Once the sun goes down, good lighting will ensure an enjoyable outdoor experience. If your landscape lighting isn’t creating inviting spaces, here are our tips on how to incorporate outdoor lighting into established backyard designs in Reiffton, PA.
It’s one thing to create an entirely new outdoor living space with each lighting element exactly where you want it, and another to retrofit it with a more intelligently designed lighting strategy that utilizes modern technology and fixtures to add both ambience and safety to your patio, walkways, driveway, and other areas.
In many cases, you’ll need to have trenches dug to bring power to the areas that need more lighting and hire a licensed electrician to ensure everything is outdoor-rated and correctly installed. While this is a big undertaking, the good news is that because most conduits can be run underground, you should be able to get the lighting to where you need it.
Related: 7 Outdoor Lighting Design Ideas That Match Unique Backyard Designs in Lebanon, PA
Taking a Zoned Approach
Before you start looking at specific fixtures, take a zoned approach to your patio and other outdoor living areas. High-traffic, high-energy spaces like an outdoor kitchen will require brighter illumination than low-traffic, low-energy areas like a lounge area or fire pit space.
Make note of where you experience too much or too little light, where existing lights tend to cast harsh shadows or cause blinding glare. These are the spaces to focus your lighting strategies on so that you don’t have to redo the entire landscape.
If running electrical wiring would require partial or complete demolition of existing outdoor living space, you still have a few options.
Solar Landscape Lights
Solar landscape lights are wireless. They are powered by a photovoltaic cell that is charged by exposure to sunlight during the day. The pro is that they can be installed anywhere that receives 6-8 hours of sunlight per day to charge fully. The con is that they require 6-8 hours of sunlight to charge fully, which makes them unsuitable for shaded areas. Solar landscape lights are good solutions for adding light to walkways, along a driveway, or the perimeter of a patio.
String Lights
String lights can be attached to your home’s exterior electrical outlets and then strung above a patio or along a walkway or driveway. Today there are many choices in string lights that don’t look like Christmas lights, including larger Edison bulb fixtures. Solar string lights are also available for more remote or hard-to-reach areas where you don’t want to run extension cords or conduit; but again, you’ll need to ensure 6-8 hours of sunlight every day.
Spot Lights
Spotlighting a tree, retaining wall, or other prominent feature not only makes these elements into nighttime focal points; it also adds ambient light that may be adequate for illuminating a fire pit area or seating area.
Retrofitted Integrated Lighting
The best results often come from integrated landscape lighting, which may require some construction but can also be integrated into existing vertical masonry structures. Low voltage LED light fixtures can be integrated into vertical masonry features like retaining walls, outdoor fireplaces, or the walls of an outdoor kitchen. This will typically require the construction of these elements since it may be difficult to retrofit them without obvious marks on the existing stonework.
Adding hard-wired landscape lights along a driveway or walkway would mean digging a trench, which may mean temporarily relocating plantings
Related: 4 Signs Your Landscape Design Could Use Updated Outdoor Lighting in Allentown PA
