I am redoing my backyard. Here are some before and after shots. The previoud owner said there were no sprinklers but little did we find was a system, the grass was too overpowering that is grew over the heads and caused them to freeze up. so we put in a new system, 2 stations and a 1/2 inch pipe in the panter box connected to the system to add drip in later.





I am installing these low voltage lights in the back yard, the up lights will be used to ligth up my 3 tier water fountain and a couple of nice trees. the pathlights will need to be spread out over the whole back yard



I am in need some some more wire for these lights but HD has it for TOO MUCH MONEY! like 50 bucks for 25 feet or something like that. ridiculous. does any have any or know of a place that I can find it cheap? I need at least 100 ft.

thanks

Joe

 

Well, I saved a lot of time (and eventually money) by using solar-powered accent lights around my yard. I love them because they take no electricity, and I'm not harming the environment. I love them. The best part: no wires to hide!

 

but how is the output? I want the viability aspect of them. I want to be able to be in the backyard and be able to see everything clearly with the outdoor lights

do you have a picture of your on in the night?

 

I'd like to hear some feedback on the solar lights also. Do they keep a charge for a while?

 

Nieghbour has them & they are pretty weak. About as bright as a blue christmas light bulb, if that helps any.

 

Maybe it depends on the brand, but I also know someone who uses them and they really don't provide much light.

 

solar lights suck ass... go low voltage at a minimum.

 

I had solar powered ones. They were expensive and sucked. They could only keep the bulb powered for a couple hours at night. The new solar ones seem to have LED bulbs or something similar. I don't like the output. Looks similar to an HID headlight.

The one thing you need to watch when you do LV lighting is the length of the cable runs and the amount of lights you put on them. Too long a cable or too many lights will result in dim output.

If you find the output too dim, one trick is to just cut the wire in the middle and power it from the other end. That way you don't need to rerun wires.

 

I can get some pictures if you'd like.

I have two types of solar lights: one for the front walkway to our front door, and a motion-sensored backyard light.

The front solar walkway lights are pretty weak, and are used mainly as accent lights. They have a slightly blue tinge to them. They don't really light up the sideway, but they are for looks.

The backyard light, however, is strong. It gets charged by the sun, and has a little bulb with a reflector housing. Very bright for such a tiny bulb. It's only on one corner of the house, and if I had more of them, my back yard would be fairly bright.

The solar lights last all night.

 

The solar lights that I have do last all night. I love them.

 

It depends on the look you're going for. If you wany BRIGHT light, without interruption, to last all night, then solar powered probably isn't for the OP. I have the front solar lights mainly as an accent, and they use no electricity.

 

I bought some Westinghouse Solar yard lights from Costco and they are very impressive. They look nice and stay lit until about 5:30am so that is a solid 10 hours of operation and I think the light sensor switches them off instead of the AA battery actually being depleted. I bought one 15-pack case of them and was so impressed that I bought another pack the next week.

Good luck!