Landscape lighting can use a massive variety of bulbs to get the desired effects. Powerful floodlights can shine up at a tree or a wall to provide a great visual accent, while strong walkway lighting provides security and keeps people safe from tripping. Medium-strength lights are good for lighting up areas of interest that are off the path, and dim lights give a warm glow elsewhere.
Today’s landscape lights aren’t all the standard incandescent kind. In fact, many landscapers have switched to LED lighting to save customers money on their electricity bills and to lower the need for bulb replacements. This, combined with the different levels of lighting involved in a full-scale landscape lighting project, can cause people to worry that having such lights installed will require some sort of unusual wiring.
Fortunately, most if not all of these lights still work on 120v. This makes it easy for new lights to be wired into the house’s existing system without the need for special transformers or other equipment. The principle behind 120v landscape lighting is the same as it is for interior lights – it’s the wattage of the bulb, not the voltage, that is important. Solar lights are a new option, and since they run off of batteries, their voltage requirements vary. While these lights are great much of the time, they have the downside of running out of power if the prior day has been too cloudy to sufficiently power their batteries. For this reason, wired lighting is still preferred for many applications, and solar is often limited to out-of-the-way locations like docks and beaches.
Companies like Touchscape Accent Lighting offer both 120v landscape lighting and solar. Wired lighting can be purchased as individual fixtures or as packages. Packages make it easy to light a flag and pole, a walkway, trees, and architectural features. Another benefit of dealing with a landscape lighting specialist is that they have experts on staff to figure out all of the hows of getting the desired effects. One of the important aspects of a successful lighting installation is that the fixtures won’t be obtrusive during the day, but will create stunning effects once the sun goes down. Hiring a designer will allow you to be sure that you’ll get the desired results from both wired and solar lighting.
