Marine Exterior Lights on Seaside Home

Question

On a residence located about 20 feet from the ocean in a severe weather climate. I am contemplating putting stainless steel well sealed marine lights on the house for some exterior deck lighting and flood lighting.

If I use a step down transformer for converting 120V to 24V, I’m wondering if there is a special junction box that would allow me to split the box and be able to fit transformers in the box at each light ?

Or would it be better to step down the power for the entire circuit near the panel?

I don’t know if there’s a voltage drop problem but farthest fixture might be 120 feet from the panel.

The lights I’m replacing had aluminum housings and completely degraded from the salt over 15 years. Hoping there is also a gasket-ed stainless box as well out there.

Am I crazy to pursue this ?

Answer 1

Yes there are stainless fixtures but for the cost I would probably just purchase currently available led floods or wall packs. The fixtures I use are aluminum but are universal voltage rated 100-277vac.

These low wattage high lumen output fixtures are so much less than a stainless fixture you could replace them 1/2 a dozen times and wire them directly into your existing power.

Look at what is available at myledplace.com or 1000bulbs.com both have a good selection of DLC + UL approval of LED fixtures I have used both and have had good customer service even on the few failures I have had. dlc is design light consortium and requires a 5 year warranty and you want UL for use in the USA.

The reason I suggest a less expensive aluminum fixture is because the electronics usually don’t last as long as a stainless fixture and the non stainless parts inside usually fall apart requiring repair so all the big $ is kind of wasted where a good aluminum fixture will be much cheaper easier to wire so give them a look.