Garden and outdoor lighting

Garden and outdoor lighting in Herne Bay

Outdoor lighting in Herne Bay has two jobs: making steps, paths and entrances safe to use after dark, and letting you enjoy a deck or garden once the sun has gone down over the harbour. We design and wire both, with fittings that suit a site close to the sea and a house that may be over a hundred years old.

Send an enquiry 021 156 4005

A timber deck with outdoor sofas beside a house with glass doors, garden steps and a small cabin among trees behind

Decks, terraces and outdoor rooms

Herne Bay's generous sections, many of them on the slopes that run down towards the water, often have a deck, a terrace or a lawn that gets used well into the evening in summer. Lighting those spaces well is less about brightness and more about placement. Low lights along the edge of a deck, a wall light by the door, a soft wash across a feature tree and a couple of outdoor power points for a heater or a speaker can turn a dark patch of timber into a room.

The cabling for outdoor lighting has to be planned as carefully as the fittings, because it runs through gardens, under paving or along the outside of the house. If you are rebuilding a deck or landscaping, put the cables in before the boards and pavers go down. If the house itself is due for new wiring, adding the outdoor circuits to a rewire of the house is the tidiest way to do it.

Where outdoor light matters most

Steps and paths

On a sloping section, the route from the street to the front door can include several flights of steps. Step lights and low path lights show every edge without glaring in your eyes.

Entrances and verandahs

A good light at the door helps you find your keys and see who is calling, and a verandah light can be chosen to suit the period of the house.

Gardens and trees

Spike lights and uplights give planting and trees some shape at night, on their own switch or a timer.

Security lighting

Sensor lights over driveways and side paths are a simple deterrent, and they can work alongside alarms and security cameras.

Fittings that cope with salt air

Herne Bay sits on the shore of the Waitemata Harbour, and salt carried on the wind is hard on anything metal that lives outdoors. Energy efficiency agency EECA's installation guidance, for example, asks for corrosion protection on heat pump units in coastal areas. Outdoor light fittings face the same conditions, so we choose fittings rated for outdoor use, check what the manufacturer says about coastal sites, and seal the connections so moisture stays out of them.

Converting old outdoor lights to LED has its own catch. As EECA's advice on LED lighting points out, LED bulbs should not go into fully enclosed fittings, such as some porch lights, because they need ventilation and can fail early if they get too hot. Often the better answer is a fitting designed for LED from the start, which also tends to use less power and last longer than the bulb it replaces.

Lighting the front of a character house

Where a house is in the Unitary Plan's special character overlay, the street front is the part the plan cares most about: the verandah, the front garden, the path and the low fence or wall that keeps the house open to the street. Lighting the front of a villa well means fittings that suit its period and finishes, and cabling that is hidden rather than clipped across weatherboards. Most outdoor lighting is a small addition, but if a plan involves new structures or visible changes to the street face of the house, it is worth checking with Auckland Council first. Tell us about your garden and house and we can talk through the options.

Outdoor lighting questions

Can I install garden lights myself?

Some plug-in, low-voltage garden kits are designed for owners to set up. Anything wired into the house's fixed wiring, such as a new outdoor circuit, a wall light or an outdoor power point, is best left to a licensed electrician, and you should receive a Certificate of Compliance for it.

Can outdoor lights be on a timer or a sensor?

Yes. Garden and feature lights can run on a timer or a light sensor so they come on at dusk, and path or driveway lights can use motion sensors so they only light up when someone is there.

What colour of light works best outside?

Warm white is the usual choice around a house and garden because it looks natural on timber, planting and painted weatherboards.

Are LED fittings worth it outside?

For lights that stay on for hours each evening, usually. EECA says LED bulbs use up to 85 per cent less electricity than incandescent or halogen bulbs and last around 30,000 hours, against about 2,000 hours for an incandescent bulb.

Can you add an outdoor power point on the deck?

Yes. We fit a weatherproof outlet on a circuit with RCD protection, and it can usually go in at the same time as the deck lighting.

Light up the garden

Call 021 156 4005 or describe your deck, steps or garden in the form below, and we will get back to you.

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Call 021 156 4005 at any hour of the day or night, or leave the details below and we will get back to you.

021 156 4005

Auckland
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