A landscape lighting job usually stalls at the same point: you’ve picked a style, you’ve walked the yard with stakes and now you’re staring at a wall of fixtures, transformers and cable gauges with no idea which combination actually works together. That’s the gap Total Light tries to close, with pre-built kits that pair fixtures, a transformer and bulbs so you’re not guessing at compatibility.
Founded in 2014, the company sells landscape lighting straight to homeowners and contractors, cutting out the middle layer of a distributor or a big-box lighting aisle. That manufacturer-direct model is worth understanding before you compare it to what you’d find at a hardware store, because it changes both what you’re buying and who you’re buying it from.
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What Total Light Actually Sells
Total Light makes low-voltage landscape lighting: path lights, spotlights, well lights and the transformers that run them, built around a 12-volt system rather than line voltage. Fixtures are solid brass, not the powder-coated aluminum or plastic housings you’ll find on a lot of entry-level lighting. Brass resists corrosion better than most metals used outdoors, which is one reason it shows up so often in marine and coastal hardware.
The company sells complete kits alongside individual fixtures, so you can buy a matched set for a straightforward front-yard job or piece together a custom run for something more involved. Bulbs are 12V LED, which pulls less power through the transformer and runs cooler than older halogen landscape bulbs.
How a Low-Voltage System Comes Together
Low-voltage landscape lighting isn’t complicated, but it does have a logical order:
- A transformer plugs into a standard outdoor outlet and steps household current down to 12 volts.
- Low-voltage cable runs from the transformer to each fixture, usually buried a few inches under mulch or soil.
- Fixtures connect to the cable and are staked or mounted in place.
- LED bulbs go into the fixtures and the transformer’s timer or photocell handles when the lights turn on and off.
Because the whole system runs at 12 volts, there’s no need for an electrician’s license to install it yourself in most cases, which is a big part of the appeal versus line-voltage outdoor wiring. If you’re weighing whether to hire an electrician or run the cable yourself, Total Light’s staff say they can walk customers through both the design and the fixture selection, which matters if you’ve never planned a lighting layout before. That’s a different kind of support than a warehouse store offers, where you’re on your own once the box leaves the shelf.
If you’re rethinking your whole exterior setup rather than just adding a few path lights, it’s worth reading up on how outdoor lighting can improve your home before you settle on a layout.
The Warranty Is the Differentiator
Plenty of landscape lighting brands sell brass fixtures. Fewer stand behind them the way Total Light does. The company backs its fixtures with a long warranty and on some products that warranty is lifetime coverage, which is a meaningfully longer commitment than the one- or two-year terms common on cheaper aluminum kits.
That length of coverage only makes sense if the underlying hardware is built to last that long and it lines up with the brass construction. Aluminum and plastic housings tend to pit, fade or crack years before brass does, especially in yards that deal with sprinklers, salt air or freeze-thaw cycles. A warranty that stretches to a lifetime term is a decent proxy for how confident a manufacturer is in its own metal.
Shipping and Buying Direct
Total Light ships orders the same day when they come in before 4pm EST, which matters more than it sounds like once you’re mid-project and waiting on one more fixture to finish a run. Landscape lighting jobs tend to stall out over small gaps, a missing spotlight or an extra 50 feet of cable, so a same-day cutoff can be the difference between finishing over a weekend or losing another week.
Selling manufacturer-direct also means Total Light sets pricing without a distributor or retailer markup layered in and the company positions its pricing as competitive against comparable brass fixtures elsewhere. Buying direct has a trade-off too: you won’t find these kits on a store shelf to physically inspect before ordering, so you’re relying on product photos and specs rather than picking a fixture up in person.
Pre-Built Kits vs. Building Your Own
Buying a pre-built kit and assembling your own system from individual parts get you to the same place, but they suit different projects.
A pre-built kit works best when you have a defined space, a front walkway, a small garden bed, a modest backyard and want fixtures, a transformer and bulbs that are already sized to work together. It’s the faster route and removes the guesswork of matching wattage to transformer capacity.
Building a custom setup from individual fixtures makes more sense for larger or irregular properties, where you might need a mix of path lights, well lights and spotlights in varying quantities that a fixed kit won’t cover. It takes more planning, but it lets you tailor coverage to the actual layout of the yard rather than the boundaries of a boxed set.
Where This Fits and Where It Doesn’t
Total Light is a good match if you want fixtures built to last through a decade or more of exposure to sprinklers, mulch and weather and you’d rather order online with design help than sort through a retail lighting aisle. It also suits anyone doing a DIY low-voltage project who wants a system engineered to work as a set rather than parts bought separately and hoped into compatibility. If you’re also looking at cutting overall household energy use, pairing efficient LED landscape lighting with other changes around the house is covered in this guide on reducing your home’s energy output.
It’s less of a fit if you want to touch and compare fixtures in a physical store before buying, or if your project needs line-voltage lighting rather than a 12-volt low-voltage system. Homeowners updating a tired backyard setup might also want to look at broader design ideas first, like this rundown of bright outdoor lighting ideas for an old landscape, before deciding how many fixtures and what layout they actually need.
The Verdict
Total Light’s case rests on two things holding up over time: solid brass fixtures and a warranty that, on some products, runs for life. Add same-day shipping and installation guidance from staff who work with the products daily and it’s a reasonable pick for anyone who wants a landscape lighting system built as a matched set rather than assembled from mismatched parts. Homeowners tackling their first low-voltage project and contractors who want dependable hardware without a retail markup are both squarely in its lane. If you’re ready to start, the pre-built kits are the simplest entry point into the lineup.
