Outdoor Lighting Wellington

Outdoor lighting has three jobs: it lets you use the deck after dark, it stops people missing a step, and it makes your home a harder target. We design and install garden, deck, path, driveway and security lighting for homes across Wellington, Porirua, the Hutt Valley and Kāpiti, and wire it to switches, timers, sensors or an app.

Wellington is hard on anything mounted outside. Fittings face strong gusts, driving rain and, close to the water, salt spray. Cables run underground or along exposed walls, and water and electricity do not mix. Everything we fit outside is rated for where it sits and protected by an RCD. If you also want power for a spa, shed or garden tools, see our power point installation page.

Pricing: a free quote and a fixed price agreed before we start. You get a written, itemised quote, and small jobs can be quoted from photos.

Upgrading the lights inside the house? See LED lighting.

Steps, paths and hillside access

Plenty of Wellington homes sit above or below the street, reached by long flights of steps or a steep path from Brooklyn to Khandallah to Stokes Valley. On those sections, lighting the route from the road to the front door is the most useful outdoor job we do. Light needs to land on each tread without shining in your eyes as you climb.

We use low step lights set into risers or walls, bollards along paths, and a switch or sensor at both the top and the bottom so nobody walks up in the dark. Where a path is shared with neighbours or crosses a right of way, we keep fittings inside your boundary.

• Step and riser lights for long flights
• Path bollards and low wall lights
• Two-way switching or sensors top and bottom
• Driveway and car deck lighting

Fittings built for Wellington wind and rain

NIWA's climate summary for Wellington records gusts over 63 km/h at the airport on about 166 days a year, and over 96 km/h on about 24. Winter is the wettest season. A fitting that rattles loose, takes on water or swings on a festoon wire will not last long, so we choose solid bodies, fix them to framing rather than cladding alone, and size festoon catenaries for the wind.

Every outdoor fitting carries an ingress protection (IP) rating for dust and water. A light under a covered deck can use a lower rating than one in a garden bed that gets soaked by horizontal rain. We use proper weatherproof junctions, not taped joins buried in soil, because slow water ingress is what makes outdoor lights trip the power after the first big storm.

How It Works

Salt air on the coast

BRANZ places land within 500 m of the sea, including harbours, in its high corrosion zone. That is likely to take in a lot of Wellington: much of the south coast from Island Bay to Lyall Bay and Seatoun, harbourside streets in Eastbourne and Petone, and beachfront homes at Tītahi Bay, Paraparaumu and Raumati. Confirm your own zone on BRANZ Maps, as boundaries vary by address.

In those areas cheap aluminium fittings and plain steel screws break down quickly. We use corrosion-resistant bodies and stainless or coated fixings, and suggest rinsing exposed fittings now and then, much as NZ Steel advises regular washing for metal roofing close to the sea. We do a lot of this work for homes in the eastern and southern suburbs.

Cabling, RCD protection and the paperwork

New outdoor lighting circuits are fixed wiring work, so WorkSafe says they come with a Certificate of Compliance. New and altered domestic circuits need RCD protection under the current wiring rules, and outside is where it counts: an RCD cuts the supply if current leaks to earth through water or a damaged cable.

On sloping sections, underground runs go in conduit at a proper depth and away from retaining walls and drainage. We record where every cable runs so a future fence post or garden bed does not find it first. If your outside lights trip the power now, that is usually water in a fitting or a damaged cable, and a job for our electrical repairs team.

Sensors, timers and neighbours

Consumer NZ recommends sensor-controlled security lights as one of the simplest home security measures. A sensor floodlight comes on when someone walks up the path and switches off again, so it uses little power. Gen Less notes that LEDs use far less electricity than older bulbs, which matters for path lights that run every night.

On closely packed hill streets, a floodlight can easily shine straight into the house next door or across the street below. We aim lights down and inward, use shielded fittings near boundaries, and set sensor range so a passing cat does not trigger them all night. Warm colour temperatures look better in a garden too.

• Movement sensors on security floodlights
• Dusk-to-dawn photocells for paths and drives
• Timers and app scenes for garden and deck lighting

Why Choose Cheeky's Electrical for Outdoor Lighting

Outdoor Lighting FAQs

Outdoor Lighting Across Wellington

We cover every region: Central Wellington, Eastern and Southern Suburbs, Western and Northern Suburbs, the Hutt Valley, Porirua, the Kāpiti Coast.

Related Electrical Services

• LED Lighting
• Emergency Electrician
• Electrical Repairs

Outdoor Lighting Guides

• What Is an RCD and Why Does It Keep Tripping in Wet Weather?

See the electrician prices guide or every service we offer.