Exterior Spot and flood lights for large yard

new to the site. fished around a little and tons of knowledge here I'm hoping to leverage.

My situation I have a house in the country with a large yard in the back. I have 4 old apple trees in my yard that the deer like to frequent and we really enjoy watching them. one tree is ~ 75' from the house while a few of the others are 100-120'. I currently have what I would consider 3 standard flood light fixtures from Lowes, 2 bulbs for each fixture and am running 75 -100 watts incandescent bulbs. While at Lowes the other day I saw this cool LED 3 head flood light fixture and it stated is was close to 3000 lumens. I figure WOW this should really light up the back yard. Haaaa, what a POS. it was VERY bright out to 30-40', but faded fast after that. I was then considering some higher power halogen lights, but was concerned with operating costs. We usually run 2-3 light fixtures 3-4 hours per day. I like to concept of LED and low power consumption. However, I need something that projects more. I think a combination of flood and projection should do the trick, but am not exactly sure what to go with. I then got to researching HID, PAR's etc. and my head spun. that said, can you guys give me some input for my application.

I should also state, my yard tapers up hill. one fixture is located at ~10' off the ground, but with the taper is probably parallel with the area I'm trying to light. I'd assume a projection bulb would be better suited there. the other 2 fixtures are under to soffits and are location at about 15'-20' higher than subject area.

any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

I'd do nothing.

Continue with your 75-100 W incandescent lamps for another year or two, then go out and buy LED replacements. LED replacement PAR38 lamps are pretty decent right now, but expensive. In a year or 2, they'll be a no brainer...

Will the PAR38 project as far as what I have now or further?

Actually in the short term if you really want high output (although the color rendition suffers considerably), replace your incandescents fixtures with 70 watt High Pressure Sodium lamps/fixtures. With 70 watt HPS lamps, each lamp will on average deliver about 5000 lumens (they start at 6,300 and decay to about 4,600 at end of life, and life is rated at 24,000 hours). So not quite LED efficiency, but I suspect comparable life to LED's (and at this point, there isn't much guesswork about lamp life and performance, HPS has been around for a long time. I have my doubts about what todays LED's will be delivering out past 20,000 hours.

Kirch said:

Will the PAR38 project as far as what I have now or further?

Click to expand...

Since you didn't tell what lamps you currently have, that is an impossible question to answer. ASSuming you have PAR38 incandescent lamps, then yes, LED lamps will project a similar distance, assuming you select the correct beamwith. Narrower beam lamps project farther, but don't illuminate a wide swath. Same holds for both LED and incandescent.

Don't buy HPS, unless you like orange light.