July
2009
What You Don’t Know About Landscape Lighting Kits0
A well landscaped garden is a wonderful escape. The only thing better is enjoying that getaway after the Sun has gone down. Accomplishing that requires landscape lighting and the very notion was once both prohibitively difficult to implement and painfully expensive. Fortunately, developments in landscape lighting have made this an attainable dream with low-cost, easy-to-install landscape lighting kits. But before you dash off to the hardware store, you really should know their limitations or you’re sure to wind up disappointed.
Low cost landscape lighting kits such as those manufactured by companies like Malibu Lighting are, in principle, a great idea. Their plastic construction offers several advantages over designer, metal counterparts. But along with those advantages come a few disadvantages you may not be aware of, and that’s what could lead to a big letdown. We’ll go over the good, the bad and the ugly but, as you read this article, I ask you one favor; don’t make up your mind until you’ve reached the end.
The ugly is pretty straightforward. Plastic landscape lighting kits are relatively uninspired in their design compared to the myriad options available with metal lights. Now I don’t mean to say they’re truly ugly, just that mass production with an eye on keeping prices low means you aren’t going to get much in the way of variety, particularly if you consider the alternatives available with much more expensive metal lights.
Inexpensive kits will almost always be made of plastic which means you’ll get a dime-a-dozen design at a baker’s-dozen discount. Forget about variety in the kit. Your set will include a bunch of lights that all look the same. Unless, of course, you buy a kit containing both path lights and spotlights in which case all the path lights will look the same and all the spot lights will look the same. But let’s face facts here; if you want to save money, stylish independence is a fairly small sacrifice to make.
Moving on to the bad, we only have one real concern and that’s in brilliance (or the lack thereof). It’s the very construction material of landscape lighting kits that hurts their performance because, as you might already be aware, plastic has a much lower melting point than metal. That lower melting point limits the heat they can endure from bulbs which means having to opt for lower wattage and, by extension, luminescence. Higher wattage bulbs common in metal lights would turn your plastic landscape light into a puddle. If you plan to light up trees and large features, you’ll have to pay the extra money for metal lights.
So with the ugly and the bad out of the way, let’s talk about why you should consider landscape lighting kits and discuss the positives. The first positive which we’ve already touched on is price but let’s put that into perspective. Malibu Lighting offers a plastic landscape lighting kit containing power cable, power pack, 6 spot lights and 14 tier lights (for paths and borders) for around $60. They also offer a nice looking metal kit containing power pack, cable 4 tiers and 2 spot lights for $117.02. That equates to less than half the lights for almost twice the price and even that metal kit is pretty low-cost compared to other sets I’ve seen out there.
There’s another hidden benefit to plastic landscape lighting kits inherent in their plastic construction and that’s replacement costs. Landscape lights are prone to all kinds of potential damage from clumsy pedestrians to cumbersome lawn equipment like lawnmowers. Plowing over one of your tier lights with a lawn mower or chopping it off at the post with a weed-whacker may be inconvenient but, with a plastic kit, replacing that one light will cost you very little. Not so with a metal light you’ve flattened with your John Deer tractor.
Finally, you should keep in mind that plastic construction isn’t just some cheap and barely passable material. Your lights will be virtually indistinguishable from metal lights when they’re doing their job at night. The material is also surprisingly durable. It tolerates weathering well and stands up to wear and tear. It also won’t dent, which sounds minor, but if you could see the damage inflicted on my metal lights by rocks and debris thrown from lawn mowers, you’d understand the appeal.
If you’ve read this far then I hope you’ve come to appreciate that there are definite advantages to plastic landscape lighting kits. If you’re looking to save a buck and have relatively modest lighting expectations, they’re a great way to go. Just remember that you won’t be able to accomplish as much as you could with brighter metal lights, but that you will be able to get a reasonable job done at a fraction of the cost.