Halogen to LED: Retrofitting an Older Landscape Lighting System

What usually survives the retrofit

Solid brass and copper fixtures are built to be rebuilt. If your system was a quality install, the fixtures, the buried wire and often the transformer can all stay. The retrofit swaps the halogen lamps for LED replacements matched to the original beam spread and output.

• Brass and copper fixtures: keep, re-lamp with LED
• Buried wire: keep if it tests sound and is sized for the run
• Multi-tap transformers: usually keep, sometimes re-tap
• Cheap aluminum fixtures: replace — they cannot be re-lamped reliably

What changes

LED lamps draw roughly a fifth of the power of the halogens they replace. That means the transformer loafs instead of straining, voltage drop over long runs largely disappears, and lamp changes go from a yearly chore to a rare event.

• Power draw drops 70–80% across the system
• LED lamps are rated in tens of thousands of hours, not hundreds
• Color temperature can finally be made consistent across every fixture
• Dimming and smart control become easy to add during the same visit

When a retrofit is not worth it

If the system is corroded aluminum fixtures with unsealed splices, the honest answer is replacement. We meter the wire and inspect the splices before quoting either way, and tell you straight when a system is past saving.