Deck lights have been around for some years now and are a great enhancement to any decked area, but recently with the growth of all kinds of solar landscape lighting it’s been possible to buy solar powered deck lights. So are they up to the job?
The first thing you will notice about a solar deck light is that is quite large in comparison to most regular 12v LED deck lights and that’s because most of the surface area is needed for the solar cells; only a small part is the actual light itself. But that’s not really an issue; larger lighting features set into a deck can look rather attractive.
Fitting a solar deck light is little different to normal; simply drill a hole of the appropriate diameter and push it home. Obviously you don’t have to mess about with cables under the deck and lift boards to get at anything, but you will soon enough discover a down side to solar deck lights which is that, unlike their conventionally powered cousins, once fitted they don’t stay there forever.
Solar garden lights rely on rechargeable batteries and these can only be recharged a finite number of times. Once the battery is beyond its useful life you need to replace it. This means prising the deck light out of its hole (which can sometimes be a struggle if the wood has expanded) and getting at the battery compartment which for obvious reasons is well sealed and secured, usually with a bunch of fiddly screws that might or might not have seized up over time.
But that’s not the real issue at stake with solar deck lighting. When it comes down to it, even the best units won’t be as bright and sparkly as normal low voltage electric ones and they won’t last as well either. That’s assuming they worked well in the first place since many are manufactured using less than quality components, which in the world of LEDs and photovoltaic cells means bad news. So are they worth it?
Since decking is pretty easy to work with in terms of access and concealing cabling then solar deck lights would have to bring something to the party other than being slightly simpler to install. Also given reliability and maintenance issues (batteries, remember?) it would seem that for now the better option where deck lighting is concerned is to invest in a transformer and spend the time laying cables.
If however you’re still attracted to the idea of solar deck lights then be sure to purchase them from a reputable garden or DIY store where you can always return them if need be; the fact is that businesses like that do not want to spend their time dealing with returned goods and disappointed customers, so they tend to stock quality products in the first place.
