Landscape lighting in St. Louis: LED or Halogen?

What’s the Brighter Idea in Landscape Lighting?  LED or Halogen?


There’s a battle going on for the hearts and wallets of today’s landscape lighting contractors and their customers in the St. Louis area.  It’s a war between the forces of light… and, well, some more forces of light.
You see, there are no “forces of darkness” here; just two different lighting technologies, each of which have their strengths and weaknesses. Let’s take a look at the bright new kid on the block, first: LED (or Light Emitting Diode) landscape lighting.  LED lighting uses less power and each bulb potentially lasts up to 10 times longer (40,000 hours vs 4,000 hours) than incandescent lighting, which in landscaping, usually means halogen bulbs. Their efficiency and long life make LED lighting a superb “green” solution.
What are the “pros” of LED lighting in the eyes of the landscape lighting “pros”?
1.    No need to change the bulbs/lamps every 1-2 years as is the case with halogen.
2.   Due to the lower wattage, you can use a smaller transformer and your customer will save
      money.
3.   Also due to the lower wattage, you will have less voltage loss, so you can use thinner cable
      and have easier layouts (wire in series/daisy chain, etc.)
4.  Your customers (and you) can feel good about using a “green” energy-saving technology.
    Where there are no “cons,” per se, regarding LED lighting, there are some realities worth considering:
1.   With most LED outdoor lights you will get lower lumens (actual illumination) relative to halogen. For example, a 35-watt halogen outputs 2100 lumens and a quality three-watt LED outputs approximately 300 lumens. This puts them on the low end of lumen output needed for quality landscape lighting and equivalent to about a 15-watt halogen in regards to their actual light output.
2.   Many/most LEDs do not mention the specifications that matter—lumens (actual light output), and color temperature (color of the light).  They tend to mention their wattage (the energy they consume) which has nothing to do with the amount of light they produce.
3.  LED bulbs are more expensive than halogen bulbs.

However, there is one more LED “pro” that may soon make these apparent drawbacks moot:  the technology is improving exponentially every day. LED prices are dropping, lumens (a measure of brightness) increasing and color temperatures are getting warmer. Even newer LED technologies are emerging which enable higher output with less heat (i.e. longer life/more reliable).  Many say that LED technology is almost advanced enough for everyday applications.
So what recommendation does a landscape lighting contractor make to his customer? It depends!
 
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