Power-saving Shockproof Outdoor Lighting
When you think of outdoor lighting you think of floodlights to light up the house and its environs in the night for safety and security. You may also think of decorative lighting for the garden. Then there is highlighting to show off your landscaping or architectural beauty. In all these cases the outdoor lighting involves running wires carrying high voltage to the different light points. You may run the wires underground or overhead. However you run the wiring, you have to be very careful that there is no chance of electrocution. Underground wiring is prone to water infiltration and damage by normal activities like gardening or some sports (cricket, for instance). If the insulation of underground wiring is damaged, high voltage electricity can leak out. Overhead wiring can break in storms and fall to the ground. Fatal accidents can occur to human or animal victims. Electrical short circuits can cause fires to break out, injuring people and damaging property. If you are thinking of rewiring your current outdoor lighting system, or if you are planning to install one for the first time, you should opt for the low voltage solution.
Low voltage outdoor lighting system runs on 12 volts which is far below the voltage that can harm us. Hence your low voltage outdoor lighting system is absolutely safe.
The low voltage outdoor lighting system is powered through a step-down transformer which steps down the 120 volt mains supply to a safe 12 volt supply. Some outdoor lighting systems are designed to use DC electricity. In case of mains outage, as in a storm, such an outdoor lighting system can be operated off storage batteries, like the ones used in automobiles. So your house is protected even in such emergencies. Most of these modern outdoor lighting systems do not use the traditional incandescent lamps. Instead they use LED lighting which is exceptionally economical to run. The high output LEDs that are available today are more than a match for the incandescent and halogen tubes in terms of brightness. Needless to say you can use these lighting units wherever you used the traditional ones. So you have safety, you have economy and you don’t lose out on the brightness! Isn’t that great?
Because the low voltage outdoor lighting system uses low voltage it is very simple to install and does not need the services of an electrical contractor. Even official regulations for this type of installation are very easy to implement. But please do check the requirements in your locality.
So just how much money can you save with LED lamps? Well consider that they typically use about a quarter of the electricity of standard lamps. That’s a 75% savings every month on your outdoor lighting bill. Figure that out over the course of a year or even ten years, and the numbers become significant. Then when you add in the fact that these bulbs will last at least 10 times longer, the savings get even better. And as an added benefit you won’t be forced to change the bulbs nearly as often. As we all know, outdoor lights always seem to go out when we would least like them to, like when the temperatures are sub-freezing.
The current load for LEDs is so low that you can use light wiring for the low voltage outdoor lighting system. You can use overhead wiring without fear of it causing grievous bodily harm to people or animals. With light overhead wiring it is easy to rearrange the lighting whenever required. This allows you to highlight different parts of the house and grounds for a change. So you can highlight the gazebo one month, and the Spanish columns the next.
Using a low voltage outdoor lighting system with LEDs is a big power-saving, and hence money-saving, idea. You can expect your power bill for the outdoor lighting system to come down drastically, to almost a quarter of what it is now. Saving energy means saving the environment. Best of all, there is no risk of electrical shock at all! That in itself is reason enough to go in for a low voltage outdoor lighting system!
Lighting the exterior of your home can make it look welcoming and beautiful, but it can also make it safer as well. Walkway lighting is very important for this reason. To find out more about low voltage, LED and solar outdoor lighting visit www.Contemporary-Lighting-Accents.com.
categories: lighting,outdoor lighting,home improvement,home
