Number of lights

[melonhead1382]

I've been lurking for about a month or so doing research for my first pool and this is my first post. I have a design I like and waiting on the last few quotes from the pool builders but I've been doing more research on the lights and comtemplating the number of lights to go with now.

My pool will be 32 x 17 along with a spa and parrallel with my house. It seems all documentation points to having the lights face away from the house which is fine. I'm going to have the back of the pool that is facing the house raised with 2 or 3 sheer decents. The pool builder recommended lights under each sheer decent which I like but those lights will be facing the house. They use Jandy lights and I see on Jandy's website one of the options they recommend is building a bump out with the lights facing up which I also like. I really like the nicheless lights which says to have one light every 8 feet. So that would put me at 4 lights facing away from the house, 2 or 3 more under the sheer decents, one in the cabo shelf and one in the spa. With this setup, what wattage should all of the lights be? I want it to pop at night when the lights are on but I don't want to be blinded either. What's a good middle ground?

 

[Chasarms]

FWIW, I have two 50w Hayward halogen lights in my 18x38 pool, and they fully and brightly light the whole pool.

 

[melonhead1382]

FWIW, I have two 50w Hayward halogen lights in my 18x38 pool, and they fully and brightly light the whole pool.

The halogens are brighter than LED's right? So I would need more LED's wouldn't I?

 

[Dirk]

Two things to consider.

1. It's not necessarily about facing the lights away from the house. It's facing them away from where you will most often be enjoying your pool at night. Face them away from where you will most often be looking at your pool. That might be your house. But it might be some sitting area that is not between your house and pool. Give this some thought before placing your lights.

2. And if I was designing my pool from scratch, I'd ask the contractor to run wire from each light independently to the switch box (or whatever turns the lights on and off). Wire is cheap. I'd want the option to control each light individually. I might end up putting them all on the same switch, but I also might want to have two switches, or more, so that I could turn some number of lights on without having to turn all of them on. And maybe that's the solution for light placement, too. The two lights that face the house on one switch, the two that face away on another. That gives you the. choice of which way to blast the light, or both ways when you want to.

I have a Pentair 5G. I'm not crazy about it, and it's not particularly reliable (I'm on my second one, which is starting to fail). I digress. What I like about the 5G is that I can select the color, and even initiate a "light show" of changing colors. This allows me to have a very bright pool, or one that is much more subtle. Sometimes I want to see all the kids clearly, with the white light, and other times I want to swim by myself in a very subdued light (like red). Or just get some ambiance while sitting by the pool as the light fades from green to blue to purple. It's nice to have the options. Like being able to turn on all the lights when I'd want to, or just one or two when I'm just sitting near the pool and don't need to land a helicopter in my yard!!

Now's the time to plan for all the different ways you might use your pool and yard and lights. Have fun with it! Give yourself some room to change your mind. Add some extra wires if that's what it takes. Once the concrete goes in, that's it.

 

[Chasarms]

The halogens are brighter than LED's right? So I would need more LED's wouldn't I?

Not necessarily. LEDs typically are rated with an equivalent rating. So you may see a 15W LED bulb that states it is equivalent to 50w conventional bulb.

The actual light that is output by the bulb is measured in lumens. If you can get that rating from the bulb, you'll have a more apples to apples comparison.

 

[melonhead1382]

Thanks guys!