To a large extent, only car owners who need good visibility as soon as it starts to get dark, and not just at night, think about normal yard lighting. One of the most popular ways to implement external lighting is LED spotlights, the advantages and disadvantages of which we will talk about.
Why LED floodlight?
First, let’s make a list of requirements for street lighting. Firstly, it must be bright enough to illuminate at least 30 square meters. meters of yard. For some it is less, for others it is more, but on average the area of a private thief is 27 sq.m., so we take 30 – with a meager margin so as not to overpay.
Secondly, it needs to be controlled, that is, turned on and off. Or have a standalone sensor to turn on and off. The sensor is more of a frill, but it can be considered as an alternative to running wires under the switch, which also cost money, as does the work of laying them, so we’ll leave this option for now.
Thirdly, the light source, in our case a spotlight, must be economical enough so that you can use it for a long time without fear of large electricity bills at the end of the month.
In principle, these three points can be the starting point, since details such as security class and warranty period translate directly into cost, and therefore relate to point 2. And all other parameters can be important for individual cases and taken as fundamental will not.
Pros and cons of LED spotlights
So, we need to calculate the power of the light source. City services are planning lighting at the rate of 65 lm per 1 sq.m. But we remember how dim the light on the streets is from the street lamps, so for our yard we take 100 Lm/sq.m. We multiply by the area of the yard, in our example it is 27-30 square meters, and we get 2700-3000 Lm. This brightness corresponds to a 30 Watt LED floodlight depending on specific conditions – you can run a wire to a switch, to switches, buy an LED floodlight with a motion sensor, with a light sensor, or buy a sensor separately and install it in the most convenient place. All these options are acceptable, but for analogues using incandescent elements the sensors are not suitable – if it is used frequently, it will wear out the thread.
Let’s move on to economy. As we have already calculated, we need a 30W spotlight. If we take halogen spotlights, then spotlights comparable in brightness will have a power of 250-280 W, which is several times more than what an LED one consumes.
We did not consider more subtle nuances, such as the security class, the choice of one or more light sources, and the like, since they greatly influence the price of the product and that rule is essentially the same – the more expensive the better. But it’s up to you to decide what to pay for and what not to.