Illuminating your water feature

Water features can be brought to life at night by simply adding lights either within the water feature or externally, illuminating a water feature.

Adding lights within your water feature:

Many water features already come with low voltage lights built in. The majority of lights added to water features are now LED’s which are energy efficient, longer lasting and cheaper to run. Several water features in our range though still do use halogen style lights which let off a warmer glow and are more suiting to traditional garden water features.

This image shows an example of a LED light which can be used within a water feature.

This image shows an example of a halogen light which can be used within a water feature.

If you have a water feature and are wanting to add LED’s the first thing to consider is how they will be powered. If you have an off shoot from a low voltage pump they can simply plug into this, if not then you will need to ensure you purchase all the relevant bits to get the lights up and working.

You will need:

• Light string
• A splitter if adding more than one light to the water feature
• Extension cable – to run back to the power unit
• Low voltage transformer – to power the lights.

When trying to work out which transformer to buy for the lights ensure you work out the power ratings for the lights. LED’s are normally 1 watt per set, so if your fountain has 3 sets of lights the smallest transformer you could use would be a 3VA. With transformer we always advise to go for one which is larger so for this calculation would suggest using a 5VA transformer with a set of 3 LED’s.  If you run the pump off the same low voltage lead please do consider the rating of the pump (e.g. 10 watts would mean the transformer needed increases to between 15VA-20VA).

Lighting up your water feature externally

External lighting is another great way to light up your water feature. In order to light up your water feature externally there are two options. Solar Powered lighting is eco friendly and will automatically switch themselves on at night. The solar spot lights are adjustable which is great as you can angle the lights onto your water feature. This will have a great effect at night.

The images show solar spot lights which can be used to light up your water feature externally.

Mains powered lights are another option and can easily be installed to externally light your water feature. The LED’s are long lasting and can be used both in and out of the water. This will make it easier to create the effect that you are looking for with the lighting. The triple pack of LED lights shown below also have coloured lenses which will add something different to your feature. Alternatively you can just have the lights white if you prefer.

This image shows a triple pack of LED spot lights.