Incandescent Indoor Floodlight

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Incandescent Indoor Floodlight

LED Garden Lighting - A Rough Guide by KuleKat

The once quiet backwater that was outdoor lighting has been transformed by a revolution in the past few years. Bright LED garden lights are now the dominant force in outdoor lighting and with good reason.

LED garden lights bring beautiful after dark effects to any garden and are also incredibly easy to install, easy on the wallet, outstandingly cheap to run and completely safe for children, animals and plants because they use onyx small amounts of low voltage electricity and are cool to the touch.

Most outdoor LED lighting uses the same power delivery mechanism as traditional garden lighting - individual lights are attached to a 12v DC low voltage power supply cable, itself connected to a mains transformer situated indoors. But there the similarities end, because LED garden lights use only 10% as much electricity as traditional incandescent bulbs or halogen lamps.

LED light is created by exciting electrons which then emit photons (light), whereas conventional light bulbs burn a filament which in fact converts the input electricity into about 90% heat and only 10% light. This ratio is the other way around for LEDs, as they convert over 90% input electricity into light and waste very little as heat. Put simply, to compete with say a halogen bulb drawing 50 watts of power, an LED light bulb would require less than 5w to produce the same level of light - i.e. consuming one tenth the electricity.

To sum up, LED garden lights are absolutely perfect for outdoor lighting because they look stunning, run cool and use minute amounts of electricity. Oh, and did I mention that LED garden lights generally boast a lifespan of at least a decade or two, so maintenance is hardly an issue either.

The most common colors found in LED garden lighting are blue and white, though many other colors are also available in addition to color changing LED lights. LED lights on the whole appear much sharper and more vibrant than conventional incandescent light bulbs. The colors are pure, slightly metallic looking with a sort of gemstone quality - emerald green, sapphire blue, citrine yellow, ruby red, diamond white. An of course the option is always there to add filters and diffusing screens to tone things down or conjure up yet more effects and design ideas.

But variety in LED garden lighting isn't confined to just colour and brightness; outdoor LED lights come in a bewildering array of different fixtures. LED floodlights, wall wash effects, rock lights, embedded patio and deck lights, bollards, lanterns, spikes, pagodas, integrated in garden ornaments and submerged in ponds, and even solar shed lighting. Perhaps the most common form through is outdoor LED spotlights.

LEDs are well suited to creating sylish garden lighting, not only because LED light is directional by nature, but also LEDs score well on the Colour Rendering Index which is a measure of how lifelike and vibrant a subject appears when lit.

Here's a quick checklist of the 3 main points to consider when choosing an LED garden light:

brightness - even a humble 1w LED will appear remarkably bright in a dark garden;
beam angle - check how spread out or focussed the light is and whether that suits your intended purpose;
color - LEDs use the word "color" to denote both the actual color (as in red or blue etc) and the "color temperature" (how "cool" or "warm" the light appears).

About the Author

KuleKat is interested in the defining features of our times (climate change, oil depletion, technology and so on) and what it all means and more importantly what you can do about it.