Some shots from this evening. The lights and the fountain are controlled by four switches behind the lounge curtains. "We rarely turn them on as the neighbours complain that the street lights go dim if we do."
Looks very inviting. I can understand your neighbours, but on the other hand: a couple of hours in the evening wouldn't be too bad, though. It's a shame to have all those lights and not use them.+
Sorry! "The lights go dim" was just a joke. No one ever says anything as I rarely turn them on. I installed the lights over thirty years ago when I anticipated we'd be spending some time in the garden on a few warm summer evenings. But due to my wife's increasing mobility problems, she now rarely goes into the garden at all. Because of her compromised immune system due to the drugs she's on she doesn't even like me opening any windows let alone the French doors in the lounge. She was asleep upstairs when I took those photos.
I'm sorry to hear your wife's health makes enjoying the garden difficult. It really is beautiul, and I hope turning the lights on when you can so that you can enjoy them brings you a sparkle of happiness. It truly is beautiful.
Interst in iour lights was shown on another bnoard, so I posted this to explain how they work and how it was all perfectly safe. I laid an armoured cable between the house and the garage in 1976, under the concrete raft on which our patio sits. I had no idea what I was going to do with it at the time. Then later started installing lights in the garden. It's a four-core cable plus earth, which gives me one live and three common. So I can have three functions from these switches behind the lounge curtains. The fourth switch is for a coachlight on the back wall of the house. The power for this is from a dedicated socket in the lounge next to the radiator screen. To connect it all up I had to go under the floor. Fortunately, our houses are built on concrete rafts so there's an eighteen inch void under the floor accessed by a trap door in the cupboard under the stairs. The cable comes up in the border and enters the garage through the wall. The supply to the garage is via a sixty year-old pyro cable under the drive from a dedicated mini-breaker in a new consumer unit in the house. It supplies a similarly old mechanical 15amp breaker "with real fuse wire" in the corner of the garage. It's never failed or been turned off for thirty odd years, so no need to touch it. The supply then passes from it by a new cable to this up-rated RCCB. I installed once I was "messing with water and electrics" with the koi. From here the power splits to two supplies in conduit, one for the garage and what was the old koi pool filter room with its multitude of power sockets, the other for the shed and tea-house. I updated the garage electrics two years ago from a couple of double-pole switches to this consumer unit. "Mission control." There's mini breakers for:- The water heater over the sink, in the old koi pool filter room, now the freezer room, Power for the garage sockets and for the freezer room. Garage and freezer room lighting, plus some PIR security lights Garden lights and fountain. A live feed goes down the armoured cable to the switches in the lounge and the neutrals come back. All in numbered conduit so I know "what's what." The three sockets are for everything outside in the garden. There's four mains coach lights with LED lamps and a 15w fluorecent on the ceiling behind the doors of the tea-house. The fountain and it's 30w low voltage spotlight on the pergola and all the fairy lights. There's another 30w low voltage spotlight behind the pagoda. The transformers either side of the box are for the fountain and its spotlight. I have 5amp fuses in all plugs. I'd never put any real load on this mini-breaker. The shed and tea-house have their own mini-breaker in the shed. Power to the tea-house is through cables passed through some alkathene pipe buried a foot down in the border between it and the shed. There's a double pole switch in the tea-house to isolate the supply if necessary. There's sockets on the ceiling for two sets of fairy lights and the transformer for the low voltage 30w spotlight behind the pagoda. all low voltage cables are attached to the concrete base panels of the fences. They pass through bits of garden hose to the two Japanese lanterns to stop the squirrels chewing them. There's fewer sockets in the "freezer room" (there's two freezers in there) since it was a filter room. I'm down to four doubles plus a double pole switch for the old Santon water heater. I've had it since 1986. I bought it from my firm's works department for £2. It came out of closed shop. The Budweiser fridge is back in the tea-house. I flip the test switch on the RRCB periodically, but I've never had a problem with the electrics. There are no exposed mains cables outside of the buildings, it's all low voltage. and there's practically no maintanance other than changing a bulb now and then!
The light display is great, lovely. Rather sad that your wife cannot still enjoy them with you. Assuming she once enjoyed it, the memory probably still lives.
