solar powered garden lights

[eightseventhree]

Im looking to install some lights when i finally get round to doing my garden.

Looking at Some 3ft bollards to park paths and a few spots to light certain areas.

Are there are any recomendations for these types of lighting that are decent or is the old electrition laying cable the best way

[V8mate]

Solar-powered garden lights are cack. Just enough power to to create 'an effect' but utterly useless at actually providing any useable light.

[staceyb]

We have some cheap ones from B&Q, use them for going down the garden path to the coal shed. They emit enough light so you don't kill yourself, but nothing you could read by.

[james_tigerwoods]

Forget solar - use Fire!

[JustinP1]

Solar ones are only good for a few hours a night and then only to literally mark an edge of something. They don't light anything else up.

Your two other options are 240V or low voltage.

I got a low voltage kit. Perfectly safe to install yourself. You choose what lights you want, then buy enough cable and a transformer rated to run it all. B&Q do sets where each component works as a set so you can pick and choose from dim 7W lights up to pretty bright 20W spotlights.

20W is powerful enough to uplight a 12ft tree and make a little feature of it, but it is not going to be a flood of light but a lot better then solar. For anything more than an accent spotlight you need 240V which is a bit more of a complex job.

[LaserTam]

JustinP1 said:

Solar ones are only good for a few hours a night and then only to literally mark an edge of something. They don't light anything else up.

Your two other options are 240V or low voltage.

I got a low voltage kit. Perfectly safe to install yourself. You choose what lights you want, then buy enough cable and a transformer rated to run it all. B&Q do sets where each component works as a set so you can pick and choose from dim 7W lights up to pretty bright 20W spotlights.

20W is powerful enough to uplight a 12ft tree and make a little feature of it, but it is not going to be a flood of light but a lot better then solar. For anything more than an accent spotlight you need 240V which is a bit more of a complex job.

Solar lights dont emit enough, so I went down the same route, connected two lots of cable upto plug sockets in the garage. Be sure to get the right transformer (or mutiple transformers) because adding an extra light later on will dim the others. Simple to install (once you have buried the cable that is, I had the advantage of a new house and therefore a garden full of nothing, so buried it in a protective sleeve before I laid the lawn.

[eightseventhree]

i might have a look into these low voltage lights.

i will want about 6 / 7 lights running off it

What i want is a couple of wall lights. . . a couple of spots to highlight areas and a few bollard style ones to mark corners etc

Edited by eightseventhree on Monday 1st June 18:15

[vtecstu]

staceyb said:

We have some cheap ones from B&Q, use them for going down the garden path to the coal shed. They emit enough light so you don't kill yourself, but nothing you could read by.

Could you link to whichever ones you have? Girlfriend wants some for the garden, and even if they don't emit massive amounts of light I'd still rather get something that will last longer than some of the tat I've seen in Argos...!

[staceyb]

http://nextday.diy.com/app/jsp/product/productPage...

Them ones, but we bought them at half price a acouple of weekends ago.

[vtecstu]

staceyb said:

http://nextday.diy.com/app/jsp/product/productPage...

Them ones, but we bought them at half price a acouple of weekends ago.

Cool - cheers for the reply!