We are going to be using the pentair architectural color series. Not sure if we should get 1 or 2 of them. We will have color led bubblers and color led on the sheer descent.
How many lights for this pool design
- Thread starter Ricktbaker
- Start date
I would think about putting one were it says 6'6" on the far side of the pool. That way the slope will be lit up.
Another thing I would think about is making the 3' deeper. 3' is almost unusable. It is too shallow to allow a full crawl stroke without scraping your knuckles. Measure to see where 3' sits your body when you are standing and when you are kneeling down.
Make sure all depths are WATER depth. Water depth will be the middle of the skimmer opening. Some people measure depth from bottom of the pool to the underside of the coping. When that is done you lose inches of water depth
Another thing I would think about is making the 3' deeper. 3' is almost unusable. It is too shallow to allow a full crawl stroke without scraping your knuckles. Measure to see where 3' sits your body when you are standing and when you are kneeling down.
Make sure all depths are WATER depth. Water depth will be the middle of the skimmer opening. Some people measure depth from bottom of the pool to the underside of the coping. When that is done you lose inches of water depth
Thanks. That 3 ft depth was before we had put the sun shelf in. Since that is on the shallow side, I'm thinking we will have 3 and a half feet depth for the shallow side where the sun shelf ends
- Jul 21, 2013
- 65,071
- Pool Size
- 35000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
That would have the light shining into the house which you don't want.
The placement of a Color LED light is shown on the left side. That looks like a good place.
Which model light will you be getting? Those lights are pretty powerful and bright.
- Nov 12, 2017
- 12,636
- Pool Size
- 12300
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
Allen beat me to it. DO NOT point lights at your house and/or where you will most likely sit at night to enjoy your pool. The bulbs should be hidden from view as much as possible.
Have the electrician "home-run" every light fixture back to the pad (one wire for each light). Otherwise, a lazy one will string two or all of them together onto one switch. By home-running the fixtures you can string them all together if you wish, or have one or any on their own switch. It gives you all the control options. Maybe one night you want to light it up for a kids party, but another night you want just a hint of light ambiance coming off the water. With a switch on each light, you'll have all the options.
This may or may not impact how the lights integrate with each other, in case you've selected a system where the LEDs work together. Just confirm all those effects will still work whether the lights are wired to one circuit or individual circuits.
Individual switches also solves for light location. Perhaps you just cannot do without one light pointing at your house. OK, but with individual light control, for those times you're enjoying your pool from inside, you can leave off the one "glare-maker."
I'll need to find out on the exact model. It is the newer color architectural series. PB mentioned the same on the placement, so it doesn't shine into the house.
- Jul 21, 2013
- 65,071
- Pool Size
- 35000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
Individual light circuits require a light transformer for each circuit you want to individually control.
How will the light(s) be controlled?
You getting an IntelliCenter?
How will the light(s) be controlled?
You getting an IntelliCenter?
You mentioned one thing here that I wasn't considering. The current location is gong to have the light directly across from our sunshelf. If wr are chilling out there in the evening is that going to be blasting us in the face?
- Jul 21, 2013
- 65,071
- Pool Size
- 35000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
Good question. Not sure which the PB currently has in our quote. I'll need to find out.
- Nov 12, 2017
- 12,636
- Pool Size
- 12300
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
If the lights you're getting can be on one circuit (one transformer) and still be individually controlled by IntelliCenter, that is fantastic. That allows for any combo of lights you might want. But I would still home-run all the fixtures separately, just so the wires are in place underground should you ever switch to some other lighting system someday.
Each light will have its own junction box near it (typically 5-10 feet away, in the landscaping somewhere). This is where the tail of the light is connected to the wires running back to the pad. 120V lights will be one configuration of wires (green, white, black) and low voltage will be some other configuration. I would have wires run from the junction box to the pad so that you can have any type of light, and each run separately to the pad. Wire and conduit are relatively cheap compared to trying to add new wires later, or conduit (which is impossible after the concrete deck goes down). Have a conversation with the builder or directly with the electrician to discuss this possibility. They can advise what is possible.
All I'm suggesting is that you pay a little extra now to have all your options available in the future. Otherwise, you could end up with whatever the electrician feels like doing (typically to minimize his labor and maximize his profit), which will likely work well enough now, but could leave you wanting some day.
I'm projecting, mostly. I have one light, pointing directly at my house and where we sit at night. It's annoying. It's a single 120V 15A GFI circuit, which is fine for the one high-voltage light. But when I moved in, I added home automation circuitry that utilizes that one circuit to run a half dozen other things (fountain, bug zapper, garden lights, bistro lights, etc), all off that one circuit, which sometimes trips when everything is running at once. It would have been so cheap to make the circuit 20 amps, or to run a few extra wires in the conduit, to give me more circuits, more possibilities and flexibility. But now I'm stuck with one I've got.
Think ahead about things you might not even know you'll want. Speaking of which, while the ground is dug up, you can run extra conduit around your yard for other things. I gave you my list (garden lights, etc). Now's the time. You could run some extra drip irrigation circuits. You could run water for extra hose bibs. Boy, what I would give to have a couple hose bibs on the other side of my pool. You could even run some extra empty conduits that surface behind your pool, for who knows what. Later you could pull wires for outdoor speakers, WiFi extenders, video surveillance, and an extra outdoor 120V outlet or two.
Now's the time.
Each light will have its own junction box near it (typically 5-10 feet away, in the landscaping somewhere). This is where the tail of the light is connected to the wires running back to the pad. 120V lights will be one configuration of wires (green, white, black) and low voltage will be some other configuration. I would have wires run from the junction box to the pad so that you can have any type of light, and each run separately to the pad. Wire and conduit are relatively cheap compared to trying to add new wires later, or conduit (which is impossible after the concrete deck goes down). Have a conversation with the builder or directly with the electrician to discuss this possibility. They can advise what is possible.
All I'm suggesting is that you pay a little extra now to have all your options available in the future. Otherwise, you could end up with whatever the electrician feels like doing (typically to minimize his labor and maximize his profit), which will likely work well enough now, but could leave you wanting some day.
I'm projecting, mostly. I have one light, pointing directly at my house and where we sit at night. It's annoying. It's a single 120V 15A GFI circuit, which is fine for the one high-voltage light. But when I moved in, I added home automation circuitry that utilizes that one circuit to run a half dozen other things (fountain, bug zapper, garden lights, bistro lights, etc), all off that one circuit, which sometimes trips when everything is running at once. It would have been so cheap to make the circuit 20 amps, or to run a few extra wires in the conduit, to give me more circuits, more possibilities and flexibility. But now I'm stuck with one I've got.
Think ahead about things you might not even know you'll want. Speaking of which, while the ground is dug up, you can run extra conduit around your yard for other things. I gave you my list (garden lights, etc). Now's the time. You could run some extra drip irrigation circuits. You could run water for extra hose bibs. Boy, what I would give to have a couple hose bibs on the other side of my pool. You could even run some extra empty conduits that surface behind your pool, for who knows what. Later you could pull wires for outdoor speakers, WiFi extenders, video surveillance, and an extra outdoor 120V outlet or two.
Now's the time.
Last edited:
- Nov 12, 2017
- 12,636
- Pool Size
- 12300
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
Probably. But if your setup allows you to turn off that one light individually, that might solve for that. It's tricky. You can't allow people in the pool at night unless the bottom is lit well enough so that you could easily see someone in distress underwater. So there is a minimum lighting threshold you must meet. But if you're not swimming, and enjoying the ambiance of a lit pool while you sit around it, or from inside the house, then you can fudge this minimum threshold to your liking, if your lighting wiring and controls allow it.
The reality is, you won't know what you like and don't like about your lighting system, and your yard's electrical system, until it's pretty much too late to do anything about it. So I'm just offering some things to think through to allow you a chance to minimize the "dang it, I wish I had thought of that" regrets.
- Jul 21, 2013
- 65,071
- Pool Size
- 35000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
That cannot be done and follow the NEC.
Lights individually controlled need to be on individual electrical circuits.
- Nov 12, 2017
- 12,636
- Pool Size
- 12300
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-40
I misread/misunderstood your post.
My only real advice was to home-run each light fixture. How they get connected and controlled can be configured later (and to code) and be changed in the future should the need arise. I'm just encouraging the OP to instruct the electrician not to daisy-chain the j-boxes together out in the yard.
We have the MicroBrite multi-color lights in our new pool. We have a full bench on one side and two lights are just under the bench (facing away from the bench) and we have one at the top step aimed away from our house. The only downside with the multi-color is they are not dimmable and you can't select a warm white which would be nice as it would match the rest of our landscape lighting.
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