Turn your yard at night into a celebration of light.
You can use low-voltage lights to highlight trees and shrubs or to illuminate walkways, steps and decks.
Just start with a basic design, then add to it over time.
Installation is simple because low-voltage lighting systems are safe and easy to work with.
Characteristic kits include a power pack that combines a transformer to step the current down to 12 volts and a timer to control the lights.
A low-voltage electrical cable runs from the power pack and connects to individual lights, usually without splicing. About everything just snaps together. Consequently grab your shovel and a few other tools, and you're ready to roll.
1. Choosing Fixtures
Before you buy your lighting kit, walk around with a flashlight and study your yard at night. Emphasize key features from different angles. Beam light up into trees and shrubs. Shed light on your front gate. Emphasize which spooky spots need light.
The choice of fixtures is huge: globes, tiers, tulips, spots, floods—even underwater lights for ponds. Consider shoping around a bit before you buy.
2. Installing the Power Pack
A power pack transforms 120-volt house current into a low-voltage circuit. Usually, power packs are weather tight plastic shells that contain a hard-wired plug that connects to your house wiring, typically by plugging into a ground-fault circuit interrupter (GFCI); screw terminals for the low-voltage cable; and a timer that turns lights on and off.
Usage screws provided by the manufacturer, mount the power pack to an exterior wall, at least one foot above ground. On one occasion the power pack is secured, strip the low-voltage cable wires and attach them to the terminals on the power pack. Although the sample shown is typical, consult your manufacturer's instructions in case of any variations.
Also you could mount the power pack inside your house, say, inside a basement wall, so that you can plug into a receptacle inside. But this location is not only less convenient, it also requires drilling through exterior walls and sheathing the cable in a length of conduit as it passes through the wall. This makes more sense to add an exterior GFCI and plug your power pack into that.
3. Laying Cable and Attaching Fixtures
After you mount the power pack, you're ready to run cable to your outdoor lights. Put your lights wherever you like. Though installation particulars vary, most lights are simple to set up: slide light shades over the fixture socket, attach that assembly to a riser post, insert a ground stake in the bottom of the post, and stick the stake into the ground.
Next, run the low-voltage cable on top of the ground alongside each fixture in turn. You may bury the cable, but we prefer to cover it with a few inches of topsoil, so it can be unearthed easily if necessary.
Each light connects to the cable via two wire leads that end in a cable connector. These cable connectors almost always look like two tiny jaws with a small, sharp prong emerging from each. Put a connector on each side of the cable and simply press them together till they lock. The prongs puncture the cable and thus complete the electrical connection. Then back at the house, plug the power pack into the GFCI, set the timer—and bring on the night!
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