Landscape lighting is an important and often overlooked part of outdoor design. LED landscape lighting offers many benefits for home and industrial outdoor lighting--including cost efficiency, environmental benefits and more versatility than traditional incandescent outdoor lighting.

Function

1. Landscape lighting is used for decorative and functional purposes. Safety and visibility are the two most important functional reasons for using landscape lighting. LED lights can provide any level of lighting needed to provide visibility and outline safety hazards in the yard.
   
   LED lights also offer a wide range of color choices and extend your decorative and style options. Among the most important design uses for outdoor landscape lighting: up-lighting to provide ambient light in the area; down-lighting to provide targeted light from above; silhouette lighting to provide dramatic accents by casting light behind specific design elements; and colored LED lights to provide color washes and add interest.

Benefits

2. Outdoor LED lighting offers many benefits for the homeowner. LED landscape lighting lasts longer than incandescent lighting. High-quality outdoor LED lights will last for up to 30 years. They may cost more to buy, but they'll last far longer than five incandescent lights. In addition, LED landscape lights are about 80 percent more efficient than other forms of outdoor lighting. That means you'll save considerable money in energy costs over the life of each LED fixture. Because LED lights are smaller than traditional lighting options and last longer, they also allow for many lighting designs that weren't possible before LED lights became common. Finally, of course, LED landscape lighting is the greenest choice available because it uses less power and creates far less waste.

Considerations

3. Landscape lighting serves a number of important purposes, and those purposes should be part of your consideration when choosing the right LED lights for your outdoor areas.
   
   Safety is the single most important consideration in your outdoor lighting scheme. LED lights are an ideal choice for strip lighting stair risers and pathway or driveway edges.
   
   LED lamps are very easy to focus, making it easier to provide both ambient and accent lighting in your outdoor environment.
   
   Landscape lighting can also be used to add architectural interest to your building and environment. Colored or color-changing LED lights can be used to provide color washes on flat or textured walls for a dramatic lighting accent.

Types

4. There are many types of LED lights that can be used outdoors, but they all fall into two basic types: solar-powered or 12-volt powered. All solar-powered landscape lights on the market have LED light sources, but not all LED outdoor lights are solar powered. Solar LED landscape lights cost less to install and to run, but 12-volt LED lights are more reliable. In addition, 12-volt lights are more difficult to install, because they require laying electrical lines to each light for power. Solar-powered lights can simply be mounted where you want them to be used, but you must take into account the amount of sunlight they'll receive for placement.

Warning

5. One of the advantages of LED lights turns into a possible disadvantage in Northern climates. LED landscape lighting puts out very little heat. Because of their low heat output, heavy snowfall may accumulate on the light and cause problems. If you live in an area that gets snow or ice in winter, choose a light fixture that is designed to shed snow.