# Ware's Landscape Lighting Project 2.0



## Ware




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## Guest

hmmm got the good stuff I see


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## Amoo316

That's going to be the brightest dolly in town


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## Ware

I received my order from Volt Lighting today, so I spent the evening in the garage unpacking and assembling the fixtures (screwing on the stakes and installing the bulbs). Now I just need to move a couple shrubs before I can get started on the install.

This project is going to be smaller than my last one. I am only focusing on lighting up the front of the house this time.

From left to right in the photo below, I am using:


(10) All-Star Cast Brass Spotlight with 5W (400 Lumens) 60° Wide Flood Bulbs. These will be used for uplighting the front of the house.

(8) Max Spread Brass Path & Area Light with 4W (425 Lumens) Bulbs. These will be used for path lighting the front sidewalk and some area lighting in the landscape beds.

(2) All-Star Cast Brass Spotlight with 5W (400 Lumens) 15° Narrow Spot Bulbs. These will be used for uplighting the gable at the front door.

(2) All-Star Cast Brass Spotlight with 2W (200 Lumens) 38° Flood Bulbs. These will be used for uplighting a Japanese Maple and a Little Gem Dwarf Magnolia. Both are pretty small right now. 

All of the bulbs are Warm White 2700K, and all of the fixtures were ordered with the 25ft lead wire option. This makes it really easy to wire them up using the "hub method". I am using four of the Pro Junction Hubs to wire up groups of 4-7 fixtures in the same vicinity (<25ft) of each other. I'll make a home run from the transformer to each of the hubs.

I ordered a 250ft roll of 16/2 Direct Burial Cable. All of my hubs are less than 100ft from the transformer, so I am using 16ga wire. I probably could have got away with ordering a 100ft spool of cable (saving $47), but it was going to be close and with my luck I would have come up short.

I am using the Clamp-Connect 150W Transformer with a photocell switch. I have used timers on the system at my old house, but I prefer the simplicity of the photocell to switch the lights on and off.

The combined wattage of all my bulbs is 96W. I think Volt recommends not going over about 80% of the transformer rating. I decided if I ever want to do something on the back of the house it would be easier to just add another transformer back there. But again, I currently have no plans to light up the back.

I am sort of guessing on my bulb wattage selections. I am going a little brighter than I did at my old house because 1) our walls are taller, and 2) we are much further away from the road. Our brick is a lighter color though, so I am hoping I didn't go too bright. For this reason I ordered spotlights with interchangeable bulbs as opposed to the Integrated LED Spotlights they offer.

I will have just under $2,200 in this setup. I have been meaning to dig up some of my old invoices, but I feel like their prices have gone up across the board since the last time I did this. I guess that is to be expected though. It's also worth noting the coupon code "BACK2VOLT" did not work for me.

They are freaky fast - like Jimmy John's. I placed my order on Thursday after lunch and had a tracking number within about 45 minutes. They say all orders received before 5PM on weekdays ship out the same day, and they have 4 warehouses so they can ground ship to anywhere in the CONUS in 1-3 days.

That's all I have for now, but more to follow. :thumbup:


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## jimbeckel

Beautiful home


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## Ware

Thanks @jimbeckel - we're happy with the way it turned out.


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## jimbeckel

Ware said:


> Thanks @jimbeckel - we're happy with the way it turned out.


I will be building my retirement home in about five years so I'm enjoying watching everyone's builds for ideas.


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## Ware

jimbeckel said:


> I will be building my retirement home in about five years so I'm enjoying watching everyone's builds for ideas.


By far my favorite feature this summer has been having a conditioned garage/shop space to work in. We insulated the garages and installed a ductless mini split in the one I work in. For as much time as I spend tinkering out there, it was money well spent.


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## Ware

I removed two shrubs this morning that were crowding an area, and I shifted a few where the spacing was bugging me. Now that I have that out of the way I won't have to worry about getting into my landscape lighting wires later on.

I ordered some sod staples from Amazon yesterday to hold my wires down. Last time I picked these up at Lowe's, but they show out of stock.


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## jimbeckel

Ware said:


> jimbeckel said:
> 
> 
> 
> I will be building my retirement home in about five years so I'm enjoying watching everyone's builds for ideas.
> 
> 
> 
> By far my favorite feature this summer has been having a conditioned garage/shop space to work in. We insulated the garages and installed a ductless mini split in the one I work in. For as much time as I spend tinkering out there, it was money well spent.
Click to expand...

I have a shop planned in the future, HVAC floor drains, bathroom with shower and a utility sink for car/truck washing. Looking forward to puttering in the garage.


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## Lawndry List

Looks great, I still need to invest in doing this myself. Do you have any pictures at nighttime?


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## Ware

Lawndry List said:


> Looks great, I still need to invest in doing this myself. Do you have any pictures at nighttime?


I haven't installed them yet, but stay tuned. :thumbup:


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## Jeff_MI84

@Ware you have a beautiful home.


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## Ware

Jeff_MI84 said:


> @Ware you have a beautiful home.


Thank you. We're excited to have a little more space.


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## Ware

I have some other projects going on, so I'm sort of slow rolling this one, but I did temp up a few of the lights this evening to get a feel for what the 5W bulbs are going to give me.


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## Ware

I got everything installed today.


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## Ware

I didn't cover up any of my wires in case I need to move or adjust something.


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## Ware

Landscape lighting is difficult to photograph. Those hot spots down low on the wall aren't as pronounced in person. Also all of my shrubs are still very small. They'll eventually help hide the light sources.


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## harmonjw

@Ware What spacing did you use for the path lighting?


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## Ware

harmonjw said:


> @Ware What spacing did you use for the path lighting?


I used the guidance from Volt in this article:

How To Select Path & Area Lights

Specifically the section about _How Many Path Lights Are Needed?_

But to answer your question, I think my spacing worked out to about 13ft on the sidewalk side (left side of the front door in photo above) and closer to 16ft on the other side.


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## Harts

Nicely done. Again. Hope to get mine up in the next 2 weeks.


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## itsmejson

Looks great Ware! I'm planning to do my own lighting in a few months when we close on our home.

Did you have to drill under your concrete to get you wire from the left side of front door to the right side?

Also would you mind posting photos of how you run the wire to the spot light that will light the front gable when you get it done?


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## Lawndry List

Looks fantastic, also like those gutter drains!


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## Ware

itsmejson said:


> Looks great Ware! I'm planning to do my own lighting in a few months when we close on our home.
> 
> Did you have to drill under your concrete to get you wire from the left side of front door to the right side?
> 
> Also would you mind posting photos of how you run the wire to the spot light that will light the front gable when you get it done?


I installed conduits before the sidewalks were poured.

But if you don't have that luxury, you have a few options. You can use one of these auger bits. I have also seen a sidewalk bored with a piece of 1/2" EMT conduit by digging a hole on both sides, flattening one end of the conduit into a point, and hammering across. Here is a relevant video from Volt:






For the gable, I just used two 15° spotlights to uplight from each side of the front door.


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## itsmejson

Ware said:


> itsmejson said:
> 
> 
> 
> Looks great Ware! I'm planning to do my own lighting in a few months when we close on our home.
> 
> Did you have to drill under your concrete to get you wire from the left side of front door to the right side?
> 
> Also would you mind posting photos of how you run the wire to the spot light that will light the front gable when you get it done?
> 
> 
> 
> I installed conduits before the sidewalks were poured.
> 
> But if you don't have that luxury, you have a few options. You can use one of these auger bits. I have also seen a sidewalk bored with a piece of 1/2" EMT conduit by digging a hole on both sides, flattening one end of the conduit into a point, and hammering across. Here is a relevant video from Volt:
> 
> For the gable, I just used two 15° spotlights to uplight from each side of the front door.
Click to expand...

Awesome. My builder has not poured the concrete for sidewalk or driveway. I will ask if it's possible if I provided the conduit if they would be ok with laying it prior to pouring. What size diameter was the conduit? Can you provide a link?


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## Ware

itsmejson said:


> Awesome. My builder has not poured the concrete for sidewalk or driveway. I will ask if it's possible if I provided the conduit if they would be ok with laying it prior to pouring. What size diameter was the conduit? Can you provide a link?


I would just use PVC pipe from a hardware store or plumbing supply house. If you plan to install the lighting soon you can just tape up the ends with some good tape. If the project is months away you may want to glue PVC caps on the ends and then cut them off when you dig it up later on.

The size will depend on what you want to run through them. If it is just for a couple landscape lighting wires it can be pretty small (e.g. 3/4" or 1"). If you are installing conduits for future irrigation needs you may want to go bigger.

Think ahead - the price of PVC is higher than it used to be, but having conduits anywhere you think you might need them later on is a good investment that will save you some time down the road. Just don't forget where you put them. Take pictures and document measurements from something like a wall that you can measure off of later. :thumbup:


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## PodScot

@Ware Looks good!


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## Ware

Friday evening I came home to find my landscape lighting system off. The circuit breaker inside the transformer enclosure was tripped.

I was a little down about it, but the Clamp-Connect Transformer and Pro Junction Hubs helped simplify the troubleshooting process. I started by unclamping all four of my runs from the transformer and then reconnected them one at a time to determine which leg/zone was tripping the breaker. Then I did the same thing at that hub - disconnecting all of the lights wired to the hub, then reconnecting them one at a time.

Using that process I was able to trace the issue down to one spotlight. I couldn't find any physical damage to the cable between that spotlight and the hub, so I swapped the bulb from a known good spotlight in another zone. It worked, so the diagnosis was a bad bulb. Volt Lighting has a lifetime warranty on their LED bulbs, so I called them and they are sending me a new one. They said it should arrive in 1-2 days.


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## BigBearEatU

Great set up! I went the same route with Volt (12) spotlights, (8) path/area lights, (2) 150 watt transformer, (4) hubs. I still need to add some additional lighting in the back, will be installing (10) well lights. Everything came out to be $$865.


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## MrMeaner

Beautiful Home John..great curb appeal!! @Ware


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## Ware

Thanks @MrMeaner!


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