How to Install Light Garden
No matter who you are it is always a joy to drive by a home after dark that has fantastic landscape lighting. There is absolutely no reason why you can’t have the same thing at your home. It is not hard to do and with virtually no labor and some time you can light your home at night too.
Items you will require:
- Screwdriver
- Wire stripper/cutter
- 12 gauge cable wires
- Transformer
- Timer if you want the lights to automatically come on and off
- Flat shovel or edger
- Utility knife
- Work gloves
- Lighting kit or lighting parts for installation
- Draw up a plan on where you plan on placing the lighting. Once laid out add up the wattage of the lights combined. You will select your transformer based on that number. Always plan on having a transformer that will handle between 70 and 100 percent of that number. Allow for a little growth and you should be in good shape.
- Mount the transformer. It should clear the grounds surface by at least a foot. You can mount it to the house itself or to a board made for that purpose.
- Place the light fixtures where you want them in the landscape. Run the electric cable so as to be able to wire all the lighting appliances.
- Use the shovel or edger and make a small trench to bury the cable in. You will be running cable to each light as well so leave a little slack in the cable at the junctions for attaching the lights with the connectors that come in the kits.
- Once the lights are all connected strip about ¾-inch off each end of the cable at the transformer and connect to the screws in the box. Plug in the transformer and your lights should come on.
- Adjust them to where you want them to highlight your home and ornamentals or sidewalks and driveways.
- Tamp down where you have trenched the lawn and recover with mulch or landscaping materials that have been moved to install the lighting.
- Attach a timer if you wish to have the lights come on and off automatically and you are finished.