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Dennis McDonaugh
04-04-2014, 10:32 AM
I want to add some landscape lighting to illuminate the front of the house. I'm going to start with some type of flood lights and have been trying to find a good design guide, but the one's I've found are short on really useful information.

What I'm looking for is something to help me decide what wattage bulbs I need and how far the floods need to be from the house for a given degree of spread and wattage. We're not looking for stark, bright lighting, but soft, subdued lighting. I think its called "wall wash".

This is a picture of the house--it's fairly small and has a lot of windows in the front. I'm thinking of putting one light in front of each section. That would be one light in front of the window to the left of the door and another in front of the window to the right of the door and then one at each corner of the house. Eventually there is going to be a planting bed in front of the window to the left of the front door and I'd like the lights to end up in the beds, not out in the grass so I don't have to worry about mowing around them. There is only about 6 feet from the sidewalk to the window on the right side of the door so I need a pretty wide spread of light. You can't tell from the picture, but the front of the house to the right of the post lamp also has a large window in it.

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q320/bmcdonau/Mobile%20Uploads/image_zpsabfce6e0.jpg

This is a diagram of where I'm thinking of putting the lights.

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q320/bmcdonau/biglighting_zpsb72fc246.jpg

I'm looking at two different flood lights for the larger areas. I looked at the local options and am not satisfied with the quality or durability of their products.

The first takes a PAR 36 bulb that comes in three wattages, 20, 35, and 50. T

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q320/bmcdonau/BigPar36_zps95f4127d.jpg

The second takes something called a bi pin and comes in 10, 20, 35, and 50 watts.

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q320/bmcdonau/BigSplash_zps86b7b23c.jpg

I'm thinking of ordering this one for the small section at the far left side of the house. I can buy 10, 20, 35, and 50 watt bulbs in 12, 38, and 60 degrees.

http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q320/bmcdonau/BigSpot_zpsd2eeacf6.jpg

Any insight you can provide is appreciated.

Ted Calver
04-05-2014, 11:15 AM
Dennis,
There are many lighting manufacturers that make wall wash lighting and most of the biggies publish technical data that can be plugged in to various illumination programs to output an iso-illuminance diagram showing the pattern of light on the wall. If you really want to know what each fixture will do, select one of each type from a major manufacturer and check their site for iso-illuminance templates for the fixtures. I'm retired and let my lighting software lapse, or would offer to do it for you. It looks like you are fairly close to the neighbors and perhaps in a subdivision that has an HOA and the accompanying telephone book size rule book. Many HOA's prohibit such lighting. Further, there has been a move afoot in recent years (the Dark Skies Initiative--http://mcdonaldobservatory.org/darkskies) to reduce light pollution. Please consider downward pointing wall sconces to wash your walls with to minimize light pollution....they make those too.

Dennis McDonaugh
04-05-2014, 12:21 PM
Thanks Ted. I live in a rural subdivision with 1/2 and 3/4 acre lots so the houses are not that close together. We have only one page of rules which mostly covers house design and setbacks. We don't plan to use the lights all the time, but it's very dark out here and the porch light and post light don't illuminate the sidewalk or driveway

Evan Patton
04-05-2014, 1:18 PM
Dennis,
I've bought a bunch of stuff from Volt lighting (LEDs, fixtures, transformers, timers, etc.) and found them to be very high quality and reasonable compared to what I could find locally. I love their 2700k LEDs (Cree). Their transformers are expensive, but head and shoulders above the Malibu stuff. Their fixtures are very reasonable for the quality. Their timers are good but too expensive, but convenient to get from one source (you can find the same high-quality timers on Amazon for about $20 rather than the $35 Volt charges). I'd recommend buying wire locally.

I would suggest getting a couple of each type fixtures you're considering and experimenting. From my experience you can always find a place for a couple fixtures of a given type. Then once you find what you like for a certain area (path, flood, spot, down) and get an idea of how much each fixture illuminates, it's pretty easy to figure out how many more to order.

I have several of the large (~9 LED) flood lights (http://www.landscapelightingworld.com/LED-Outdoor-Lighting-p/led-105-led.htm) and they put out a lot of light--good for up-lighting on walls or large trees.

I love the LED path lights, both the max-spread area light (http://www.landscapelightingworld.com/LED-Outdoor-Lighting-p/led-330.htm) and dog-path area light (http://www.landscapelightingworld.com/Low-Voltage-LED-Outdoor-Lights-p/led-399-td-br.htm).

I have a couple of the smaller floods (http://www.landscapelightingworld.com/LED-Landscape-Lights-spotlight-p/led-102-led.htm) and spots (http://www.landscapelightingworld.com/LED-Landscape-Lights-p/led-103-led.htm) that are good for up-lighting small trees and bushes.

I also have two underwater lights (http://www.landscapelightingworld.com/Cast-Lighting-Underwater-Light-Fountain-Light-p/led-680.htm) in my fountains.

Dennis McDonaugh
04-05-2014, 8:36 PM
Evan, Volt is the brand I'm looking at. I couldn't get past all the bad reviews the inexpensive lights received. Volt is pricy, but has great reviews. I think your idea of getting a few of the lights and trying them out is a good one. Thanks.