Installing the Timer for Outdoor Lights

Today we are going to talk about something that is not glamorous, but necessary to help bring about a more glamorous home during the holiday season.  We are going to discuss installing the timer for your outdoor lights.  Setting up the lights to turn themselves on and off automatically makes things SO easy and carefree.  You can just let them do their thing and go about your daily life without constantly fussing with turning the lights on and off.

The first step is to dig a hole near your exterior outlet, as you see I have done in the picture above.  I used a post-hole digger.  The ground was soft, so that helped make this an easy project.

Place your timer in the hole and determine if you need to add some filler to the bottom to help bring it up so the baseplate is flush with the ground.  I dug the hole a little deeper than necessary.  It is better to do this than to make it too shallow.  You have more flexibility to get the timer set at exactly the right height if you dig it a little too deep.  In the picture above, you can see the ground stake on the bottom of this timer, under the baseplate.  This ground stake comes with a plastic spike on the end which you would think would make securing it to the ground an easy project.  The idea is that you simply push it into the ground.  However, the reality is that rarely does that work.  I tried that the first couple of times I used this timer, but I had limited or no luck with it turing out like I expected.  It went into the ground only partially.  It was crooked.  I tried to straighten it but that did not work and lead to more frustration.  I decided to use the post hold digger and that has worked like a charm.  You may think the post hole digger system is more work than it's worth, but believe me, it is not. 

A bag of play sand is very helpful to have when installing your timer.  You can use this to fill in the hole to get the timers baseplate even with the ground.

Once you are satisfied with the height at which the timer is set, secure the bottom of the ground stake with plenty of play sand.

Fill in the hole with play sand, checking periodically that the timer is remaining in a straight and upright position.

Once you are done with the sand filler, you can cover the area up to the base plate with the dirt you extracted during the digging process.  You could even replace the leaves so that the area would not look like it had been disturbed.

This timer has many different settings.  You can set the light to come on at a specific time and to turn off at a pre-selected time from 2 hours up to 8 hours later.  You can turn them on and off manually.  Or you can set them to come on at dusk and go off at dawn.  A simple turn of the dial and you are all set.  It is not recommended that you leave this timer out all year.  Our system makes it very easy to remove this to a clean and dry space after the holiday season.  We will mark this hole once we remove it for easy installation again next year.  More on that after the season.