Last year, I wrote a post about Solar vs Low-Voltage Landscape Lighting. Today, I’m writing about Wired vs Solar Lamp Post. As with my other article, there are pros and cons with both and I’ll tell you which I prefer.
Solar Lamp Post
The best thing about installing any type of solar landscape lighting is that there are no wires involved. You just remove the items from the package, assemble, if needed, and stick them down into the ground. That’s it. You’re done.
Of course, there’s always a little tab in the battery compartment that you need to pull so that the batteries are connected. But again, it’s all very simple.
The bad thing about solar lamp posts, and any solar lighting altogether, is that you get inconsistent brightness if you have multiple units. On dark cloudy days, the batteries may not charge enough and so the lighting won’t last long.
Over the past year that I’ve had solar landscape lighting in my front yard, it’s been very inconsistent in that some lights are now brighter than others. And, there are a couple that have stopped working altogether so I’ll need to change out the rechargeable batteries.
So, it actually doesn’t look very good now.
Another thing when it came to the solar lamp posts was that the style options were much more limited than wired lamp posts. Also, if the LEDs or any part of the circuitry dies, you’ll need to replace the entire unit.
Wired Lamp Post
When it comes to wired lamp posts or any type of landscape lighting, you’ll find in the long run that they are much better. It’ll be more work to install, but there’s much more pros than cons to this.
I installed low-voltage landscape lighting in my backyard and every night, I get consistent lighting and brightness across all lights. With the low-voltage transformer, I can set an on/off time or use the photo sensor for dusk to dawn operation.
The only con for wired lighting is the initial work or cost to hire someone to wire everything in. In my mind, it’s definitely worth it.
This past weekend, I just installed two lamp posts. I went back and forth on deciding if I should go solar or not as the area I planned to put them in would get all day sun. However, I chose to go with hard wiring the lamp posts and I’m very glad I did.
In the long run, I won’t have to deal with replacing any batteries or having inconsistent brightness between the two lamp posts. With wired lamp posts, if the lights burn out, you just need to replace the light bulbs. You don’t need to replace the entire unit like you would with a solar unit.
So, I suggest for any type of landscape or outdoor lighting, choose wired over solar. I’m actually considering to replace the solar landscape lighting I have in the front yard and installing low-voltage lighting there as well.