Larsen Landscape | Blog

ELECTRICITY USE

The main use of electrical power for an average landscape would be in any outdoor lighting or for ornamental water features or swimming pools.

Outdoor Path Lighting, Los Angeles

Low voltage landscape lighting has always been much more efficient than the type traditionally used inside the house.  You can use one 20 watt bulb to light a small tree, for instance (what you pay for on your electric bill is the number of watts used).

There is an even more efficient system that has just been perfected that uses LED technology.  This has two main advantages.  The first is that you would only use 3 watts for the same amount of light that you would get from the 20 watt light used in the traditional system.  The second advantage is that the LED bulbs last typically for about 50,000 hours (15 years in normal use).  For all practical purposes, this means that you don’t have to replace bulbs.  While a traditional outdoor lighting system for a front and back yard, with 30 lighting fixtures, might cost about $300 per year to run at today’s prices, the LED system with the same amount of fixtures would be about $45 per year.

The light fixtures do cost more than traditional fixtures, but there are some

Landscape Lighting, Thousand Oaks

cost savings in things like the transformer and the cable requirements since it is a more efficient system.  There is also the fact that you don’t have to buy replacement bulbs.  Considering that it also puts about 85% less drain on the electrical supply, it is very green and definitely worth looking into.

There are solar landscape lights, but the technology is not yet up to the point where this type of system really lights a landscape.  For dim lighting of pathways for a few hours after dark, these can be used and effective.

Next week more on electricity use with water features.