A spotlight is frequently used as a way to accent a certain area in your garden or on your patio. You can either use a bright garden spotlight which is bright and illuminate a large area, or smaller spotlights which will only illuminate a small area. You can use them on your driveway in order to increase safety around your house and you can use them in your landscape to create dramatic settings and views. You can either go for low voltage spotlights or decide to go for a greener way of lighting and use solar garden spotlights instead.
Solar or low voltage garden spotlights?
The main choice you have to make for all outdoor lighting fixtures is the one where you have to choose between low voltage lighting and solar powered lighting. A few years ago solar spotlights could not compete with the quality of voltage spotlights but nowadays thanks to the LED technology and high efficient solar collectors, solar garden spotlights are a very good alternative.
If you compare these two options than the main benefit of using solar powered spotlights is the installation. You don't have to work with wires and the installation is a piece of cake. Low voltage lighting requires knowledge about how to work with electricity and many people are not able to install these lights themselves and instead call a professional.
Another advantage of using solar lights is the fact that they are cheaper to maintain and lower your electricity bill. Another important fact is that they are much better for our environment too. These are the two main reasons why many home owners choose for solar instead of using low voltage lighting.
But solar will not always give you what you want. Areas with a lot of shades or even no sun at all have problems charging the batteries of the spotlights. If the batteries are not charged properly they tend to lower their about when the batteries are drained. Instead of illuminating an area for the entire night, you will notice the intensity of the lights diminishing over night. This might not be a problem if you do not plan to use the lights all night long, but if you do than you have to be sure that they receive enough sunlight.
You can partly resolve this problem by choosing for solar garden spotlights with separate solar collectors. Using these allows you to place the spotlights in to the shade as long as you place the solar collector faced directly to the sun.
LED Technology
If you consider to buy a garden spotlight than you should make sure to buy one using LED lights. LED lights are very efficient and use much less electricity (or solar energy) to produce the same amount of light. The amount of light emitted will be dependent on the amount of LED lights that are installed in the spotlight. If you want to use them to illuminate a small area than you want a spotlight that uses 2-5 LED lights. This will be suited for driveway lights or accent lights. If you want to use them as security lights than you should look for a spotlight that contains more LED lights. Most security spotlights contain 10 to 20 LED lights and some even have 80 LED lights. Again, the bigger the area you want to illuminate, the more LED lights you want.
If you want to use it as a security light than your best interest would be to buy them with a motion detector. Using a motion detector will only activate the light when it detects motion. This will prevent the light from burning the entire night which will drain the batteries and cause sleepless nights for you and your neighbors. It will also alarm you when someone is coming because the lights will attend you on planned and unplanned visits.
Garden Spotlights
Spotlights intended for your garden will not require more than 2 or 3 LED lights and you can use for them different landscape decorating ideas. You can install them in your lawn, near a pond or as a mean to accentuate a tree, statue or fountain. Be sure to use solar garden spotlights when you can place them directly faced to the sun and low voltage lighting when there is not enough sun to charge the batteries.
Related posts:
- LED Solar Garden Lights: A Good Alternative? Recent years solar powered garden lights have become immense popular because of their simplicity. People like the fact that they don't have to work with wiring and electricity anymore when they are installing garden lighting. But until recently solar lights were never considered to be of the same quality as low voltage lighting. The lights [...]...
- Outside Garage lights It is important to have lights in to your garage in order to create a safe workspace but it will also be a good idea to install outside garage lights. There are various reasons why you want to install lights on the outside of your garage but the main reasons are probably that you want [...]...
- Garden Rock Lights Garden rock lights form a great attribute to add to your garden, patio or landscape if you want to increase the aesthetic look of your home exterior. Light is a very important way to add some decorative items to your garden and because you can place rock lights at every place in your garden, they [...]...
- Solar Spotlight I already stated many times that solar lighting is a very efficient way to illuminate areas at your home exterior. They are well suited for lighting up your driveway, walkway, patio and garden. Solar lighting has become a very popular way to illuminate your garden because it is easy to use, energy and economically friendly [...]...
- Create Stunning Effects with Garden Spot Lights Garden spot lights can create some stunning effects in your outside living space. They come in a variety of different styles and fittings and can be used in many different locations around your garden. They are designed to project an intense beam of light on to a garden feature or object you wish to highlight. [...]...
- Solar Rock Light Outdoor lighting is available in many forms and normally we will think at lanterns or a wall sconce if we want to illuminate a certain area but the nice thing about outdoor lighting is that there is so much more. Basic illumination is important but accent lighting is much more fun to work with if [...]...
- Great Garden Lights Make a Difference! Great garden lighting can make the difference between a boring outdoor space, and an amazing one. Without lighting, once the sun drops below the horizon, your garden will be plunged into darkness and all of your expensive shrubs and garden features will be lost in shadow, which is not ideal when you have probably spent [...]...
- Solar Walkway Lights Considering to illuminate your walkway is important because it will increase your visionary when it is dark. Installing outdoor walkway lighting will not only allow you to see where you are going but it will also increase the safety around your house. There are different options available to light your walkway and the most used [...]...