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Landscape Lighting Wiring & Installation

We have designed a simple solution to designing and installing a great outdoor lighting system with our 3 step approach:

  1. Highlight Your Features and Landscaping.

  2. Picking Your Fixtures and Power Supply.

  3. Installation and Wiring.

Steps To Installing Your Landscape Lighting System.

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1. Select Location For Your Transformer -  Hopefully there is a logical power outlet location for your Landscape Lighting system. Your transformer should be installed on a GFCI outlet, and should be in a location that is logical for your lighting system. If you are lighting areas in the front and back of your property, a location on the side of the house would be best. You should also try to locate the transformer on the side of your property that will require the least amount of wiring under obstacle such as driveways and walkways. Please avoid using extension cords for your transformer installation.

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2. Plan Your Wiring Requirements - Since we know where are fixtures will be placed we can now measure and plan for the amount of wire we will require for the installation. We recommend using 12 Gauge 2 Conductor Lighting Wire for wiring your Landscape Lighting system. Lights should be connected in parallel with one side of each lamp being connected to the "COM" terminal and the other side to the "12V" terminal. However, since we are dealing with Low Voltage Lighting, the wires from the fixture can be connected to either terminal wire.  

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For our sample Landscape Lighting system we have a power outlet located at the side of the house as indicated. We also know where our fixtures are to be located so we can now measure the amount of wire needed.  

diy landscape lighting wiring example for a sample house

For simplicity sake we will assume we need 200 ft of wire to complete our installation.  Wire generally comes in 100, 250 and 500 ft rolls, and since the wire will be cut at each light and junction you don't need to worry about continuous run length for the roll.  Also, as you did when calculating the size of your power source, you should also be conservative with the amount of wire you will need and account for an additional 10-15% over your calculated needs.  For our sample system we will assume we need 250 ft of wire.  

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3. Wiring Your Landscape Lighting System and Fixtures

Since we are solely focused on Low Voltage LED Landscape Lighting in our DIY tutorial, we will only be focused on Low Voltage systems for the wiring illustrations. For a walkthrough on Landscape Wiring, please see our Wiring Tutorial.​

illustration of landscape Lighting fixtures wired together
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