Both 12v and 240v garden lights have advantages and disadvantages depending on what you need from your lighting set up. As you’d imagine, areas with more space will often require larger set ups and more likely benefit from 240v outdoor lights, whilst smaller environments are ably fulfilled with 12v. In this blog, we’ll help you make the right choice, going through advantages and disadvantages for both, helping to provide you with all the information you need to make the right decisions for your necessities.
12v Outdoor Lights Advantages
Safety: 12v lights provide more safety because they don’t offer any chance of shock as they’re not connected to the mains. This means they’re safer for those more vulnerable people including pets and children.
Flexibility: Because 12v lights don’t need to comply with the same wide range of modern-day electrical fitting and installation standards as mains voltage lighting, it means there’s much more room for flexibility of placement in your outdoor space.
Costs: Using 12v lights means you won’t incur the costs that you can have with mains voltage lights. These often include the costs for the armoured cable, connection boxes, waterproof housings and the hiring of a qualified electrician for safe installation. Furthermore, depending on the design there can be additional costs with mains voltage lighting too!
240v Outdoor Lights Advantages
Electricians: mains voltage systems are familiar to electricians and in particular wall and ceiling lights, so they can install those systems easily. This is also because there is no need for transformers, and you don’t need to worry too much about voltage drops as you do with 12v lights.
Trees: In addition to the advantages above, any tree lighting needs to be 240v metal halide lights so if that’s what you require for your outdoor space, then these are the only lights that can be used.
Can 12v and 240v lights be used together?
12v and 240v lights can be used together, in which a transformer us used with a junction box. An example could be that 240v GU10 lamps aren’t as bright as 12v MR16 lamps but they have a warmer quality to them, which adhere to the requirements you’re looking for more than the sharp effect of low voltage lighting. The other side of that could be you want that crispness to compliment and bring out the colours of foliage.
Whichever option you require, know at Lighting for Gardens we have a vast range of options to choose from for a variety of specifications and aesthetics with everything from 12v spike spotlights and 240v bollard lights to 12v LED floodlights and 240 tree-mount spotlights.