Almost everyone shops for a floodlight by wattage, and with LED that number no longer means anything. What decides whether a yard is genuinely lit is the beam angle and where the thing is pointed.
Pricing agreed before we start. We usually reply the same day.
A floodlight does what the name suggests: it fills a space with light rather than picking out a feature. That makes it the right tool for a yard, a driveway, a work area or a warehouse, and the wrong one for a garden you want to look at.
Where it goes wrong is the specification. Wattage used to be a decent proxy for brightness because every halogen lamp converted power to light at roughly the same rate. LED broke that link completely, so a 50 watt LED and a 50 watt halogen have almost nothing in common. The number to compare is lumens.
The bigger issue is that brightness is not what most people are actually missing. A very bright fitting aimed flat across an area produces glare at the near end and deep shadow past it, and because your eyes adjust to the bright part the dark part looks darker than before you installed anything. You have made the space harder to see in, not easier.
Two moderate fittings with overlapping coverage, aimed downward, will beat one powerful one nearly every time. They also cost about the same to run.
Each of these is mounted at the same height and puts out the same number of lumens. The only difference is the beam angle, and it changes the job entirely.
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How to choose: match the beam to the shape of what you are lighting, not its size. Long and thin, like a driveway, wants a narrow beam. Broad and close, like a yard or a loading area, wants a wide one. Around 60 degrees suits most domestic properties. And whichever you pick, aim it below horizontal, because a floodlight pointed level is mostly lighting your neighbour.
Useful if you are replacing something and want the same result without guessing. These are approximate, since output varies by model.
| Old halogen | Roughly this many lumens | LED that matches it | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 150 W | About 2,400 lm | Around 20 to 30 W | Retrofit lamps exist at this size if the housing is sound |
| 300 W | About 4,800 lm | Around 40 to 50 W | The practical upper limit for a retrofit lamp |
| 500 W | About 8,000 lm | Around 70 to 100 W | No good direct lamp swap. Replace the fitting |
| 1000 W | About 16,000 lm | Around 150 to 200 W | Usually commercial. Replace the fitting |
There is a second reason to replace the whole fitting rather than the lamp on anything sizeable. Halogen floodlights were built around a lamp that ran extremely hot, so after a decade or two outdoors the seals, gaskets and wiring inside them are usually perished. Putting a new lamp into a tired housing gets you a new lamp in a fitting that is about to let water in.
The upside is real though. A modern LED unit will use somewhere near a fifth of the power for the same light, run cool enough to touch, last far longer, and let you pick the beam angle, which the old fitting never gave you a choice about.
The most common domestic use, and the one where aim matters most. A driveway is long and narrow, so a narrower beam aimed along it beats a wide one washing the whole front of the property and the street beyond it.
Pairing it with a sensor means it only runs when something is there, which keeps both the bill and the neighbours happy.
A different exercise to a house. Several fittings working together, mounted high, with a genuine calculation about coverage and uniformity rather than a judgement by eye, and frequently three-phase supply behind them.
We handle the board and circuit side too, including testing obligations, rather than leaving that to someone else.
Tennis courts, netball, training areas and pools all need even light across the surface without glare in players' eyes, which is a matter of mounting position and aiming far more than raw output.
Spill onto neighbours is the usual constraint, and it is worth designing for rather than discovering.
Coverage and uniformity are the whole job here. Dark patches between fittings are where trips, reversing damage and security problems happen, so overlapping coverage matters more than peak brightness at any one point.
Usually paired with timers or photocells so the site is not lit all night at full output.
They are sturdier than most outdoor fittings, but they are also the most exposed thing on the building.
It flickers
Commonly a loose connection, a failing driver or moisture that has found its way into the housing. On older halogen units it can be as simple as a tired lamp, but on LED a flicker usually means the driver rather than the diodes.
Worth chasing early, because a connection arcing inside a sealed fitting is how one stops being a lighting problem.
It trips the circuit
Water ingress is the usual answer, particularly on a fitting more than a few years old where the gasket has hardened. It can also be a circuit that was already close to its limit before the floodlight was added.
Either way the safety switch is doing its job, and repeatedly resetting it is not a plan.
It buzzes or hums
A failing driver or transformer, or a dimmer that is not compatible with the fitting. Noise from a light is almost always the electronics rather than the lamp.
Cheap fittings are the usual offenders, which is why we would rather specify one good unit than two poor ones.
It has gone dim or patchy
LED output does fade over years, but a sudden change usually means part of the array has failed or moisture has clouded the lens from the inside.
On an old halogen it more often means the reflector has degraded, which no new lamp will fix.
Floodlighting is the category most likely to end in a conversation with a neighbour, because it is the one with enough output to be genuinely intrusive. There is an Australian standard dealing with the obtrusive effects of outdoor lighting, and while it is written for larger installations the principles behind it are exactly what stops a domestic floodlight becoming a problem.
In practice: aim below horizontal, keep the beam inside your own boundary, choose an output suited to the area rather than the biggest number available, and use a sensor or timer so it is not running all night. A shielded fitting aimed properly can be brighter and less annoying than an unshielded one half its output.
The work itself is licensed electrical work, and larger installations frequently involve a new circuit or three-phase supply. We lodge a Certificate of Compliance for Electrical Work within 7 days of testing, which since 1 July 2026 goes through the BCNSW eCert portal.
A decent quality domestic floodlight generally runs $400 to $500, and most properties need more than one to get even coverage, so it is worth budgeting on the assumption of a pair rather than a single unit. Cheap fittings are cheap for a reason and the failure mode is almost always water getting in, which is not a saving.
Labour depends on access, whether there is an existing circuit to work from, and how far the cable has to run. A fitting replacing an existing one at an accessible height is quick. New positions, high mounting, long cable runs or a new circuit back to the board all add to it, and commercial work with several fittings and three-phase supply is a different scale again.
We look at the site and give you a fixed price rather than an hourly guess over the phone, and we will tell you honestly when one well-aimed fitting will do what you were assuming needed three.
Shop in lumens rather than watts, because with LED the wattage no longer tells you anything useful about brightness. As a reference point, an old 500W halogen floodlight put out roughly 8,000 lumens and a 1000W around 16,000, and a modern LED reaches those figures on a fraction of the power. For a domestic driveway or back yard, something in the 3,000 to 8,000 lumen range aimed properly will usually do more than a 20,000 lumen unit pointed badly.
It depends on the shape of what you are lighting rather than its size. A narrow beam around 30 degrees throws a long way and lights a comparatively small patch, which suits a long driveway or a specific target at distance. A wide beam of 120 degrees covers a broad area close to the fitting, which suits a yard or a loading area but spills readily onto neighbours. Around 60 degrees is the usual answer for a domestic property, and getting this right matters more than buying more lumens.
Usually because a single fitting is trying to do a job that needs two, or because it is aimed too flat. A very bright light pointed across an area creates glare at the near end and deep shadow beyond it, and the human eye adjusts to the bright part so the dark part looks darker still. Two moderate fittings with overlapping coverage almost always beat one powerful one, and cost about the same to run.
In most cases the sensible move is replacing the whole fitting rather than the lamp. Retrofit lamps exist for smaller halogen fittings, but at 500W and above there is no good direct replacement, and the old housings were designed around a very hot lamp so they are often perished by now. A modern LED unit will use a fraction of the power, run cool, last far longer and let you choose the beam angle, which the old fitting never did.
Yes. Warehouses, workshops, car parks, yards, loading docks and sports areas are all regular work, and they are a different exercise to a domestic install: higher mounting, several fittings working together, often three-phase supply, and a real calculation about coverage and uniformity rather than a judgement by eye. We also handle the switchboard and circuit side of it rather than treating that as somebody else's problem.
Attending your job is a chargeable callout. We confirm what it costs when you book, and the price for the work itself is agreed before we start, so there are no surprises on the invoice.
Based in Castlecrag, covering all of Sydney. A few of the suburbs we work in most:
Covering all 48 North Shore suburbs. See the full list of locations we service.
Upfront pricing, with the price agreed before we start. Call before 11am for same-day service.
