Solar Yard Lights that Add Design and Functionality to your Property

Using solar yard lights is a clean, easy, environmentally friendly way to light up your backyard.  They improve the functionality of your backyard by allowing you to entertain guests outside late into warm summer nights.  They also allow you to enjoy the look and feel of the yard you spent so much time maintaining long after the sun goes down.  Solar powered yard lights can also add to the attractiveness of your home and change the look of your backyard, improving your property value along the way.  They can also be used as a security measure to keep unwanted people or animals out of your yard at night.

Advantages of Solar Powered Yard Lights

Solar lights for yards have several advantages over regular lights wired to your home’s power. First, the only costs you incur are startup costs. After you have installed the system, there is no need for any additional input. Most solar lights are manufactured with LED lights now, meaning the not even the lights need replaced. Depending on what setup you use, solar lights are much easier to install as well. There is no need for an electrician to come to your house and run wires or buy a low power transformer. Many times all that is required is that you place the light into the desired place in the ground and forget about it. The light will turn on and off and charge the battery by itself adding useful garden light to your home.

The only disadvantage of solar lights is that is may be difficult to place them in areas or yards that receive a large amount of shade. They will probably still work, but the batteries won’t be able to charge up enough for the light to work the entire night.

Setting Up Solar Yard Lights

There are two different ways you can setup your outdoor solar lighting system. You can either buy individual lights with solar panels on each of them or have a system with a solar panel and wires connecting all the lights to the main panel. Each has its pluses and minuses. With individual solar panels on lights, installation is much easier. All you need to do is find out where to put the light, place it there and you’re done.

A garden lighting system built around a central solar panel is both more expensive and complicated to install, but it does come with some benefits. You will have a larger choice of available lights because they do not need to be manufactured with a place to put a solar panel. You will also have more control of where you place your lights. If there’s areas of your yard that are almost always shady, it may be nearly impossible to place a light with a small solar panel on it there. But with a central panel, you can put you can put the panel in the area of your property you get the most sun and then place your lights anywhere you want, not worrying about whether they get light or not. You could even place the solar panel on your roof for maximum light exposure.

Solar yard lighting works through the use of a solar panel, also known as a photovoltaic cell.  The solar panel is made up of semiconductors, mostly silicon, which absorb sunlight.  When the light is absorbed, electrons get knocked loose from the semiconductor and this forms and electrical charge.  This electrical charge is then used to charge a set of batteries somewhere in the light and store the sun’s energy.  When the sun goes down, a light sensor on the light trips a switch and the LED bulb uses the energy from the batteries to power itself throughout the night.  LEDs use relatively low amounts of power, so they are incredibly easy to power by solar methods.

Decorative solar yard lights are a great option for lighting up your property. They give your yard both increased aesthetic value and functionality. The lights are also available at almost any home improvement or garden light store and have really come down in cost in recent years with new advances in technology. With such a cheap, easy to install and maintain way of brightening up your lawn that uses a green power source available, what’s stopping your from installing them?