How to Buy Solar Landscape Lighting

While landscape lighting can turn your home into a beautiful showpiece at night and provide additional security, landscape lighting can be expensive to power. Typically, landscape lighting uses a number of high-wattage bulbs to provide enough light to the desired areas. If the lights stay on all night, every night, a hefty increase in the electric bill will make you look twice at the cost. Forget to turn the lights off in the daytime and the cost is even higher. Many people buy solar-powered landscape lighting to combat the electrical costs.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Notepad
• Pen or pencil
• Measuring tape

1. Determine what you want to light up around your house and write it down. Most people start with walkways, garden areas, trees and buildings.
2. Write down what type of effects you want to create with lights in the various areas in your landscape and how many lights you will need. You can highlight interesting plants or trees, create dramatic effects on walls, create a soft glow or bright runway on pathways, silhouette trees or simply provide wide area lighting.
3. Measure the pathways and garden areas you plan to light. Record the measurements in your notepad.
4. Arrange your list of areas you will light in order of importance to you. If you cannot afford to buy all of the lighting at once, you can at least start with the most important areas of your project.
5. Decide what style of fixtures or themes you want to use in each area of your landscape, and choose the finish you like best. Common finishes are plastic, stainless steel, brass, aged brass, copper and bronze.
6. Buy the light fixtures according to your list. Pay close attention to the amount of light provided by each fixture compared to your measurements. You will need to adjust the number of lights needed according to the amount of light provided by each fixture to light pathways, driveways and other wide areas.

Tips & Warnings

• Clean the solar landscape lighting occasionally to remove the dirt and grime buildup and restore brightness to the lights.
• Spend a few dollars more to buy higher-quality solar landscape lighting with more efficient power cells.
• Use outdoor lighting sparingly to accentuate your landscape and pathways. Too many lights will distract the eye toward the lights and away from the landscaping.
• Don't place solar-powered lights in shaded areas, if possible. The batteries will not get a full charge.
• Solar landscape lighting provides a lower level of light per unit as compared to other lighting options you can buy.
• Clouds, rain, snow and other winter conditions impact the amount of sunlight solar-powered lights absorb, affecting the charge they receive.

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