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Reduced voltage lighting utilizes a transformer to decrease normal 120 volt lines to a reduced voltage. The most common low voltage landscape illumination transformers decrease the voltage to 12 volts, which is what we made use of.


Down the road we may add lights to the side and backyards, but it had not been a priority right now. Abby then mapped out roughly where she would certainly such as lights and how several.




Once we figured out where we desired the lights, we also needed to take down where we had offered outside electric outlets to be able to plug in our transformer( s). In our instance, we had one electric outlet just to the left of our front door and one outlet on each side of your house that we can possibly utilize.


Ideally one transformer would cover every one of our requirements. We would plug in a transformer to exterior outlets and run a line of all our lights from there. In our situation, this had not been possible since it would certainly've required running a cord under our driveway and additionally under our front stroll.

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Regrettably, the transformers are the most expensive component of the whole procedure, however there was bit we can do concerning it. The light in zone one would connect right into a transformer on the left side of our home. The lights in area two would link into a transformer by the front door.


Investing in every one of the essential devices for this job was the most overwhelming component. There are so numerous selections and options that it can be perplexing initially. I'll stroll you with our equipment decisions. The first thing I did was take an appearance at reduced voltage lighting alternatives on Amazon.


After that Abby and I travelled to Lowe's and checked out their "Portfolio" brand name of landscape lights. While it was practical to see all of the various lighting alternatives in individual to get a far better idea of what we required, the Profile brand name didn't look like it was a greater high quality than other brand names we had actually checked out, and the costs were most definitely higher than what I was seeing on Amazon


Below is everything we made use of to install our landscape lights: Transformers will be the most significant cost of this project. There are a variety of calculators online to aid you identify the power (wattage) of your transformer, yet it's very easy: Include up the overall electrical power of the lights made use of, multiply the overall wattage by 1.

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We see here now looked at the Lowe's Portfolio brand name of landscape lights, we determined to buy our lights from Amazon. The rate was a lot far better and the lights had whatever we needed.


The biggest disadvantage to LEDs made use of to be the cool color temperature, yet currently it's easy to locate LED lights in whatever shade temperature you like. We're delighted with the color temperature level, and it matches our porch lights and light post light perfectly.


I was actually pleased with the top quality of our lights. They appear really durable and well made with hefty duty risks, an angle change knob, and steel light bodies.


We purchased the 8 pack of lights yet only wound up making use of seven for our design. Prior to purchasing our cable, I made use of a tape step to obtain a really harsh price quote of how much cable I would certainly require. I intended to make certain I had extra, so I purchased 100 feet of wire.

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For instance 14/2 or perhaps 12/2. The very first number is the gauge of cord. A lower number or "scale" suggests a thicker cord. For instance, 12 gauge wire is thicker than 14 gauge cord. The 2nd number is the variety of hairs of cord in the wire. 14/2 suggests that it is 14 scale cable with two strands in the cable.




Every online source lists slightly various numbers, however if you click site are going to run near 200 watts or even more, 14 gauge wire might be as well small. I went back and forth in between 12/2 and 14/2 cord. I wound up purchasing the 14 scale cable since some Amazon reviewers had actually commented that the lights we bought used 14 scale cable.


Don't stress concerning the cord selection. For the large majority of domestic landscape lighting tasks, 14 gauge or 12 scale will certainly work simply fine. The last point you need for this like this project are the cord connectors. They are inexpensive, and there are plenty of alternatives. The wire ports are used to link the two brief wire strands that expand from each light to the long cord that offers power to every one of the lights in the strand.


The long cord is slid into a cord holder on the port, and after that you tighten down the adapter and the metal prongs tap straight into your long cord. Even viewing Amazon for connectors, I still could not picture exactly how this would certainly function, so I finished up purchasing 2 sorts of adapters.