Lighting the Hillside
When I first decided to light up the landscaping of my house, I got a specialized outdoor lighting company to come in and bid on the entire job as they envisioned it, understanding that I would likely phase the project rather than do it all at once. The two biggest reasons for that were the likely cost and the fact that I was just starting to deal with the renovation of my broken deck. I knew that whatever I decided to do in the back of the house, it would be centered on the deck and what you can see from the deck. When I got the proposal, it was clear that the vendor was all about lighting everything and anything worth lighting up. Obviously, the more you light, the more you can charge and the more you make. This Australian had already told me that 2020 had been his best year ever on the theory that the Pandemic was causing people to spend money on their homes rather than on travel.
I cut the proposal back on a line-by-line basis for both the front and the back and furthermore noted that the back would be postponed until we finished the deck renovation (figuring it would be done by yearend…I wish). By the time the installer for the front phase arrived, I had already decided to add back several of the lighting elements I thought would be needed. Then, after the first night of illumination (they had installed temporary timers and would be putting in the app-based controller system in a week), I called and said I wanted to add back even more of the items I had stricken from the proposal. I am sure my Australian friend was chuckling to himself the whole while though he never showed it. Once the add-back ball was rolling, the installer suggested a few additions that hadn’t even been on the initial proposal. We also adjusted the elements a bit like by adding filters and risers. The only thing I balked at were the green filters, which had been part of the big differentiating pitch for his work, so the Australian took those off the bill. I might note that adding a simple riser was charged at $60 and I knew for a fact that those risers on Volt Lighting’s website sell for $9.99. My Australian frie d had learned well the age old business model of making most of your money on the accessories.
I paid very close attention to how the installer did his installation and how the control guy set up the controller. I found it all relatively easy and feel that low-voltage lighting I’d really something most any DIY person can handle themselves. There is simply not enough difficulty in the transformers, cabling, fixtures and accoutrement. As for the design placement, I think the pros do a fine job, but even a few of their installations I was able to improve on very quickly. There is little about outdoor lighting that is magic. It is all pretty basic.
It then came time to address the back of the house. Before doing that I tested myself by adding who spotlights on the front entry area on a boulder and Manzanilla Tree. I put in my unused extra transformer and set it as a timer. It all worked great and gave me the confidence to tackle the back. My best friend in my lighting efforts is Volt Lighting, an online retailer specializing in outdoor landscape lighting. Their product is reasonably priced and excellent quality (I buy all brass fixtures). They also have better and more easily used connectors that make the installation more logical and easier.
My first project was the Bison Boulder, the Desert Steel Joshua Tree statue and the new Boulder Agave Art project I had undertaken on the South side of the house behind the new rose garden. All three of these involved installing one large (600W) transformer placed under the deck. That was the most central access point for all the distant elements I was lighting as well as the intended deck lighting elements. I used a 500 foot spool of 12-guage cable to set up the three distant elements. I had decided that I would only light the distant elements and the deck, but just like the experience on lighting the front of the house, I added back all of the intermediate hillside elements as I went. Part of that was that the transformer was much bigger than I needed and I had the capacity, so I figured that with more and more confidence in the installation procedure (including testing all elements with a 9Volt battery, a neat and handy trick I learned on You-Tube), I could easily add back elements.
On Saturday, once the deck fascia was finished, my team installed the twelve LED glass railing up lights and the four flood lights set to illuminate the boulders and cacti I had selected. I spent Saturday trimming the Manzanilla Tree only to find that the flood lights did an unimpressive job of lighting the cacti that were more than ten feet from the deck. So today, I added three spotlights in the trees that I ran off one of the distant cable runs. I actually dug up the cable and spliced in the three new spotlights as though I had been doing it for years. I was very proud of myself. Then I hooked up the twelve glass rail LED’s and the four fascia flood lights.
I am now confident enough in my low voltage installation techniques that I waited for dark to test them. They were set on the transformer control system, so once hooked up they should just come on as scheduled at dark along with the other distant elements and the palapa lighting elements previously installed. As darkness fell, every single light element came on exactly as intended and it all looked great. There is perhaps one of the three added tree lights that will need some adjustment since It shines up too much toward the deck in its up lighting of a Yucca trees, but other than that, everything else seems perfect.
In the end I am left with one extra replacement spotlight and a handful of connectors and a 75-foot coil of 12-guage cable if I ever need to do any repair work. I have a four-zone automatic smart-home app-controlled system that handles the patio, the entry area, the garden and boulders on both sides of the driveway, the Otomi wall mural, the distant back hillside elements, and all aspects of my new deck. If it sounds like I’m proud of having saved $6,000 on lighting the hillside by doing it myself, you would be correct.