Posted 22 Oct 2018
Our backyard is under 1000 sq.ft but we have over 25 pine trees planted close to each other. Tree were planted by previous owners. It provides a great amount of privacy. On the flip side, summer or winter it doesn’t matter, it gets dark pretty fast. We brought in landscape consultants and the quotes ranged from 4000$ to 7000$.
One thing that put my mind at ease was low voltage lighting (12v). That kick started our journey to really see where the cost was and can we do-it-ourselves with quality while being on a tight budget.
Key things :
We went with low voltage outdoor lighting using LEDs. 12v
You need to have outdoor outlets. As per latest electric code, you should have 1 outlet in the front and 1 in the back. If not, you need to create one. Check your local electric codes and when in doubt go with an electrician.
Draw a rough sketch of what you want to highlight without making it too crowded or too bright.
Light fixtures, quality of light fixtures varies greatly. Good deal of research to find the best ones for the right price.
GFCI outlet
Volt brass lighting Fixtures (we went with Volt Lightings because their bronze fixtures was cheaper than big box store and came with lifetime warranty) Note: the LED bulbs in volt was very very expensive, so we replaced it with better priced LED lights from amazon.
LED light bulbs Note: Key thing make sure you pick warm lights (3000K and below), cool light has bluish white light which would look abnormally bright. a. MR16 for Top Dog b. MR11 for Top Dog Mini c. G4 for china hat
Hamilton Bay 120 watt Transformer Note: Transformer from volt was bit pricey, unless you get costco volt lighting. We thought home depot ones had better price point.
PVC pipes - [Optional step] We put wires inside pvc and buried it under ground for extra protection.
Here is my rough sketch of our backyard and my light placements
For e.g.
We decided to put top dog brass upward spot lights on the corners (4 corners), top dog mini brass for the interior trees (every 5-8 feet), 5inch china man hat as our path lights and to highlight certain landscape features like plants.
You can find great deal of details about different connections below
We went with T-Method, from the transformer our connection went to a hub located in the middle of our yard. From there we had a left daisy chain and a right daisy chain connections.
Multiply the number of fixtures X led bulbs wattage X with 1.25 for loss in transmission for extra safety
In our case, 4 Top Dog x 5 watts + 6 top dog mini x 2 watts + 3 china hat x 3 watts = 41 watts Multiply for loss 1.25 x 41 = 52 watts
We picked 120 watt Hamilton Bay transformer from Home depot, didn’t have a lot of good rating but its been almost a year and they work great.
Wiring also determines the voltage drop.
We used thin cat 6 cable wire to extend the photo volt cell.