Solar LED lights
Posted on June 16th, 2008 – 9:55 PMBy Jason Hammond
Early last fall (before it became apparent that we weren’t going to get our house completed in time to do the landscaping) we had spent some time looking for modern solar lights for our landscaping. We were quickly frustrated by the options that were available largely online and at most of the big box stores. Almost all of them were made out of plastic and feature a shade style design that looks like it was pulled from a little English garden, just like solar landscape lights must have looked like 100 years ago, except solar lights weren’t around 100 years. Needless to say these lights didn’t really fit our taste or the style of our house, so we were forced to look elsewhere. Unfortunately the ones we found, seemed to fall into a different tax bracket and we weren’t about fork over several hundred dollars per light. So this evening I was really excited when one of the friends we’ve made through our blog (Jeff Gallo from the 5ive house) sent us an email sharing the link to these great solar LED lights from westinghouse. They’re not only simple and modern looking but they’re made of stainless steel and best of all, affordable. They come in several different finishes along with a couple of options of height so you can utilize them in different areas around your yard to cast a variety of lighting effects. I’m thinking we’ll wait to see how our finished landscaping turns out a and then order a few sets to strategically light the yard.
4 Responses to "Solar LED lights"
Jason, I went thru the same process a couple yrs ago when looking for path lights in our new landscaping. And I had the same complaint about the style of lights available. My only warning to you is on the solar lights the light output is pretty dismal when you need it most (dusk to full darkness). We ended up buying wired lights and have been very pleased with how the look from the street/walkway when all lit up.
We found some lights we liked (simple black metal style) on usalight.com, they had a good selection and for the right “tax bracket” as well. Good luck!
BTW, the house is really great looking, and I look forward to seeing the landscape progress as I have the rest of the progress up to this point.
Thanks Mat for sharing the insights, I’ll check out the resource you mentioned as well. I am hoping that the fact the lights are LED will help with the output vs. many of the old solar lights I’ve seen in the past. I’ve also read that you can easily change out the battery with a higher powered one and significantly increase the run time on the lights.
Jason
Has anyone looked into using a wired system and replacing the 12v halogens with low-wattage LEDs? Perhaps this could be the magic combination of maximum light with minimal power draw…
these are great. thanks for the tip.
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