Illuminating your path and adding a bit more visual pleasantness to your home and surrounding space are the garden lamps. Where in earlier times, you have to lay the electrical network to bring visibility and safety via the light into your homes, it is not the scenario today. Laying electrical cables for the garden could prove to be a huge task taking almost a day or two, electrical bills would be high and the maintenance would be high too. Simple garden scape project could burn a hole in your pocket with lighting alone.
When it comes to night lighting across any space, it is not just the density of the lights but the strength and the ability to keep functioning comes to mind. So, here are a few pointers as to what would be ideal external nightlighting for your home.
- Appearance: These need to be stylish, presentable or thematic to the home style you have. Anyone who enters you home tends to see them first. Therefore, these lights are needed to be aesthetic.
- Design: Any design you select needs to allow light to pass through. Since selection of the design is your choice it can be showing up in the garden or remain stock to the garden floor, it is your choice.
- Strength: In times where exterior lighting was dependent on electricity, you could change the bulbs to create stronger or weaker lights according to your choice. But today, most of these come pre-equipped with led which either cannot be changed or are difficult to. Therfore, before selecting it is ideal to check lumens on the light for appropriate lighting.
- Weather-Resistant: Exterior objects have to.keep on facing variations in climate, rain, sun, storms and so much more. These lamps need to be chic looking yet hardy to withstand the vagaries for a few years atleast.
- Maintenance: Since there are a number of lights for a garden, maintaining or repairing any would become a huge task for the home owner. Another aspect is the putting the lights on timer so these can be switched on or off. With modern solar powered lights there is no need for a time switch. These go on the moment the sun goes down, giving you utmost visibility.
- Cost-Effective: For a homeowner, cost effectiveness of outdoor lighting is always of utmost importance. Garden lights needing repairs or consuming high electricity or needing to be replaced repeatedly can increase costs considerably. Finding cost effective option is an imperative.
There are two main categories. Researching each category of exterior or outdoor lighting could save you quite a bit of money. These categories are mainly based on energy sources for the lights. Here are some points or comparison between the two categories.
1. Installation Costs:
a. When you go in for the electrical installation the costs would be higher depending on the size of your garden. These are generally interconnected wiring circuits which will light up most of the garden with a single switch, however, depending on your choice, you can add multiple switches to select which and how many lights would go on. However, the hardware, expert labour and infrastructure jobs would be higher in this case. It could end up costing at least 10% of your cost of building the house.
b. When you use the option like solar lights for your garden, the installation cost automatically reduces, though you will have to dig into the ground before these are installed. Moreover, there is no need of complex circuitry for these lights as most of them are standalone lights and will operate independently.
2. Repairs:
a. These are the costs one often forgets, in case of electrical lights, these costs could be higher, at some point the wires will wear or the bulbs might give in. So, you will need to allocate a few funds every month for maintenance so in future huge costs are avoided. In fact, those costs could be zero, if you take care and keep an eye of possible damage.
b. With solar panel lights, there could be repairs, but these seem to be a little more durable. Of course, once damaged, it is hard to find places where these could be repaired but till then these could prove to be a longer term life without repairs. Every 2-3 years or so, batteries will need to be replaced, and many a times people forget about this easy replaceable aspect and end up throwing away the lights altogether.
3. Recurring Costs:
a. With electrical garden or exterior lighting, the cost would be recurring, every month you will have to pay electricity bill which will depend on the usage for your garden. This is a recurring bill. However, if you need spares, these could come at costs which are lower as compared to solar lights.
Solar lights are comparatively independent of recurring costs, it is simply install and the sunlight and the storage battery will do the rest. You do not have to pay any electricity costs each month, however, if you decide to replace or add to the lights, the costs might happen.
4. Human Involvement:
a. There are numerous gadgets that can automatically switch on the garden lights, but you will need to set timer and ensure the lights go on. Therefore, there is always some degree of human involvement.
b. In case of solar lights, these are fitted with automatic light sensors. These are designed to go on the moment it starts becoming darker.
5. Aesthetics: In case of both these lights, there are no doubts about availability of aesthetically attractive lights in both segments.
There is also the artificially created fluorescent pebbles segment in case you want to add glow to certain elements like your children’ fairy garden etc. These pebbles are not just pretty and colourful, these give out almost an ethereal glow that tends to attract a lot of attention and add a touch of mystery to your garden landscaping.
6 Brightness and Lighting Capacity:
a. This is a wise and a relevant comparison, Electrical lights give you a higher brightness and a choice to install even brighter halogens or spotlights. The power of these lights can cross 1000 lumens, making it brighter. These are least affected by weather conditions and will go on the moment you switch it on. However, in cases where there is large distribution of wire network it is possible that the last light will be the least lit.
b. In comparison, the solar lights will be less brighter, since these do not operate on direct power but on power stored in the batteries. Though, most lights are designed for operating for 8 hours, these are susceptible to climate and availability of sunlight. In cloudy environment, the charging does not happen and the light could be as low as 2-3 hours of the day. Making this a serious problem for you especially on darker days and nights.
Hybrid Options and Smarter Ways You Could Use for Lighting Your Home Exterior and Garden Landscape
- Hybrid Solar Lamps: These can be the sweet spot you years of low cost garden light. Opt for solar lights that are charged through solar panels, yet have a USB option of charging these so that even on rainy days your solar lamps could be fully charged through the USB giving you brightest lights.
- Motion Sensing Solar Lights: These are ideal if you want to save power in solar lamp batteries, these go on only when they sense any motion around them, these will illuminate and then go off after a while. These are ideal for cameras which need to capture whatever caused the lights to go on and you could catch whatever is there for those moments when the light goes on.
- Solar Lights with Smart Chips: these solar light are equipped with advanced chips, preferably an app and you can manage the power to be used, the color and design to display when these go on. You can create settings to see when it goes on and off, this can save you precious battery as well as give enough power management.
- Separate Solar Panels: If you have decided to go solar, these panels can give you better light management and power distribution. You can place these panels on the top of your house for undisturbed sunlight or choose a spot in your garden where there is no shade and get plenty of sunlight. From there you could create a distribution of electricity of your garden lights, though the costs may be comparable with electrical lights, in the long run, this can prove to be money saving too.
- Alternative To High Voltage Garden Lights: If you wish to have electrical lights but want to avoid all costs and unnecessary binge on high voltage lights you can select the popular version where you need not put the garden cables deep but only till 6 inches. This method however, cannot provide you with halogens or spotlights, but it is enough to light up your garden efficiently with ample of ambient light giving you better visibility than the solar lights.
There are numerous ways to light the garden, it would be prudent to ensure that you are balancing the costs and utility without having to compromise the safety and aesthetic appeal of the open space around your garden.
