Landscape Lighting Across British Columbia
The Wire Guys design and install low-voltage landscape lighting across British Columbia — path, garden and driveway lights that show the house after dark and light the way to your door. It is proper wired work by a licensed electrical contractor, not solar stakes pushed into the ground.
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Licensed Electrical Contractor
Licensed and insured in British Columbia.
WorkSafeBC Registered
Active and in good standing.
BBB Accredited
Accredited since 2023.
Canadian family owned, working across British Columbia since 2019.
Get a quoteHow does a landscape lighting installation run in British Columbia, and who is actually doing the work?
We come and look at the property first, then price it before anything starts. Where a job needs new 120-volt work, that work is filed for inspection before anything is buried or energised. One licensed electrical contractor carries the whole job, start to finish — an outdoor lighting electrician does this work, not a landscaper.
- We look before we price. Someone walks the property first.
- We pull the permit where the job needs one.
- We settle where the light goes before a spade goes in.
- We test it with you watching — including the far end of the run.
The four questions
What landscape lighting costs in British Columbia, and what changes the price
Your outdoor lighting installation cost is set by the property, not a price list.
What we charge:
- $135 an hour for a Red Seal electrician plus a helper
- Flat rates on many jobs
- The consultation and the estimate are both free
- Tracing a fault is the one exception, at $165 for a 45-minute diagnostic, which tells you what the problem is and how we are going to fix it
- 4.7 stars across 137 Google reviews
What changes the price:
- Property size and layout
- How many fixtures
- Fixture quality: cast brass or bronze against painted aluminum
- How complicated the run is
- Whether there is already outdoor power
Every landscape lighting quote is in writing before any work starts. A quote is priced on what we can see — if the scope changes we tell you before we do it, not after.
For a number on your own garden, we come and look first.
How low-voltage landscape lighting works, and what it can light
A transformer sits on a wall or a post and drops the 120 volts from your house down to 12. Everything past it runs at that lower voltage. Line voltage is the 120-volt house wiring feeding the transformer, and that is the side with the real risk. Nearly every residential job is low voltage landscape lighting.
Exterior lighting earns its money after dark. Good yard lighting is about where the light lands, not how much of it there is.
- Path lighting and step lighting
- Driveway lighting
- Retaining wall lighting
- Tree uplighting
- House facade lighting
- Deck and patio lighting
LED is what goes in now. An old halogen system is usually worth changing over.
Do outdoor lights need a permit in BC, and who issues it?
The part of an outdoor lighting installation that needs a permit is the 120-volt side. A new outdoor plug, or a new circuit from your panel out to the transformer, is permitted work. The permit is pulled before we start, and the work is filed for inspection.
Any outdoor plug within 2.5 metres of finished grade also has to be GFCI protected. That is Rule 26-704 of the BC Electrical Code, and it is not optional, so adding one is a GFCI outlet installation.
We pull the permit
Whichever municipality your garden lighting sits in, you fill in nothing.
We are there for the inspection
You are not left explaining someone else's wiring to an inspector.
Who issues it depends on your city:
- Abbotsford, Chilliwack, Mission and Langley go through Technical Safety BC
- Vancouver, Victoria, Surrey, Burnaby, Maple Ridge, North Vancouver and West Vancouver run their own electrical permit offices
Working out which one applies is our problem, not yours. On the 120-volt side, swapping a plug or a switch for the same kind of part is the one job that needs no permit at all.
Can you install it yourself, and what should you ask outdoor lighting installers?
BC does let you do it yourself, within limits. If you own a fully detached home and live in it, you can pull your own electrical homeowner permit, up to 200 amps and 150 volts to ground. The work still has to pass the same inspection. That option is not open to strata owners, non-strata duplex owners, or anyone running a business from home.
The common shortcut is trying to avoid new 120-volt work altogether, in the hope of avoiding the paperwork that comes with it.
What a landscape lighting contractor should be telling you
Ask any installer these five things before you sign:
- How the runs are joined, and whether one cut wire takes the whole system down
- Whether every connection is sealed against water
- Whether the wire is proper copper rather than the copper-clad kind
- What warranty the fixture itself carries
- Whether material and labour are shown separately
Ask them of a landscape lighting company and of outdoor lighting installers quoting through a landscaping crew.
Where these systems fail
Why landscape lights go dim at the end of a long run
The lights near the transformer stay bright while the far end goes dim. That is voltage drop over a long run: every metre of cable takes a little off the 12 volts. Copper-clad aluminum, which looks like copper and costs less, makes it worse — one homeowner said his run "didn't last 6 months". Unsealed connectors corrode over a wet winter, and buried cable nobody recorded gets cut years later by a spade.
The fault is almost never the fixture. It is the joint, the wire, or the distance.
Size the cable for the distance rather than the fixture count, leave the transformer headroom, seal every joint, and record where it is buried. That is what the next five steps are for.
- Short run: full voltage at the fixture.
- Same transformer, long run: the far end arrives dim.
Our landscape lighting installation process
- 01
The walk-round
We come and look at the property in daylight, walk the routes the cable would take, and hear what you want lit.
- 02
Landscape lighting design and layout
We settle where each fixture sits, where the transformer lives and how long each run is, so the voltage holds at the far end.
- 03
The permit, where the job needs one
Where new 120-volt work is involved, the permit is pulled before anything starts. You fill in no paperwork.
- 04
Install
The cable is routed, every joint is made up sealed, the transformer is set and the circuit terminated.
- 05
Test and walkthrough
We test it and show you it works before we leave, then walk the garden with you.
How long it takes depends on the distance and the digging, not the number of lights.
Who does the work
The Wire Guys Electrical Ltd. is a licensed electrical contractor serving Abbotsford, Vancouver, Victoria and communities across the Lower Mainland, Fraser Valley and Greater Victoria, handling residential and commercial electrical work for homeowners, landlords and business owners in British Columbia.
Canadian family owned, serving British Columbia since 2019, working across Abbotsford, Vancouver, Victoria, Chilliwack, Mission and Langley. Here it is done by a licensed electrical contractor.
We are a licensed electrical contractor in British Columbia, licensed and insured, and we pull the permit on every job.
What happens if something is wrong after we leave
Sometimes we find something unrelated to the lights, like an old outdoor plug that was never weatherproofed. We tell you and get your approval before doing anything about it.
Indoor light fixture installation is a different job and we handle it separately, along with the rest of our electrical work.
If it does not pass
If an inspection does not pass on our work, we put it right, call the inspector back, and we cover the cost. Not you.
If it is not right later
If something we installed is not right, we come back.
What our customers say
Both are lighting jobs. Word for word from our public Google profile, typos and all.
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Jas and his team did a great job installing new landscape lights for us and also fixing the deck lights that haven’t worked in years. They also added another electrical outlet outside on our deck for us which we have been wanting for a while. Efficient and very reasonably priced. Highly recommend!!
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The wire guys installed this chandelier and an external electrical outlet for us. They put down a cloth and cleaned up after themselves and did a great job.
How much does landscape lighting cost to install?
There is no honest single figure. The landscape lighting installation cost turns on the run, not the fixtures: cable distance, fixture count, and whether outdoor power exists. Our rate is $135 an hour for a Red Seal electrician plus a helper.
Do you need an electrician to install landscape lighting?
For the 120-volt supply, yes. A new outdoor plug, or a new circuit from your panel out to the transformer, is permitted work: the permit is pulled before we start and the work is filed for inspection. That is what people call an electrician for garden lights to do. BC does let an owner-occupier of a fully detached home pull their own homeowner permit instead, and the work still has to pass the same inspection.
What is low voltage landscape lighting, and how does landscape lighting work?
A transformer near an outdoor outlet drops 120 volts down to 12. Buried cable carries that out to each fixture, so everything past the transformer runs at a voltage that will not hurt you. That is why nearly every residential garden job is low voltage outdoor lighting.
What is uplighting, and what is downlighting?
Uplighting sits the fixture at ground level and aims it up — a tree trunk, a chimney, the front of the house. Downlighting does the opposite: the fixture goes high, in a tree or under a soffit, throwing light down over a path. Through branches that is called moonlighting.
What size transformer for landscape lighting do I need?
Add up what the fixtures on the run draw, then size the transformer above that total, leaving headroom for lights you add later. On a long run the last fixture sees less voltage than the transformer put out, and that gap matters as much as the wattage.
What gauge wire for landscape lighting, and how deep to bury landscape lighting wire?
On gauge: longer runs and more fixtures need heavier cable, and it should be proper copper, not copper-clad aluminum. On depth: the cover is set by the BC-adopted Canadian Electrical Code, and changes with the cable and what sits above it. We work to the table, not a rule of thumb.
Why have my landscape lights stopped working, and why are my outdoor lights flickering?
Nearly always the joints, the cable, or the distance. Joints out at the fixtures fail first. The cable takes a nick from a spade, or pinches at the transformer terminal. On a long run the far fixtures simply lose voltage. Working that out is charged as a diagnostic.
Do electricians charge for a quote?
Some do. We do not charge to quote work we can see — the consultation and the estimate are both free. Tracing a fault is different: $165 for a 45-minute diagnostic, which tells you what the problem is and how we are going to fix it.
Why is my final bill higher than the electrician's quote?
Usually because something outside the agreed scope got done without a conversation first. That is not how it works here: a quote is priced on what we can see, and if the scope changes we tell you before we do it, not after.
How do I check an electrician is licensed in BC?
Ask the company to confirm its electrical contractor licence in writing, and check the name on it matches the name on your quote. Then ask two things: who is pulling the permit, and who files the work for inspection. The same applies to an EV charger installation .
Will an electrician leave holes in my walls?
On a landscape lighting job most of the work is outdoors, so usually no more than one opening. The wall gets opened where the new outdoor circuit passes to the outside. Ask before work starts where that opening will be and who is patching it.
What happens if the work is not right after you leave?
If something we installed is not right, we come back. You call the same number you called the first time and reach the same company.
How fast can an electrician come out?
We answer the phone at any hour — a person picks up, not a machine. What we will not do is promise an arrival window before we know what the job is. When you call, we book a time and tell you what we will be doing.
More from us
Other electrical services we offer
Landscape lighting installation services are one part of the work. Here is the rest.
Book a walk-round and get it priced
Call 778-708-0451. Tell us what you want lit and whether there is already an outdoor outlet. The consultation and estimate are free. Tracing a fault is the exception — $165 for a 45-minute diagnostic that tells you what is wrong and how we will fix it.