Solar Deck Lighting

We bought some this past weekend at Home Depot and I'm in love! It is dark, dark out here in the country. We're usually home in the evenings, but on those rare nights when we get out, our only option to be able to see outside when we get home is leaving the huge flood lights burning. Not only is that bad for the environment, but also for our electric bill. My husband also doesn't like the idea of anyone who happens to pass our house to be able to see it fully illuminated from the road.

Landscaping lights were my idea, just as they were back in the spring in 1990 when we were dressing up the suburban yard of our first house. These early electric lights had to have cords, which had to be maticulously hidden in border tubing or under the ground. We worked an entire weekend installing them.

Those lights, illumniating the walk and pointing toward the house added an ambiance to our landscaping, but they didn't last but a couple of years. For reasons unknown, they didn't come on at dusk one night and that was the end of that. I don't know squat about electrical and my husband wasn't concerned enough to give up another weekend to figure it out.

My new solar lights require one rechargeable solar battery each. I installed those and put the lamps outside for a full day. My husband screwed them all onto the deck in about an hour.

Voila! They look great and I know how to replace them if they don't work. If they perform as advertised, we should only have to replace the batteries once a year. The bulbs should last several.

My environmentally-friendly-friend in Pennsylvania who has the hybrid car calls it the best thing since sliced bread. My other friend in Seattle says they had some that didn't work too well.

Ok, so we're talking about Seattle, where they're lucky to have 4-5 hours of sunlight a week, not near enough for the required daily charging.

But she could have bought them before technology improved only recently.

To read more on solar deck lighting:
http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/reviews/solar-lights.html