Solar Lights Exposed

Once you have decided to buy solar lights, the next step of course is choosing the right one to suit your needs. The range of choices available nowadays is fairly huge. You can get solar lights in various shapes, sizes, material and with different fixtures. You’re almost practically only limited by your imagination.

In this post, I want to tackle a few main areas that would very likely form part of your selection criteria. I intend to go through lighting purposes, installation location and surrounding environment factors. If you get a handle on these basic points, you should be able to make a more informed decision or at least ask the right questions when approaching a solar lighting sales person.

Firstly, ask yourself the question, “Why do I want a solar garden lighting?” or “How am I going to use the solar garden lights?”. Understanding the reason behind it will allow you choose an appropriate type of lighting. With this question, I’m looking past the obvious benefits that solar lights offer over conventional lights. For example, if you intend to use it as part of the security to your home, then solar security lights would be better suited than simply generic purposed solar lights for garden. If you wish to provide lighting as a guide when you drive up to your home, then there are specific solar driveway lights. If you want to show off your beautiful garden design at night, then you can get solar powered landscape lighting. Knowing the lighting purpose is closely linked to the installation location.

Generally, when you install your LED solar lights, it would be preferable to avoid any areas where sunlight has difficulty reaching – that is, covered areas and low areas. If you could find a spot where the solar panels can have direct full exposure to sunlight, that would be ideal. Thus, doing some pre-planning and knowing the layout of your yard before shopping for your solar lights is important.

Apart from understanding the contours of the surroundings, there are the environmental factors. Yes, using solar lights would be good for the environment but this is not what I’m referring to. What you should take into consideration is the kind of weather conditions your solar lamp lights would be exposed to. If you expect proper operations in harsh wet weather then pay attention to solar lights containing water resistant components with switches that are well insulated. Also, ask yourself how the choice of your lights affect your neighbors. This is somewhat associated with the location of installation as well. If you bought wall mounted solar lights that used extremely bright bulbs which shines into your neighbor’s window, than this might pose a bit of a problem.

Now that you have an idea of the primary criteria to keep in mind when you shop for your next set of solar lights, you should be able to plan your purchase more carefully.

Posted: September 15th, 2009 under Selection.
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