Lighting Basics
Lighting can be a key element in the ambiance of your poolside paradise. Illuminating the pool at night can provide an ambiance as well as safety for your pool area. Lighting can set the mood as well as extend your swim time.
Pool lighting used to be simple when your only choice was white and how many did you want? Now there are a multitude of lighting options for in and around the pool. Pools being built today have tanning ledges, water features, vanishing edges, and more where lighting can set the mood and ambiance.
Jandy has an excellent Lighting Design Guide using nicheless LED lights .
Lighting Technologies
Pool light technologies has evolved over the years. Incandescent lights, halogen lights, fiber optic lights from a central light hub, LED lights, have all been used in pools.
In 2023 the U.S. Department of Energy released its Energy Conservation Standards for General Service Lamps, written to manage the amount of energy expended on lights in various applications and industries. Similar to the DOE rule for variable-speed pool and spa pumps, this new regulation is performance-oriented. It applies to all lamps that emit between 310 and 3,300 lumens. If a light falls under that category, it must emit at least 45 lumens per watt. Distributors and retailers were prohibited from selling non-compliant lights beginning March 1, 2023.
Many incandescent and halogen lights are impacted by this ruling, because they don’t typically fall within that range. This impacts the replacement of lights on existing pools. You may need to swap out existing fixtures with others that are compatible with the niche, unless a compliant bulb is available that is compatible with the fixture. In some cases you can find bulbs out there that can retrofit into the incandescent fixture. But, depending on the situation, you may need to pull the light as well.
This is why you find LED lights being offered, with few other alternatives, by the major pool equipment manufacturers in spite of their cost and reliability issues.
Pentair still sells their white incandescent Amerilite in 120 volt 400 watt and 500 watt models. The Pentair website says "Due to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) regulations regarding incandescent lights, the 100W and 300W Amerlite Incandescent Lights are now obsolete and have been removed from this specifications grid."
