How to choose the right lighting for your alfresco

If your building or have built a new home in the past 5 years its more than likely that you will have an outdoor room or alfresco area attached to your house. Australians love the outdoors, but with our ever changing weather conditions having a space that protects us from the elements allows us to enjoy our homes and gardens that much more.

So when it comes to lighting your Outdoor room what are your options? Let us break it down for you to what's available and how to best use them.

Downlights

Recessed downlights are commonly used on gyprock ceilings to keep the consistency with the interior of the home. Clean and practical, choose fittings  like our Apex or Titanium downlights that can be dimmed to create a lovely ambience which is really important in these more relaxing areas of your home. 

Surface mounted downlights are great for alfresco areas, BBQ areas and pergolas where lighting can not be recessed like on beams or facias. Fittings like our new 7W Onyx (pictured below) allow the body of the fitting to be angled and provide better light into areas with raked ceilings or on the sides of beams. Downlights with a fixed canister (pictured on the left) are handy for lighting where ceiling are solid timber on concrete - areas where cabling has been wired for but the light cannot actually be recessed in to. These are a popular choice to due to the improved energy efficiency as you don't need to disturb the insulation in the roof. 

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Spotlights

Spotlights I find can cover quite a broad range of light fittings. Basically if its not a flood light and it creates “a spot of light” it can be called a spotlight. Spotlights are very commonly used in outdoor rooms, pergolas, balinese huts, over BBQ areas and around alfresco areas due to their size and practicality. Our two favourite fittings for these applications are our Onyx 7W adjustable spotlight and our Axis 7W adjustable spotlight. They both offer great light output, great modern look and easy installation, just that the Axis is a bit of a wider spot and a bit of bigger fitting overall. *Ask us about the various options available in the Axis - truely an awesome fitting!
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Floodlights

LED flood lights all look pretty much the same, but the difference comes into play through the quality of the LED chip used, the quality of the driver inside the fitting, and the overall quality of the materials used to manufacture the light. Depending on the area trying to be lit, flood lights are better off kept out of alfresco areas unless the space is very high or it is being used as reflected light. By this we mean aiming the fitting upwards and washing the light up onto the ceiling so that the light is “reflected” off the surface to give a general wash of light without any glare.
For homes looking to create reflected light in an entertaining area with a colourbond or by-rock ceiling try our Vespa LED wall light.

Wall Lights

Wall lights are a great addition into alfresco areas as they provide indirect lighting that adds ambiance into a space. Most people are aware of the typical cylindrical  "up/down" wall lights but there are some other great alternatives that we offer that compliment a range of both new and classic exteriors. The best way to use wall lights is to have them as a secondary light source in your alfresco area. We always try to design rooms with some direct overhead lighting that can be turned on/off separately to the wall lights and garden lights. This flexibility can be easily created with the use of remote controls or if using an electrician switched back into the home.

Hopefully that gives you a bit of an insight as to the types of lights out there. For further assistance don't hesitate to contact us to get personalised help from Troy or myself.

Love your outdoors!
​Andrea Merchant