If your Austin home has an older outdoor lighting system — installed before 2015 or so — there’s a strong chance it’s running on halogen lamps. When those systems were installed, halogen was the standard for landscape lighting. But LED technology has advanced to the point where there’s simply no compelling reason to stay on halogen, and several compelling reasons to upgrade. Here’s what you need to know.
Energy Consumption: A Major Difference
A typical halogen landscape lighting lamp uses 20–35 watts. An LED replacement delivering the same or better light output uses 4–7 watts. Over the course of a year in Austin — where landscape lights run roughly 8–10 hours per night — that difference adds up to significant savings on your electricity bill. A system with 20 halogen fixtures could easily cost $300–$500 per year to run. The same system on LED costs $50–$100.
Lamp Life: No Contest
Halogen landscape lamps typically last 2,000–3,000 hours — about 6–10 months of nightly use before they need replacement. Quality LED landscape lamps are rated for 50,000 hours or more — meaning you might go 15+ years without ever replacing a bulb. In Austin’s heat, halogen lamps often fail even faster than their rated life. LED lamps handle heat much better.
Light Quality: Modern LED is Excellent
Early LED landscape lighting had a cold, bluish quality that many homeowners disliked. Today’s LED lamps come in the same warm color temperatures that made halogen popular — typically 2700K to 3000K, which produces the warm, golden light that makes landscapes look inviting rather than clinical. We carefully select LED lamps that provide excellent color rendering and the right color temperature for each application in your design.
Ready to Retrofit Your Austin System?
In many cases, we can retrofit an existing halogen system with LED lamps without replacing the fixtures — especially if you have quality brass or copper fixtures. This makes LED retrofitting one of the best-value improvements a homeowner with an existing system can make. Learn more on our Residential Services page or call 281-570-7552.