Installing Your Solar Garden Lights: Not As Easy As You Think!

The following is a guest post from theguru

A lot of fuss has been made about how easy solar garden lights are to install.  While it is true that there are no wires to run, no ditches to dig, and no electrical currents to mess around with, like you do when you install low voltage landscape lighting systems. If you want to get the most out of your solar lights, there’s more involved to installing them than just sticking them in the ground anywhere in your yard.  They need to be placed properly to get the most amount of sun, otherwise they will have a shorter lifespan and work for only part of the night.

When you’re installing your solar lights, the first thing that you need to do is look as where you want to put the lights in your yard.  Go outside at night with a flashlight and see how different lighting effects will look on your flowers, trees, and house.  Experiment with different angles, locations, and beams of light from the flashlight to see what works best.  Make a mental note of where you’d like to put the lights and when you go back inside sketch out on paper where you’d like to put the lights.

Now, before you run out and buy outdoor solar lighting fixtures, you need to make sure the location you chose is fit for a solar light.  Go outside during the day and see if the area is under shade.  Don’t just do this at one point during the day either!  Look at several different times because the sun and shadows move across your yard throughout the day.  Any place that you plan to stick a solar light should have access to direct sunlight for several hours a day.

While it is possible to place a light in the shade, if you do you likely won’t be happy with it, even if it is a quality light fixture.  The light will most likely work fine at first, but because it will be in the shade during the day, it won’t be able to completely recharge it’s battery before the sun sets.  When this happens day after day, the battery in the light gets stressed and loses its capacity sooner.  This means your lights will start turning off sooner and sooner throughout the night as they age and you’ll be left wondering why you ever got suckered into the solar light fad anyways.

Solar garden lighting is easy to install, but only if you do the proper preparation to make sure that you place them in the right areas.  If you do end up wanting to install a light in an area where there is shade, don’t fret though.  You can always install a few low voltage light fixtures in your yard and make the rest solar powered for a great hybrid system!

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