Landscape Lighting Planning Guide: Fixtures, Spacing and Wiring

Every fixture should serve one of three goals, and planning by goal keeps a yard from looking like an airport runway:

• Safety: light where feet go. Steps, path edges, grade changes, the driveway apron and the route from the car to the door. Low path lights and step lights put light on the ground without glare in the eyes.
• Security: remove dark hiding spots near doors, windows, side yards and the garage. Motion floodlights such as the Lithonia Lighting HomeGuard 2-Light LED Motion Flood Light or a camera floodlight like the Ring Floodlight Cam 4K Pro (Wired) do this job better than dim accent lights, and they are line voltage.
• Accent: show off a tree canopy, the texture of a stone wall, a flag or the house facade. Accent light is what makes a yard look designed, and less is usually more.

Walk the property at night with a flashlight before buying. Note where you trip, what you see from inside the house and the street, and where neighbors' windows are, so accent lights do not shine into bedrooms. Mark outlet locations: a transformer needs a GFCI-protected outdoor receptacle, and runs are shortest when the transformer sits near the middle of the lit areas.

Wattages are typical LED ratings used for transformer sizing. Always add up the actual watts printed on your fixtures.

Space path lights about 6 to 10 feet apart and stagger them from one side of the path to the other, so pools of light overlap slightly on the walking surface. Lining both sides at equal spacing creates the runway look. Set them a few inches back from the edge where mowers and shovels will not clip them. Tall shaded path lights such as the Lumina Lighting 3W LED Low Voltage Path Lights (8-Pack), which uses an 8 inch shade, cast light down and out rather than into the eyes.

• Trees: one spotlight lights a small ornamental; a large shade tree usually needs two or three from different sides so the canopy looks three-dimensional. Place uplights a short distance from the trunk, aimed up into the branches.
• Walls and facades: grazing, with the fixture close to a textured stone or brick wall, shows texture; washing, with the fixture set farther back, lights a smooth wall evenly.
• Steps: light every step or every other step on longer runs, from the side or under the tread.
• Driveways: mark edges and curves at wider spacing, and keep fixtures out of the snow-shovel and plow zone.

Aim spotlights so the bulb is hidden from the main viewing spots and does not shine into the street or a neighbor's windows.

Add the watts of every fixture on the transformer, then divide by 0.8 so the connected load is no more than 80 percent of the transformer rating. For example, 8 path lights at 3 watts plus 6 spotlights at 4 watts is 48 watts, which fits a 60 watt transformer exactly at 80 percent, so a 120 watt unit leaves room to add lights. Malibu recommends loading its Malibu 120 Watt Landscape Power Pack with Sensor to about 90 watts.

Voltage drop is the loss of voltage along a cable, and it is why the last lights on a long run look dim or yellow. It rises with run length and load and falls with heavier cable. Voltage drop equals 2 times run length in feet times amps times the wire's resistance per foot, and a common target is to keep it to about 1.5 volts.

How the cable runs matters as much as its gauge. The three common layouts:

• Daisy chain (series of taps): one cable leaves the transformer and each fixture taps into it along the way. It is the simplest and uses the least cable, and it works for short runs with a few LED fixtures, but the last fixture is always dimmest, so keep runs short or load light.
• T method: a lead cable with no fixtures runs from the transformer to the middle of a group of lights, then splits in a T in two directions. The fixtures see nearly equal voltage because no light is far from the split point. It suits a cluster of lights far from the transformer, such as a garden bed at the back of the yard.
• Hub (star): several cables of equal length run from one central junction to individual fixtures or small groups. It gives the most even brightness and is common in professional installs, at the cost of more cable and connections.

Two-zone transformers such as the SUNVIE 300W Two-Zone Landscape Transformer with Timer let the front and back yards run as separate circuits with their own schedules, which also shortens each run. Use cable rated for direct burial, and splice with waterproof connectors made for low voltage landscape lighting. Leave a small loop of slack at each fixture so it can be moved as plants grow.

Solar lights such as the Mancra Solar Pathway Lights (8-Pack) and NYMPHY Solar Spotlights (4-Pack, Warm White) install in minutes with no wiring, transformer or trenching, which makes them the right answer for renters, a few path markers, and spots far from any outlet. The trade-off is consistency: brightness and run time depend on how much direct sun each panel got that day, so shaded beds, north sides of houses, cloudy stretches and short winter days mean dim or short-lived light. Their batteries also wear out after a few seasons.

Low voltage lights give the same brightness all night in every season, aim precisely, and last longer, but need a transformer, cable and an afternoon of work. Many yards mix them: low voltage for the front walk and feature trees, solar for a far garden path. The details are in solar vs low voltage landscape lights and the best solar path lights.

Most landscape transformers include a photocell (dusk sensor), a countdown timer or both. The Malibu 120 Watt Landscape Power Pack with Sensor has a detachable photocell with 4, 6, 8 or 10 hour countdown, so lights come on at dusk and shut off later in the evening. The SUNVIE 300W Two-Zone Landscape Transformer with Timer adds photocell, timer and countdown modes for each of its two zones.

For app control, plug a transformer set to always-on into an outdoor smart plug such as the Kasa EP40 Outdoor Smart Plug (2 Outlets), which has two separately controlled 15A outlets with sunrise and sunset scheduling. It also runs plug-in patio lights like the Brightech Ambience Pro LED String Lights (48 ft., 15 Bulbs). Keep the plug within Wi-Fi range and under an in-use cover. For patio string lighting ideas, see the best outdoor string lights.