Electrics for garden lighting?

[Fleety]

Hi there,

I'd like to wire up my garden so I can have garden lights and possibly a water feature. However, I've no idea where to start with this! Do I need an extension cable from an internal socket? (My nearest socket is in my bedroom, which backs onto the garden). Does the external wire need special casing or trunking, to protect it from knawing animals and the weather?! Where would the external cable run to?

I appreciate I need an electrician for this job, but would like to have a good idea first as to what should be done, so I know a little bit what I'm talking about!

Many thanks,
Caroline

 

[La Poste]

Yeah but what the guy wants is colour adjusted lights.
How will remote controlled sockets achieve this?
You can't adjust the lighting levels from the sockets, they have no dimmable qualities they sound Ok for a simple on/off function but that's about it.

I was hoping to get all arty on the bloke, you know create a nice atmosphere in his garden.

The sockets sound great for switching things on like water features or simply switching lights on and off but to mix colours from the comfort of his arm chair, it's got to cost a few quid right?

 

[Engineer54]

Yeah but what the guy wants is colour adjusted lights.
How will remote controlled sockets achieve this?
You can't adjust the lighting levels from the sockets, they have no dimmable qualities they sound Ok for a simple on/off function but that's about it.

I was hoping to get all arty on the bloke, you know create a nice atmosphere in his garden.

Fine, ....if he has the money to throw at one of these over priced panels, ...go for it!!
Personally as i stated above, i'd rather make my own gizmo box. I'd probably enjoy the time spent knocking it up as well!!! lol!!!

 

[La Poste]

Well I guess another way would be to run a multi core SWA cable from the house, have three lines connected to dimmers at the house end where the guy could mix the lights from.
The SWA then terminates at the garden end at remote controlled sockets which then feed transformers and a low voltage lighting system.

He could adjust the levels at the house with the dimmers and then have on/off functions with his remote to the sockets while he sits in his chair.

The lights would not be LED's they would be low voltage halogen in different colours.

That would work out cheaper but a bit more digging would be involved.

I did an A level in electronics many moons ago but I wouldn't feel confident enough to make a remote controlled electronic gizmo to do all this myself.

 

[haj]

Similar system is Homeasy

 

[tombrooker84]

Byron are the manufacturers of home easy. Not too sure on the byron unit, I've always used the wise controls because of the range, but hey are capable of switching 10 amps per channel total of 40 amps, so thats a fair amount of lights!