Wiring Low Voltage Lighting in your garden

Landscape lighting can add dramatic ambiance to your outdoor living spaces, while making them safer and providing additional security. If you plan to install your own landscape lighting, opt for low-voltage (like 12V) lighting, which in many areas does not require an electrician to install it. Low-voltage wires can be buried much closer to the surface than high-voltage alternatives, and can be left above ground, depending on their location in the landscape, saving you some digging.


Here's some simple steps as a guide:

1. Contact "dial before you dig" (http://1100.com.au/), and find out where any underground pipes or cables may be. This will prevent you from accidentally damaging local water, sewer and electrical lines, and is required in many municipalities.
   
2. Install all the necessary light fixtures, transformers and other components, and then lay the wiring out above the ground to ensure it will be long enough to go where you need it. Where possible, run the wire along fence lines, behind thick bushes and near other objects that can help camouflage it.
3. Connect the lighting, and turn it on after dark before you bury or hide the wires. This will allow you to be certain you have the lighting exactly where you want it, and to easily relocate fixtures if you wish.
4. Use cable ties to bundle groups of wires that run together, to keep them neat and organized
5. Place wires that will be run under the yard and planting bed edges inside conduit or PVC pipe to help protect them from damage.
6. Bury cables that run across the yard. With a square shovel, lift the sod at a 45 degree angle to make a trench for the wire. You can also use a motorized lawn edger to create a trench if you prefer. Bury the wires 6 to 12 inches below the surface to ensure you will not disturb them when you are mowing or doing other yard work. Place the wires in the trench, backfill with the dirt you removed, and replace the soil, tamping it down with your foot to reseat it.
7. Cover wires that run through flower beds with 2 to 4 inches of mulch. The wires in flower beds do not have to be buried as deep as those in the yard, as you will not be mowing over them. A few inches of mulch is enough to conceal the cables while keeping them easy to locate so you can avoid accidentally cutting them when you dig holes to add new plants.
8. Run wiring for overhead lighting underground as far as possible, then staple the wires up the sides of trees or other upright structures to reach overhead lighting fixtures. When wires must be above ground for a distance, choose a wire colour that matches the background as closely as possible, and run the wire in the most inconspicuous path available.