Outdoor Lights

Outdoor Lights

Besides added safety and convenience, exterior lighting ensures that the property remains visibly stunning even at nightfall. Thoughtful, layered landscape lighting adds new dimensions to all features through accenting, silhouetting, and highlighting effects.

In general, most landscape lighting IN New Zealand is low voltage, safer to work with and more budget-friendly to install. To fit the low power, exterior lighting comes with transformers, providing intensive illumination as a result.  

Advantages of Outdoor Lights

Landscape lighting features a balance between security and aesthetics. LED lighting, in general, provides exquisite appeal, safety after dark, ease of movement, and protection from unwanted visitors.

It also greets family and guests with a warm welcome from the moment they approach the property with stunning visual features. Accents, silhouettes and highlights add dynamics and keep all landscape or architectural features as focal points after dark. 

Outdoor lighting in New Zealand promotes social dimensions by enhancing comfortable surroundings and enabling activities such as outdoor grilling at night.

Outdoor Lighting Fixtures

Path Lights

The prevalent type of landscape lighting are small lamp posts with a built-in light, capped with a diffuser. 

Outdoor Ceiling Lights or Hanging Lights:

This design is made to be integrated into an elevated surface, in a wide range of styles providing varying levels of brightness.

Wall Lights

The traditional type of outdoor lighting in New Zealand can be mounted on any vertical surface. 

Outdoor Post Lights & Pier Mount Lights

These are fixtures that mount on top of posts, designed for extended exposure to rain and moisture, such as bollard lights.

Landscape Lights

Landscape lighting is a low voltage system detached from the wall and ceiling lights. 

Step Lights and Decking Lights

Step Light fixtures are installed directly into a hardscape or decking to accent architectural details and add safety to dark stairs. 

Festoon lights and Outdoor String Lights

Also known as fairground lights in New Zealand, or party lights, long festive garlands come in a range from warm whites to multicoloured.

Types of Landscape Lighting

Garden Lights

Garden lights, or post cap lights, are good for embellishment and added safety. Typically, these lights feature posts with canopies that reflect light down into planting beds. Considering that they are entirely exposed, often carefully designed with elaborate finishings, garden lights can also serve as decorative path lights.

Flood Lights

LED Flood Lights are highly powered fixtures with a broad-angle that ranges between 60º and 120º. Its purpose is to cover a large area, "flooding" it with light. Flood lights have an extensive application in New Zealand, from home patios and garages to warehouses, stadiums, billboards, parks, or concert halls. Solar-powered LED flood lights add convenience by eliminating the need for direct power. In general, flood lights are great for highlighting any visual feature of a property.

Outdoor Wall Lights

Wall-mounted fixtures come in a variety of designs, from traditional porch lanterns to modern forms that typically emit soft, diffuse light, ideal for facade brightening. Outdoor wall lights are a good solution for garages, privacy fences, garden walls, even driveway lights.

Sensor Lights

Security lights provide peace of mind on many levels. Sensor lights support movement and deter unwanted guests, without the hassle of constantly turning them on and off. While more traditional models can be activated by a switch, motion sensors add more convenience in securing the property. 

Driveway Lights 

The purpose of driveway lighting in New Zealand is to help with navigation and add safety. A well-lit driveway supports driving and walking around the property and may discourage potential intruders. It reduces potential hazards, such as tripping or hitting into something. Driveway lights also guide the way for visitors and elevate the curb appeal. 

Bollard Lights

Bollard lights are typically shaped as posts, resembling miniature street lights. While some models beam in a single direction, others produce 360 degrees of light, ideal for use in large exterior spaces. Garden bollard lights are fit for driveways, lawns, and wide garden paths.

Pool Lights

Lighting a pool provides the full advantage of its use, both day and night. Submerged pool lights turn night swimming into an experience, while LED multi-coloured switches transform the whole area into one gigantic ambient light fixture. Improved visibility also enhances overall safety.

Lamp Posts

Lamp posts are both practical and convenient features that strongly boost the curb appeal. They are equally effective if placed at an entrance, in garden corners, or arranged along the path/driveway. Traditional lamps with lanterns are ideal for period properties in New Zealand, while the contemporary design offers eye-catching diversity.

Solar Lights

Solar-powered garden lighting’s main benefit is independence. Solar lights are powered by the sun, detached from the grid, cost-effective and environmentally friendly. They are also effortless to instal, requiring only a spot with consistent sunlight year-round.

How to Use Exterior Lighting in New Zealand

• To illuminate a path: Arranged along the whole length, levels included
• To silhouette a feature: Between a wall and a feature, in the desired direction.
• To highlight: At the bottom of the element, so that the beam goes upwards
• To cast a shadow: Facing a wall from the feature's base
• To add some magic: Festoon lights, outdoor string lights, and pool lights
• For accents: Hidden fixtures, such as well lights, with a narrow beam angling up (or down)
• Moonlighting: Soft light hidden high on a tree
• Deck lighting: Arranged to improve the safety of movement and general security at nighttime
• Down-lighting: Bright light fixed in a trellis or hardscape
• Up-lighting: Direct lighting, placed close to the feature's base
• Task Lighting: Direct illumination of outdoor grilling areas and other activity spots (neon lights or higher-voltage halogen bulbs are useful here to provide a clean white light)
• Solar-powered motion-sensor lights: Great for dark corners and low traffic areas 

Things to Consider When Shopping for Exterior Lighting in New Zealand

Most landscape lighting is low-voltage, making outdoor LED lights the best choice with plenty of advantages. LED light bulbs can last up to 20 years of regular use, ten times longer than halogen bulbs. Additionally, they are incredibly efficient, cost-effective, with reduced maintenance, with up to a 50-per cent savings over halogen systems.

It's good to check the desired colour temperature and light output of LEDs, to ensure sufficient brightness. 

Unless solar lights are used, landscape lighting installation should be followed by underground wiring. This helps to avoid risks of accidentally cutting the circuit during regular landscaping maintenance.

It's advised to replace factory-installed connectors with gel-filled wire splice connections, specially made for the outdoors. Unlike standard connectors, those are not prone to corrosion and degrading, but rather suited to work underground for a long time.

Battery-powered and solar-powered fixtures also need to be rated suitable for outdoor use. 

Outside lights focusing directly onto a patio are rarely the best solution. Layers of indirect lighting, highlights and accents usually deliver more impressive effects. Another thing to avoid is overlapping pools of light and mounting fixtures too close to one another.