Lighting to a shed

Hey when did the "i" change to an "o"...?

Not sure putting it on the shed is a good idea, it's quite likely to be fairly low and thus to shine into your eyes as you're walking to said shed. You also won't be able see anything past it when looking from the house. Heard a noise? Is that some tealeaf trying to relieve you of something from the shed? Think it would be better higher up on the house looking steeply down to illuminate the general area without shining in your eyes or creating areas of blackness.

Wired "spike lights"? Just to mark changes in direction or a hazard. You don't need to be able to actually see the path just know where it goes. Maybe something high up on the house to provide some low light level general ilumination.

I found one, earlier in the year, where the solar panel is on a long cable away from the light. This means the light itself can be mounted where the sun never shines.

I think getting a man in will also cost 3 figures for F's management's needs.

I do wonder why 30W for 4-5 hours at a time? Most floodlights are powered by PIR.

Got any links for those? From what I've seen, available 30w floodlights are around 2400 - 2900lm (

I assume "floodlight" leds are usually supplied at that higher colour temp, rather than the choice you get with, for example, GU10s.

I fitted a cheapo LED (the type with a bacofoil reflector that does nothing since the LED shines forwards anyway) it died quickly, replaced by a Brackenheath iSpot 30W, still ok after 3 years, whole face is a heatsink.

screwfix no longer sell them though ...

This is its 50W big brother

Covered in the article I linked:

Well in a general sense, its good design practice to avoid importing potential problems from exterior circuits into the house so to speak, it does rather depend on what level of inconvenience you are prepared to put up with and how much you want to spend.

True - although it does depend on how you do it.

With cascaded RCDs and no time delay on the upstream one, its a lottery as to which would trip first. The actual trip threshold matter less than you might first expect since many trip scenarios on a shed socket will cause leakage well over the leakage threshold of either device. So its only the narrow case of (say) 15mA leakage on both main circuit and submain that makes an upstream only trip more likely.

I would suggest that for the scenario the OP describes (long run time, all year round, relatively high wattage), battery or solar powered solutions are non starters.

It's *on* the shed, not *in* the shed (which is 8x6 so, yes, 30W would be blinding).

You win the t-shirt!

I replaced a 70W sodium with a 30W LED and it seems to be much brighter.

Bill

Yes, I've learnt to avoid the cheap LED floods.

Bill

Thank you! That's seriously useful and tells me exactly what I wanted to know.

On the shed or in the shed? In either case, a single light source (especially outdoors) isn't good for task lighting. To many shadows, getting in your own light, uneven illumination, etc. Try to soften the light, or use several low wattage lamps.

If it's inside the shed a 30W LED panel (600 x 600) would be much better.

Bill

Yes, after 40 years' of annoyance I finally put all my outdoor electrics on a separate CU and RCD.

Bil

It's in the top line of what you just quoted! :-)

"Management is asking for a light on the garden shed."

If it is just to light the way, we had a similar problem trying to reverse down the drive, I used low voltage deck lights set into a block paving mowing edge they act like runway landing lights to mark the edge of the drive.

Richard

One example:

Painful!

Strange, unless the 70W sodium was on the way out. When new, the latter gives around 5000lm, compared to less than 3000 for a 30W led.