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looking for ideas to light my driveway. It's roughly around 1500 feet in length and ideally I'd like good consistent lighting all the way down as well as lighted pillers at the bottom to help see it better at night. The driveway is currently gravel and thick brush and trees on both sides. I'm not opposed to really any ideas to get the job done while keeping it cost effective at the same time. I have quite a bit of experience working with both regular AC as well as setting up and installing solar with battery banks.

Lets here some ideas!

Edit:option for automatic on off based off of current daylight conditions would be nice as well.

James
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    For that distance, solar is probably the easiest. It will depend on how much light you want, enough to see where the driveway is or to play football/baseball on the driveway. – crip659 May 27 '23 at 12:42
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    This is opinion/shopping based so a bit OT here, but I will give one bit of advice: Be sure to go LED. If you go incandescent, unless you run 10ga (very expensive) you'll have a pretty feeble glow at the end of your run. And a toroidal transformers . While I hesitate to reference any particular company, I've had really good luck with https://www.voltlighting.com/ – George Anderson May 27 '23 at 12:42
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    This question is overly broad, but see this answer for some insight. https://diy.stackexchange.com/a/249004/18078 Or cut some trees and install solar streetlights. Since you don't have conduit in place (as that question did), the solar streetlights would likely be more cost effective, but they won't work under trees. – Ecnerwal May 27 '23 at 12:42
  • For no power at all, and at low cost, good reflective stakes on both sides of the driveway every 20-30 feet or so work fine for guiding vehicles or people that have lights at night, IME. – Ecnerwal May 27 '23 at 12:52
  • @crip659 just a nice warm glow, I walked it the other day really early and it was pretty much pitch black. You think solar up at the top house side of the driveway? My garage is there and is also on a 40 amp sub panel. – James May 27 '23 at 13:25
  • @GeorgeAnderson definitely going with LED. Thanks for the link. I'm more just trying to find the most efficient way of doing it. – James May 27 '23 at 13:27
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    Snow deep enough to plow? – MTA May 27 '23 at 13:42
  • @MTA I just bought the property but I'm going to assume so. It's just north of saint john new brunswick canada. I'll likely be buying a tractor with an 8' blower or something along those lines. I'm guessing it will kinda suck with it being loose stones but I plan on eventually paving it. – James May 27 '23 at 14:26
  • Your airport's 10-year average winter snowfall is 232 cm with 60 cm in Jan and 78 in Feb on average. All that snow has to go somewhere. I plow my 400 ft driveway in New Hampshire (w/less snow than St John) toward one side only and end up with a windrow several feet high by spring. I keep tall reflectors on the other side for guidance. So consider snow in your plans. Knee-height lighting is not going to cut it, and lighting on both sides is probably out of the question due to potential for damage from plowing or snow blowing. – MTA May 27 '23 at 14:46
  • @MTA thanks for that cold reminder ;D I'm definitely keeping that in mind. I'm thinking some type of post and lantern would be ideal. I like the reflector idea but it's only good for cars and flashlights. My kids will need to walk it early every morning to catch the bus and it would be nice to have it lit up a bit for them. Would hopefully deter wild animals a bit too. – James May 27 '23 at 15:33
  • Can't kids carry flashlights? Those reflectors sound good. Even have a store box at the end of the drive so they don't need to carry to school / work? If the drive is wide enough ie not completely covered by trees then solar... – Solar Mike May 27 '23 at 18:33
  • Generally any question that says "let's hear some ideas" is off-topic for StackExchange. Take the tour, read the help pages. – Harper - Reinstate Monica May 27 '23 at 18:34

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