exterior wireless electrical lighting?

[calberto22]

hi i thought maybe someone on this group could help. i have an aluminum gate that surrounds my house, with several concrete columns every 15 feet. . they are about 150 to 200 feet away from my house. i would lvoe to put some lights on the outside of them, however, i've called several electricians and have been told it's extremely complicated and expensive, especially since we have to pull permits. i was thinkng the ideal situation would be to simply place a wireless wall sconce on the columns, then i wouldn't ahve to deal with electrical wiring. Maybe something solar, or possibly flourescent lighting of some kind that does not need a lot of power, but that is wireless. i've looked EVERYWHERE on line and cannot find any decent looking exterior wireless wall lights for sconces. any ideas?

[Sheldon]

Gas lights.

[William Wagner]

Any chance you have a electric pole some where nearby ?

Reason being some of the new flood lights could maybe do your lighting needs. Your beauty needs and the effect on others in your neighboring homes a major consideration. I'd call your electric provider for options.

Bill

[Scott Hildenbrand]

That'd be even more expensive, and more permits.

My two cents is to do low voltage lighting. You won't need permits and heck, you can pretty well do it yourself or hire a general handyman to install it.

There is a down side that the cable can only be ran a certain length and

150-200 foot may be well outside that range.

However an electrical line could be ran that 150-200' and an exterior "in use" outlet could be installed to handle the 12 volt lighting at the fence. That way the only major expense would be that initial run that an electrician would have to do, cutting the costs greatly.

Once you have power at the column (most likely the center of where you'd like to start) you can then run your 12 volt along the fence and install lights on each column.

You'd have to know how far of a distance you'd need to cover to make sure that 12 volt lighting would even work from the center column. You might need to have more than one electrical box installed, which may mean trenches being dug 18" deep from your house in several directions.

At any rate, just my two cents for an option.

[Jim]

yes. enjoy the beauty of darkness where you will be allowed to see the spectacular lights hung on nothing in the night sky. you won't need an electrician or a permit and the fuel cost are very reasonable for powering your dark yard.

however, if you reside in a city where light pollution has already robbed you of any chance whatsoever of enjoying the beauty of darkness then my suggestion will not work for you.

[Scott Hildenbrand]

You know.. That's a good idea! :)

We moved some 5 miles away from the place we WERE in.. It's amazing how many more stars you can see..

It's funny though, off to the north east you can see the Arora Borealis that is Wal*Mart.. Kills all the stars in that section of the sky.

So glad we moved out into the county.

[Jim]

yep, most every night after it gets dark I enjoy a cup of coffee while I gaze at the stars. the money I'm saving powering my energy efficient darkness allows me to buy more coffee.

nice to be able to enjoy something before it is ruined by those moving in on top of your location who prefer street lights, yard lights and other sources of light pollution. sad how it is they never know how far reaching the destruction of their lights can be.

that's one of the death rays from urbanization.

I'm glad you are able to enjoy living in the rural country before it is all gone. noticed yet how well you can actually see in the night after your eyes adjust?

enjoy...

[Ted Mittelstaedt]

Solar is only going to get accent lights for you. I'm talking about the brightness of a "mini" twinkle christmas tree bulb. If your aim is to merely decorate with them, that's fine. But most people want sconce lights to produce enough light to illuminate the housing itself as well as a walk or some such.

What might work for you is a large stepdown transformer, 120 volt to 24 volt. You do NOT need permitting for 24 volt wiring. With the 200 foot run you will need heavy guage - perhaps 10 or 8 guage - from the house to the concrete columns. Once at the columns you can distribute the 24 volts with regular lampcord wire, from the heavy guage feed. You can just bury the wire right in the ground, a few inches down.

You can run standard incandescent bulbs off such a feed. Of course they will be dimmer. For example a 100watt bulb might be around the brightness of a 15 watt bulb. Or you can get special 24 volt Xeon lights and receptacles for them.

Ted

[Ann]

Dairy farmers in particular don't have the luxury of starting work after it's light or wrapping things up at dusk. And after a 12+ hour work day (every day), star gazing is usually not high on their list of priorities. Instead, for safety, security, and convenience, they have a REC-supplied dusk-dawn light installed on the transformer pole(s). (Contrary to popular myth, there are criminals in rural areas too.)

[Will]

Hi my name is Will - I'm new to google groups but i was searching and saw that someone needs solar lighting and we do that here in Australia

- now you'd need a little bit of wires but we do a 1 + 3 Watt LED that is BRIGHT! We are still in R&D mode but would be more than willing to work with you to try and sort something out. The fittings are very clean and will be popsted soon. anywho check some of our other products out

[rjmacres]

I just got done installing some outside lights around the property. Security. We're having an ongoing battle with packs of wild dogs and you can't shoot what you can't see. Most of them are motion detectors but a few of them are on dusk to dawn. Lights are much better then getting your arm chewed off by a wild dog that you couldn't see.

We also have some solar lights around the front and along the drive. They don't put out massive amounts of light but you can at least see the drive.

Randy

[alvinamorey]

This thread seems to have gone thru the wringer and back. However, whoever the OP is, why not just get some of those low voltage devices. They are made for yard use along sidewalks, in gardens, and other yard areas. The whole thing runs off a plug in transformer. Then some thin wires go to the lights that should not require a a permit or an electrician, since everything is wired to the transformer which is a plug in device. There are all kinds of varieties from LED to hi-intensity 12V bulbs, and probably more. There are even some solar ones.