Uplighting trees creates drama while downlighting is a natural feel. Look at Jan Moyers Landscape Lighting Book for some ideas, better yet look at her website Janmoyerdesign.com to see some of what real landscape lighting is. It is not jamming a fixture under a tree and calling it landscape lighting. This is an "art" that if you present it well, will blow your mind with new potentials. The irrigation guys and landscapers are cleaning house with this and the reality is that it should be done by electricians. In some states it has to be. If you would like to pm me I would be happy to go into more detail. No where else can you get a return on the investment. Security, safety, aesthetics and usability of the outdoor space gives your client a return on the investment. The trees lining the driveway should be the welcome and not stupid lamposts that blind you as you drive up to the house. The low voltage lighting gives you ammunition in the way of lamps that line voltage simply cannot.


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## egads (Sep 1, 2009)

Indeed. If I never see another masonry pillar with a post light on top of it ever again I will be happy. It's the outdoor version of putting a flat screen above the fireplace. The taste level of the entire country has gone way down. A simple coach light at the end of the drive has now been replaced with 20 of them, shining in the neighbors eyes. At least this guys client realizes his house is not a hotel and actually wants low lighting levels. 

Designing a low voltage lighting system, fed with a single transformer, is an engineering project. Here are some basics, most of which electricians should know, but may not because it's unfamiliar territory. 

When the volts go down, the amps go up. Therefore one uses large cable. And not just because of a long run. 

One must load the transformer to at least half of it's rating. If the transformer is underloaded, it will put out more than 13 volts causing the lamps to burn out fast. 

Also, there are new landscape transformers that are multi-tap. What you do is connect a cable with the lighting attached to the 12 volt tap. Then go to the first fixture in the run and measure the volts. If, when under load, the voltage there is say, 10 volts, then you can move that cable to the 14 volt tap. This is really helpful for long runs. Also, multiple cable runs are always a good idea. 

Intermatic's Malibu line has done a lot to ruin low voltage landscape lighting. They are weak, junky, have ridiculously short wires and the worst: they make homeowners think landscape lighting is cheap. That said, I just bought some rock lights of theirs, made from actual rocks. And about $20. each! 

For another source, this company:

http://www.coronalighting.com/

makes some quality stuff really cheap. They have a MR-16 bullet light in Solid Brass for under $40. 

Oh, out here in the west, irrigation supply houses often stock landscape lighting.


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## bobbyho (Oct 15, 2007)

The irrigation companies here on the east coast do the same. My electrical suppliers can't touch the prices due to the volume the irrigation companies do. You can also check www.callite.com which is California Landscape Lightings website. They have many lines as well. HK, Vision 3 are some awesome fixtures priced nicely. Landscape lighting is a trade within electrical most electricians don't know about. When they jump into it and treat it like regular electrical work they mess things up badly and blame the equipment. Go to a suppliers dog and pony show. In 2 hours you will be shown the basics which due to our training in electrical will allow the light bulb in our head to go off and you will be light years ahead of the average irrigation company. Big changes are happening in lighting with the LED. It is allowing us to design our lighting systems completely differently due to smaller transformers and longer and smaller wire runs.


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