Garden Lighting

We've a lot of lights in our garden, controlled by four switches behind the lounge curtains. There's a multi-core armoured cable that runs from the house under the concrete slab below the patio, to the garage. I laid it forty years ago before I had any idea what I would do with it, but thought it might come in handy.

When I say a lot of lights, I mean 5 porch lights, two 30w spotlights and two 12v recycled pool lights, plus three sets of fairy lights and a 15w fluorescent and the LED in the new fountain. There's also seven solar lights, we did have more, but the ones we have now are enough.

I rarely turn the lights on, not even the new fountain, but once a week I like to check that they are all functioning, in case any lamps need changing. That's just the way I am.

Porch light on the wall next to the French windows plus fairy lights on the pergola (for Christmas use only) Seven solar lights and the fountain. The switch which now turns on the fountain used to control two 150w spotlights on the garage wall directed on the koi pool we had. But they're gone now.




12v pool light in the lantern. 30w Blagdon low voltage spotlight on the fence post. The cable is in conduit attached to the post. It then runs through the concrete collar of the old koi pool in conduit to the transformer in the garage.



Another 12v pool light




Another 30w Blagdon spotlight on a fence post.




Porch light on the wall between the windows, 15w fluorescent on the ceiling behind the doors, a set of fairy lights. The transformers for the second Blagdon spotlight, and both lanterns are in the ceilibg void of the tea-house. The 12v cables are attached to the concrete base panels of the back and side fences. Though only 12v, no exposed cables to put a spade through.



Porch light on the side of the shed, two more on the garage wall plus a set of red berry fairy lights on the second pergola.
There's also a PIR spotlight there, there's also one under the eaves of the back of the house, two more on the side wall of the house illuminating the drive and two more on the front of the house. One's a PIR porch light.



View from the tea-house verandah.

 

You are a clever fella DHR.....Inspiring too. Giving me ideas for here too

 

Thanks for the kind words.

You have to be so careful with electricity in the garden. Well I do anyway.
The most vulnerable points are the low voltage cables for the lanterns that run around the garden attached to the concrete base panels of the back and side fences. I guess a squirrel could have a nibble at them, but it hasn't happened.

I run the short length of cables from the nearest panel to the lanterns through some garden hose, so there's no chance of me putting a hoe through it.

The only exposed mains cable is this short bit of armoured cable that come from the house, as it emerges from under the path, before it enters the garage. But it's unlikely to get damaged.



Seen better here a few years ago, when I was removing rotted bits of wisteria that grew under it and re-making the end of the bed.

 

The lights look great. Lighting adds a magical quality to a garden

We have a number of lights at floor level at the back of the house that light up some of the plants - all low voltage. I'm considering adding solar lights to the border at the front of the house. I don't have the enthusiasm to take an armoured cable from the outbuilding to the border this year.

 

I was fairly fortunate. A large food superstore store I managed at the time was having an extension and therefore a lot of electrical work. Most of the refrigeration was being replaced and a roll of this multi-core cable was just dumped into a skip, so "I recycled it." As I was putting in the patio at the time, I just ran the cable from the crawl space under the lounge through an air brick to the garage.
I had a contractor lay a concrete raft over it to support the patio, before I laid the original crazy terrazzo paving.

The cable wasn't used for a few years until I built the koi pool, replaced the terrazzo with York stone and then made the concrete lanterns.