The global landscape lighting market was valued at USD 12.49 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.9% from 2024 to 2030. Factors such as rising demand for aesthetic outdoors, energy-efficient solutions, and enhanced security are behind this growth.
The fact is clear: more homeowners are turning to professional lighting experts, and the reasons for outdoor lighting in homes are obvious: to dramatically enhance both property appeal and functionality. But what is the difference between good and great lighting installation?
Is it just the lights? No, it’s more than that! It’s about knowing where to put them, selecting the best fixtures, and incorporating them properly into your outdoor setting.
Wondering how to install landscape lighting to make your space beautiful and secure at the same time? Let’s take a look at the step-by-step process and get insights on why hiring professional installation support is the best decision to upgrade your outdoors.
Benefits of Installing Landscape Lighting
The importance of outdoor lighting cannot be overstated, and before we understand how to install landscape lighting, let us look at its crucial benefits.
- Boosts Curb Appeal: Well-placed lighting creates elegance and charm for your outdoor space area. It offers your home a warm and inviting look. Installing landscape lighting is one of the easier ways to elevate the look of your property, be it day or night.
- Improves Security: Rightly lit up outdoors lowers the chances of intruders and accidents. Strategically designed outdoor lighting can also act as a deterrent and ensure that your home remains secure after dark.
- Increases Safety: Lights in walkways, steps, and driveways reduce chances of slipping or tripping. Outdoor landscape lighting around pathways and stairs not only adds safety but ensures a more inviting appearance.
- Extends Outdoor Living: Proper lighting setup can allow you to enjoy your outdoor spaces long after the sun goes down. Outdoor landscape lighting provides the perfect atmosphere for any event, be it a garden party or a quiet evening on the patio.
- Energy Efficiency: Most contemporary outdoor lighting alternatives feature an energy-saving lighting aspect. For example, LEDs are the best energy-saving alternatives. This means you can create well-lit environments without worrying about high electric bills sobbing at you!
- Highlights Architectural and Natural Features: Professional lighting solutions bring out the best features of the things in your yard outdoors such as trees, fountains, or architectural details. Understanding how to wire up landscape lighting to appropriate focal points transforms any given space from normal to exceptional.
- Adds Value to Your Home: Homes with proper lighting are more appealing to buyers. Good outdoor lighting adds to the value of your home, and it provides a great return on investment.
Prerequisites Before Installing Landscape Lighting
Prior to getting insights on how to install landscape lighting, we need to make some arrangements. With all the right tools in hand, all the right material in place, and a clear plan, everything will go smoothly. Here’s what you’ll need:
Tools & Materials
- Shovel: For digging trenches to lay your wires.
- Wire Strippers: To strip wire ends for proper connections.
- Outdoor-rated Cable: Essential for safe electrical connections.
- Waterproof Connectors: To ensure that your connections remain intact and protected from the elements.
- Stakes: For mounting your lights securely into the ground.
- Ladder: If you plan to install lights at higher elevations, such as around a fence or above a garden.
Power Supply Requirements
Make sure to find a nearby power source compatible with the transformer that you’ll be using for the system.
- Transformer: This device converts the high-voltage electricity in your home to the low voltage required to run landscape lighting. It should be highly rated for outdoor use and withstand the weather.
Planning Your Layout
Make sure to plan out your lighting layout ahead of time to get an idea of how many fixtures you need and where they should be placed to achieve the desired effect before purchasing any materials.
- Safety Precautions:
- Check for any underground utilities before digging, such as water or gas lines.
- Turn off the power at the breaker box if connecting directly to the main electrical system.
Preparing everything before starting with the process of installing outdoor landscape lighting will save you time and avoid any unnecessary trouble.
How to Install Landscape Lighting: A Step-by-Step Process
Now that we have done all the preparation and taken care of the prerequisites, it’s time to get answers to the much-awaited question of how to install landscape lighting.
1. Plan and Design the Layout
The first important step in the process of installing landscape lighting is to have a well-planned setup. Without a clear design to follow, your lighting can appear uneven, or poorly-placed. This could lead to the risk of losing its intended effect. Let’s explore how to make the most of your outdoor space.
- Visualize Key Focal Points: Sketch out the architectural features or natural elements in the dominant surrounding area of the place you want to focus on lights. This can be trees, statutes, water fountains, or the facade of your home. For instance, installing landscape lighting around a big tree creates dramatic shadows and provides a beautiful contrast against the night sky. The same goes for uplighting a statue or decorative object that can give it a museum-quality aesthetic.
- Types of Lights: Choose the right type of outdoor lighting tailored to your goals:
- Path Lights: Low-voltage, staggered along walkways for safety and ambiance.
- Spotlights/Uplights: Highlight trees, sculptures, or architectural details with focused beams.
- Floodlights: Illuminate large areas (e.g., driveways or lawns) with broad, bright light.
- Deck/Step Lights: Recessed or surface-mounted for safety on stairs and decks.
- String/Bistro Lights: Add a festive or intimate vibe to patios and pergolas.
- Design for Functionality and Beauty: Outdoor landscape lighting is more than about looks; it’s about utility, too. Make sure the emphasis is on illuminating paths, stairs, and driveways to ensure safety. Besides the overall aesthetics, pathway lights can guide your guests with subtle light. You should consider the lighting for accent pieces, safety, and security. A general rule of thumb is to accentuate features but always keep functional lighting in mind.
- Decide on Lighting Styles: Match fixtures to your home’s aesthetic and lighting your environs:
- Modern: Sleek, minimal fixtures (e.g., cylindrical path lights or LED strips).
- Traditional: Lantern-style path lights or bronze uplights for classic elegance.
- Rustic: Wrought-iron or weathered-metal designs for a natural look.
- Transitional: Blend modern and traditional elements (e.g., black matte finishes with clean lines)
- Consider Light Intensity and Direction: Consider how far you want light to spread and adjust your fixture types accordingly. Path lights provide a gentle, warm glow that’s ideal for walkways, while floodlights can light larger areas with bright, powerful beams. So, based on where you install the fixtures, you might need to use different wattage with the same or different features to achieve the look you’d wish to have.
Pro Tip Mark the placement of the lights with stakes or garden markers to get a rough idea of how it will look before you commit to a final design. Check how the space sits with the mock lighting setup by walking around at night with a flashlight. This simple exercise can help you adjust the layout before you start digging. |
2. Install the Transformer
Once you plan the layout, the next step is to install the transformer. This is where the magic of your landscape lighting system comes to life. Now, it’s time to set up the transformer, a device that takes your home’s high-voltage electricity and reduces it to the low-voltage power that landscape lights run on. Installing it correctly is critical to the safety of your setup and its longevity.
- Where To Place It: Find a location out of view but close to a power source (such as an outdoor outlet). It should ideally be located where it can be serviceable but not too visible to be an eyesore. Try to hide it behind a garden feature or small structure, such as a fence, in order to keep it out of sight.
- Capacity and Wattage: The transformer must have enough capacity to power the total wattage of all the lights you want to add. Use a transformer with extra capacity if you don’t know how much power you’ll need. A 300-watt transformer works well for most medium-sized projects, while larger spaces might require something in the 600-watt range. A reliable landscape lighting support will guide you for the necessary requirements.
- Connect the Transformer: Once you know where to put things, your landscape lighting support team will wire the transformer to power. Mistakes in this part can result in electrical hazards or malfunctioning lighting.
Pro Tip: It’s a good idea to invest in a transformer with a higher wattage than you currently need if you expect to add more lights later on. This prevents the need for future transformer upgrades as your system grows. |
3. Bury the Wires
Running and burying the wires is where things start to get hands-on. This means that your outdoor landscape lighting will function safely and effectively while also blending completely with your surroundings.
- Digging Trenches: To ensure safety, you will need to dig shallow trenches along the planned wiring route, about 6-8 inches deep( yeah, that’s the code to bury). It may seem like a chore, but investing the time to do this is worth the labor. No one wants exposed wires that create safety risks and detract from their landscape’s beauty. The trenches should run from the transformer to each of the lighting fixtures.
- Assemble the Right Wiring: Make sure you are using wires that are rated for outdoor use when installing landscape lighting. This is usually stronger and has insulation to deal with weather damage. This would help ensure your system holds up through rain or extreme temperatures as high-quality outdoor-rated cables are used.
- Wire Placement: Be conscious of where the wires are running. You want to avoid damaging any existing landscaping or garden beds. If you are running the wires across walkways or high-traffic areas, consider using plastic conduit to protect the wiring. That will prevent wear and tear from foot traffic or digging activity.
- Secure Wires: As you’re laying the cables, be sure to secure them every few feet with wire staples or clips. This will hold the wires in place during lawn care or landscaping maintenance to prevent them from slipping out of place. Be gentle when securing the wires to prevent cutting or damaging them.
Pro Tip: Place a landscape fabric under the wires to protect them from roots and debris. This does reduce the chances of corrosion and damage over time, as the fabric also keeps soil from making direct contact with the wire. |
4. Connect the Lights
With the transformer and wiring in the right place, it’s time to hook up your lights. This is a crucial stage because faulty connections could leave your lights inoperable or even dangerous. Here’s what you need to get it right.
- Strip the Wires: You will have to strip 1-2 inches of insulation off the wire ends with wire strippers before connecting your lights. This ensures the copper wire is bare and ready to create a better and more secure connection.
- Use Waterproof Connectors: Remember, in order to protect landscape lighting from moisture, you’ll need to use waterproof connectors to keep it protected. This will avoid short-circuiting and allow your system to work for countless years. Twist-on wire connectors or push-on wire nuts either will work great. Push the bare ends of the wires into the connectors and make sure they’re screwed down tight.
- Test the Connections: After the lights are connected, turn on the transformer to make sure all lights are working. Go out to the yard and inspect each light to ensure it’s on and pointing in the right direction. It’s critical to test before you bury the wires because the time to change is so much easier now than after you fill in the trench.
- Safety Check: Once all lights are connected, double-check every connection to ensure it is intact. Ensure all wires are protected, and connectors are sealed so that moisture cannot permeate the circuit.
Pro Tip: Wire in a daisy-chain arrangement if you’re looking to connect multiple lights. This will make sure no wire is loaded too much so that the power does not drop and the lighting is even. |
5. Position and Secure the Lights
Now, it’s time to place each fixture as all wires are in place and connected with lights. The ideal placement not only elevates the visual appeal of your outdoor space but makes sure the lights are functioning at their best.
- Adjust the Angles: You can usually adjust the angles of each light fixture to some degree. For spotlights, mount at different angles until you get the effect you want. This can be either lighting a tree up from below, or washing light along a wall to create dramatic shadows. Install landscape lighting at various angles to create dimension and texture; it’ll give your yard a dynamic appearance at night.
- Light Direction: Make sure your fixtures point the right way. Path lights are positioned low to the ground to light up walkways, while uplights can showcase trees or statues. Be cautious of where the light falls. For instance, if you place a light directly in front of a window, the glare can be distracting.
- Secure the Lights: After you’ve placed your lights, anchor them into the ground with stakes or mounting brackets. Make sure each fixture is securely placed on the ground so that it doesn’t move over time, especially after heavy rain or lawn maintenance.
- Perform a Visual Test: Set the lights up at their proposed place, but do it at night to see how they play with your visual viewpoint. The effect can often look quite different in daylight versus after dark, so don’t miss this critical step. Tweak as needed to set the perfect atmosphere.
6. Test the Lights
Once you have your lights positioned and secured, it’s time to test the entire system, ensuring everything works properly.
- Check Each Fixture: Turn on the transformer and walk around your yard to check each light. Ensure they’re all still working as intended. Often, faulty connections or bad wiring can keep lights from turning on. So this is your opportunity to repair anything before the wires are covered.
- Inspect Light Coverage: Look for areas that are too overexposed or too dark. In an ideal situation, the lights will have a balanced effect throughout the room and ensure that there are no harsh glares or dark areas.
- Make Repairs: Is there a light that won’t turn on? Check connections. A loose wire or connector can interfere with its working. If the issue persists, double-check your transformer settings for the appropriate voltage.
7. Secure and Bury the Wires
Now, with everything tested, it’s time to bury the wires to complete the installation.
- Fill the Trenches: Refill the trenches carefully while ensuring that it doesn’t disturb any of the wiring. Take enough time to ensure everything is tucked properly. You want to make sure that no part of the wire is exposed to the elements, which will require complete protection of the setup.
- Use Landscape Fabric: Place landscape fabric underneath the wires if your wires are routed in areas with plants, roots, or landscaping features. Doing this will prevent them from being damaged in the future by digging or root growth.
- Final Adjustment: After you have filled in the trenches, go for a final walkthrough around the yard and make sure everything is neat. Correct any lights if necessary and then hold wires in place with clips or staples.
Pro Tip: Cover wires with mulch, small rocks, or another decorative material so they don’t get damaged again. This protects the wires and adds to the aesthetics of your yard. Make sure no material you use blocks the light output. |
8. Final Check and Adjustments
Now for the final step: check everything one last time. (We promise it’s really the last one!)
- Evaluate Light Effects at Night: Now that everything is in place, take a walk at night to assess the effects. Ensure the lighting sets the right ambiance: soft, inviting, and bright without overwhelming any space.
- Adjust Brightness: Some transformers come with adjustable dimmers, which will allow you to adjust the light’s intensity as necessary. A slightly lower brightness can lead to a more romantic or cozy setting. On the other hand, brighter lights are the right ones to support your outdoor security lighting ideas.
Post-Installation Care for Landscape Lighting
The work doesn’t end at landscape lighting installation. (Yes, we know that we promised the above one was the last, but this is crucial!) Proper care and maintenance are necessary to ensure your lighting system works effectively and for a longer duration. Here’s how to maintain your newly installed lighting system:
- Regularly Check Lights: You need to check each fixture regularly. If any of the lights are flickering or not turning on, it may be a problem with either the wiring, the bulb, or the transformer.
- Clean the Fixtures: Dirt, dust, and weather conditions can make your fixtures dirty or obstruct them over time. Clean them regularly with a soft cloth and a nonabrasive cleaner to ensure that optimal light output is maintained. For spotlights, clear dirt buildup on the lenses which can hinder their performance.
- Check Connections and Wiring: After a season of harsh weather, it’s wise to check the connectors and wires for looseness or corrosion. If you notice any damage, fix or replace any affected parts right away.
- Replace Faulty Bulbs: Change the faulty bulbs with energy-efficient LED bulbs for long-lasting and cost-effective performance. Replacing bulbs regularly helps keep the same brightness level and enhances energy efficiency.
- Test Transformer Settings: Every few months, check your transformer settings to make sure it is providing the correct voltage to your lights. Transformers might need to be rewired based on any new developments or expansions over time as well.
Pro Tip: One trick is to clean the lenses on the light fixtures. If you’ve got any foggy or cloudy lenses, be sure to give them a good clean to ensure your lights retain their clarity and performance. |
Do’s and Don’ts of Landscape Lighting
We’ve covered how to install landscape lighting, but there are essential do’s and don’ts you need to follow for optimal results. (Consider it as a recap of important considerations)
Do’s
- Invest in energy-efficient LED fixtures for cost savings and longer lifespan.
- Have your fixtures inspected and cleaned regularly for maximum brightness.
- Do secure wiring properly to avoid damage and ensure safety.
- Strategically position lights to highlight key features in your yard such as pathways and trees.
- Do change light angles from time to time for the best visual effect.
Don’ts
- To prevent overheating and malfunction, never overload the transformer.
- Avoid adding lights directly in front of windows to avoid glare.
- Do not skip regular maintenance, as it can lead to long-term problems.
- Avoid using fixtures not rated for wet areas, such as ponds or fountains.
- Don’t overlook damaged components, and replace broken lights and wires as soon as you can.
- You don’t have to go overboard your space with lights as too many will blur out the profound ambiance.
Why Hire Elevated Seasons for Landscape Lighting Installation?
While you now understand how to install landscape lighting and have the complete know-how, the process can still seem daunting. But why tackle the hassle yourself when Elevated Seasons’ professional lighting installation team is here? Here’s why you need to choose us:
1. Decades of Expertise & Customer Satisfaction
Elevated Seasons is a leader in the landscape lighting installation industry, with over 40 years of experience and a 100% customer success rate. We are a team of 50+ experts who have served 1000+ clients who have given us positive reviews for our exceptional craftsmanship, reliability, and stunning lighting designs.
2. Innovative, Eco-Friendly, and Smart Technology
We pride ourselves on using high-end materials, custom designs, and eco- friendly products that help us stand out in LA. We always aim to bring convenience at your fingertip and so we use smart tech lighting solutions that will allow you to control lights using smartphones or devices like Alexa and Google Home.
3. Comprehensive Services & Cutting-Edge Technology
Elevated Seasons offers permanent lighting solutions as well as rental solutions, applicable for residential and commercial settings. We also employ drone mapping for site surveys to achieve precise, efficient, and effective installations. Additionally, our professional restoration and demolition services contribute to rebuilding Los Angeles, supporting vital fire recovery efforts.
4. Post-Installation Warranties & Trained Professionals
For lasting peace of mind, our post-installation warranty protects your investment for a long duration. Our technicians go through a rigorous 3-month training program focusing on safety, technical skills, and design principles to ensure that our clients receive the best work every time.
Landscape Lighting Installation Costs: What to Expect
Curious about how much it cost to install landscape lighting? Residential projects typically range from 3,500 to 35,000, while commercial installations can go up to $75,000, depending on scale and design. Check the below-given cost breakdown.
Category |
Details |
Residential Cost | $3,500 to $35,000, based on light quantity and complexity |
Commercial Cost | Up to $75,000, dependent on project size and complexity |
Fixtures | Typical costs per fixture range between $165 to $250(incl installation materials and labor) |
Transformers | $250–$450 (includes installation) |
Conclusion
While this guide has shown you how to install landscape lighting, it’s clear this isn’t an easy DIY project. The right professionals can transform your outdoor space into something extraordinary through expert landscape lighting installation support.
Yet, a common problem that many homeowners come across is finding the best team to carry out the installation process in a way that enhances the beauty, security, and functionality of their property, just as they envision.
This is where Elevated Seasons comes in with its landscape lighting services. We bring in decades of experience, advanced technology, and a customer-centric mindset to better match you with the lighting system that best serves your needs.
From a warm atmosphere to additional protection or a brighter yard, we turn your backyard fantasies into reality with top-tier materials, smart lighting technology, and flawless execution. Don’t settle for ordinary support when you can have an exceptional one. Contact Elevated Seasons today to schedule your consultation
