Path Lights for the Garden, no electricity, how to install

solar path light

It is pitch black out here at night. Many nights you will find a magnificent star strewn sky overhead, or a spectacular humongous orange moon rising as the night drops to cobalt. Other nights, come home after dark, and you may not be able to find the house.  Even if you could find it, you might break your leg roaming around in the dark before reaching the door. It can be scary when bringing out the garbage or returning from a neighbor's. For this problem we chose the lazy man solution.

solar light for walkways

The lazy man solution has been tried before, but with disappointing results. The solar lights we purchased last time lit up perfectly, but were defenseless against the relentless winds of the Chesapeake.  They blew away, or blew across the yard sustaining fatal injury. The bodies were shattered or crushed at impact while the solar light continued to glow. Not exactly a desirable result. Our new set of solar lights are a heftier construction. They also have a heftier price tag, but so far they seem to be worth it. Regular price $80 a set, purchased on sale for $60 a set. This set has a metal body, though the most vulnerable part of the lamp, the point at the bottom, is not made of metal. It is made of plastic. The globe is glass which is a good diffuser, so they throw a nice diffuse star like light onto the ground. So far so good. The bodies are holding up, and the lamps are casting a nice circle of light to guide foot traffic. These lamps are never going to do much more than that, but that was all we wanted....safe passage in the dark.

       It turns out that the number one rule of solar lighting is placement of the solar collector. You could put a hundred of these out there and not get one lumen of light if they are all under trees, even when there are no leaves on the trees. This was gleaned from experience. Mr attempted installing them in a particularly attractive patterned run. He didn't get the nothing overhead requirements of solar lights. Experience has taught me that directing the solar collector at the path of the sun is not effective for solar collecting. One must be a bit more generic and tilt the charger up towards the sky to gather ambient light, not just the direct moving light of the sun. In everyday parlance this translates into making sure there is clear sky over them, not a tree, not a roof, not a house shadow. They must be far enough from the house shadow to be able to collect light all day.. The north side of the house can be tricky and you will have to experiment with their locations and move them to suit the light landing on your property, not just install them where they look good or make sense.

solar collector must be clear overhead in order to charge

Another interesting aspect of these lamps is the look of the light that they cast. The lens, or "globe" on the lamp is crystalline in design. It has many facets that surround the "bulb" in the center of the lamp and these facets break up and diffuse the light creating a very pretty segmented light on the ground around the lamps. I like it.  It could be an acquired taste, but it is pleasant enough, and I love that I don't have to pay for electricity. There will be days we don't get light because of cloud cover, but in this part of the country we should have enough light most of the year to justify the cost. Lets hope they last a few years or they will not be worth the sixty dollar investment.