Bad landscape lighting connections will kill a lighting system

I have gotten a lot of emails recently asking about low end lighting systems malfunctioning. Considering the amount of rain we have had lately in central Texas, I suspect that quite often there are problems that started with the landscape lighting connections.

In sub-standard outdoor lighting kits that are available in home improvement stores, the connections provided are very cheap pierce-point connectors. These connectors pierce the jacket of the wire with a sharp piece of metal to make an electrical connection. (Actually, there are a lot of professional grade products that also provide pierce-point connectors, but most professionals throw them in the trash and use something else.) There are several things that can – and do – go wrong here.

Pierce Point landscape lighting connections
Dreaded pierce-point connector. Do NOT use these.
  • First, some of these pierce-point connectors will allow the piercing piece of metal to contact the hot and neutral wires at the same time. This will create a direct short circuit.
  • Another issue is that if the wire and connector aren’t fitted together just right, there is only minimal connection, or the metal piece makes no contact with the wire at all.
  • One other problem occurs even if the pierce-point connector makes a solid connection with both wires as it’s supposed to: water will find its way into the wire where the metal has pierced the jacket, causing corrosion. Corrosion will eventually kill the connection.

If you are going to be installing a low voltage outdoor lighting system, do yourself a favor and cut those pierce-point connections off of the fixtures altogether. Then strip back ½” of the wire jackets and use silicone filled wire nuts at the very least. This is the absolute minimal connection protection, even for a low end system. One thing is for sure, you do NOT want to use those provided pierce-point connectors, EVER.

For our system installations, we take our connections very seriously and taking extra steps to use weather-proofing materials, secure splicing/crimping and heat-shrink protections to virtually guarantee high quality connections.

If you would like us to check out the connections in your system, please contact us here.