If you already have a swimming pool but don’t have lights installed, you might want to know whether it’s a possibility – and how much of a job it’s going to be.
After all, if you have a massive task on your hands, you might not feel like it’s worth it – and you might want to look into alternatives.
If you want to add wired lights to your pool, you’ll need to drain the pool and drill holes in the wall for the fixture and the wiring to reach a transformer above pool level. It’s significantly easier to use wireless lights or opt for an alternative type of lighting solution.
To help you understand the options available, let’s take a look at the following:
- Whether you can retrofit LED lights to existing pool lights you have
- How to add a new light to your pool, and the options available
- The alternatives to submerged pool lights
Can I Retrofit LED To Pool Lights?
It might be that you don’t actually need to add ‘new’ pool lights to your existing pool, but you have older ones that you want to change to newer LED lights.
The answer is yes, it is possible to do so, provided you’re wiring in lights rated for the same voltage.
All pool lights used underwater – whether older fixtures or newer LED – are 12 volts.
This makes them safer since it’s not a voltage that is automatically fatal if they were to electrocute you.
So as long as you’re swapping older 12v lights for new 12v LED lights, that should be fine.
There are two ways you can do this.
Older fixtures still rely on light bulbs, and you could just swap the bulb for an LED bulb.
You’ll need the right type of bulb base, likely to be an E26.
If you need some help picking up the correct bulb, don’t forget to check out my interactive bulb picker.
But most LED pool lights are self-contained, so the entire fixture needs replacing, and that’s a bigger job.
In brief, you need to tie the cable for the new light to the old light’s wire and pull it through the pre-existing pipe from the transformer end.
I’ve covered how to convert pool lights to LEDs in more depth in a separate article. But the good news is, you don’t need to drain the pool to do it.
How To Add A Light To An Existing Inground Pool?
If you want to add lights to an existing inground pool, you’ve got to consider if you wish to do it ‘properly’ and use wired lights or if you’d instead look into wireless options, which have some drawbacks.
If you want to add wired lights, you can benefit from them working whenever you need them to.
Barring a power cut, you’ll always have power to the lights, and as long as the bulb doesn’t blow out, your lights will work.
But to do this, you’re going to need to:
- Drain your swimming pool
- Drill holes through the side of the pool where you want the lights to go
- Dig a trench running from the pool to the location of the power source – likely a transformer, which you’ll then connect to the circuit breaker. Bearing that pools are often sunk in concrete rather than grass, bear in mind that this isn’t a job you can do with just a spade.
- Lay waterproof conduit in your trench, and then re-fill the hole
- Feed the cable for the lights through the new conduit
It’s a pretty extensive job and not one to undertake lightly.
Especially if you aren’t very handy with tools, you will need to hire a professional, and this will likely be quite an expensive and time-consuming job.
So, what’s the alternative?
There are some wireless lights you could use instead.
You can use solar lights (Amazon), but the drawbacks of these are that they need a solid 8 hours or so of sunlight each day to charge. They are also floating lights – you can’t install solar lights under the water level, or they won’t get enough light.
The other option is battery-powered lights.
These can be submerged and stuck to the wall. Some come with plain suction cups, but the more reliable options are magnetic (Amazon).
For these, you get a backplate and some adhesive. You stick the backplate to the pool wall, and the light secures to it magnetically.
Whenever you need to replace the batteries, just remove the light – not the backplate.
What’s really clever is that the glue is designed for underwater installation – so you don’t need to drain your pool.
Again though, you’re relying on the batteries, which means every 50-150 hours or so, you’re going to need to replace them.
What Are The Other Alternatives To Light Up A Pool?
If you don’t like the sound of drilling holes but want a more permanent and wired lighting solution than something powered by batteries, then you need to consider other lights that are not permanently submerged.
The two most popular options would be overhead lights or waterproof strip lights.
Overhead lights are a bigger project because you’ll need to hang them somewhere safe – you need anchor points or permanent places to install the lights.
You could use floodlight-type bulbs, or string lights.
But every type of overhead light has drawbacks – floodlights don’t give a relaxing ambiance, and string lights may not be as safe – you might not be able to clearly see the edge of the pool at night.
Strip lights are, therefore, a good choice.
These could be fiber optic or LED. But you need to make sure they’re suitably rated.
IP67 strip lights are safe to be immersed in up to 1 meter of water for 30 minutes, so will be fine if you install in the pool’s coving, if it has it.
It’s best to not submerge these lights permanently, but splashes into the coving will be fine.
Final Words
Installing pool lights in an existing pool can be a lot of work if you want permanently-wired lights in place.
Draining the pool is one thing, but drilling into the side and digging a trench can be a massive remodeling job for your outdoor space.
Either go for solar or battery-powered pool lights or consider your alternative lighting options instead.
Unless you have the budget and time to spare – at which point it’s entirely up to you!
What pool lights do you have currently, if any? Or if you’re just daydreaming about owning a pool, which lights would you go for?