by
Jeff Atkins
on July 11, 2022Let's bring some brightness around your home or business! So let's jump in to a blog about what gauge wire is the best for landscape lighting.
Whether your wiring for LED or surrounding outdoor light fixtures this quick and simple guide will show you what cable to select.
There's a couple different options here when it comes to landscape wiring. Luckily we have some of the most popular options in stock to help you.
The most popular gauge sizes you can find are 12/2 landscape wire, 14/2 landscape wire and 16/2 landscape wire.
When you see these numbers in front the cable this tells you the size of the conductors inside the cable. Each of these sizes performs well for different lengths and watts your need for you certain install.
Let's keep this article short and sweet because we're done the hard work for you. Here's a simple landscape wire AWG size chart you can see to figure out with cable is best for you.
Simply find the length of your cable run and the watts you need for your lighting system. This will give you the AWG size to pick.
The length in this chart goes up to 360 feet and the Watts up to 200. This gives you great coverage for majority of your installations. Most cable runs for outdoor landscape lighting is going to fall in to the 12, 14 or 16 AWG category.
Since we covered an overview of landscape wire let's now get in to some more common question in regards to landscape wiring:
If we take a look at the above chart 14AWG landscape wire is recommended up to 100ft using up tp 90 Watts.
The great thing about landscape wire is that you don't necessarily have to bury it. The cables jacket rating gives it the ability to perform in conditions such as sun and rain. If you're landscape wire run require some exposure that is fine. We do recommend protecting your cable as much as you can whether that is in conduit or under awnings. Most landscape wire is buried out of sight.
Low voltage landscape wiring is rated for direct burial use so it does not need to be put in to conduit. We do recommend protecting your cables when you can. You can use conduit in the ground with landscape wire to protect it and also give you the ability to re run wire at a later time if you need to.
Let's look to the National Electrical Code NEC 300.5 for some numbers here.
For most location in and around your home you want to bury at a minimum of 6 inches.
In a trench below 2 inches you want to bury landscape wire 6 inches.
For more labor intensive areas you are going to see other requirements:
Under streets, highways, roads, alleys, driveways and parking lots you want a minimum of 24 inches.
One and two family dwelling driveways and outdoor parking areas, used only for dwelling related purposed you want to bury 18 inches.
It is important to remember that minimum cover and minimum trench depth are not the same. According to note 1 under the table, cover is defined as the shortest distance in inches between a point on the top surface of any direct-buried conductor, cable, conduit, or other raceway and the top surface of finished grade, concrete, or similar cover. In order to get the proper cover over the top of the wiring method, the overall depth of the trench will need to be deeper than the minimum cover requirements.
Note these numbers are for informational purposes only.
I hope you were able to find a lot of this information useful!
You can shop here for our low voltage landscape wire.
Happy installing !
A transformer or two is an absolute necessity when it comes to low-voltage landscape lighting. These transformers are used to step down the 120 Volts coming from your house to 12 Volts for your outdoor lights. You will also need 100 feet or more of landscape wire and a square-blade shovel.
When choosing landscape lighting transformers, be sure to consider the transformer's capacity. It must be able to handle the total wattage of your fixtures. For example, if all of your fixtures use a total of 200 Watts, then you need a transformer with a maximum output of 200 Watts or more. If you think you might add more lights in the future then choose a transformer with a maximum wattage that's 100 to 200 Watts higher than you currently need.
While LED lights are becoming a more popular choice for this kind of project, if you decide to go with traditional halogen lighting then you will need a transformer with a maximum wattage of 20% more than your total wattage. That means the transformer should never be loaded with more than 80% capacity of its rated max wattage. This is called derating and helps to account for inefficiencies in the transformers.
Wiring or electrical cable for low voltage landscape lighting comes in several numerical gauges or sizes. A lower number means the wire is thicker and has a greater capacity to carry the power current for longer distances. Common wires for landscape lighting systems are 10-, 12-, 14-, or 16-gauge wires. We recommend 12-gauge or 10-gauge wire for long distances to prevent voltage drop. The further you get from the transformer and its power supply, the more resistance occurs in the circuit which causes the voltage to decrease.
Lighting Tip: You can run 12-gauge about 100 feet without voltage drop issues as long as the total wattage of the fixtures on the wire is 100 Watts or less.
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