LED pool lights in Los Angeles

Pentair IntelliBrite and MicroBrite, Jandy WaterColors, and Hayward ColorLogic — between them they fit almost every niche already cast into pools here. The brand matters less than the niche size and the controller: a light has to match what the wall was formed for and speak to whatever already runs the pad, or you get a pool that changes colour on its own schedule and a spa that refuses to follow it.

They are decoration, and worth having as decoration — floating lights for an evening, solar path lights around the deck. Neither lights a pool for swimming after dark: a floating light throws across the surface rather than through the water, and a solar unit gives up after a few hours in November. If the point is being able to see the bottom, that is a niche light in the wall.

Yes. During a concrete pool renovation a surface-mounted replacement normally goes into the lighting conduit that is already there. Where a new position is wanted, a fresh conduit can often be core drilled from the top of the pool and down the wall.

Some older pools ran 240V cable to an assembly with the transformer built into or behind the underwater unit. Do not remove or alter one of those yourself. An electrician is required to disconnect it and make the installation safe.

A transformer drops the household supply to the voltage the light needs. Older systems use 36V, 32V, 24V or 22V, while most modern LED pool lights run on 12V. The transformer and the light have to be matched, which is why the existing one gets checked before anything is ordered.

Single-color is one steady pre-selected color. Tri-color gives a choice of three. Multi-color adds automatic transition shows, and with a controller you get remote on and off, color, brightness and separate pool and spa operation. Some systems add app control, depending on the equipment fitted.

It depends on length, shape, depth, steps, benches and how reflective the interior is. For many ordinary pools one well-centered modern LED is enough, as long as it clearly lights the steps and the swimming area. Dark interiors absorb light, so placement matters more there than the count does.

Away from the house, the windows and the main entertaining area. A modern LED is very bright looked at directly, and the result you are after is the pool glowing rather than the fitting itself. Steps, seating ledges and unusual shapes are worked around so they stay visible.

From $420 plus sales tax for the light supplied and fitted as a replacement, which covers most jobs: the existing conduit is reused and the fixture comes out on its own coil of spare cord, so the pool is never drained. What adds to that is labor, not the light — new cabling, a transformer that has to be matched or replaced, or a fresh conduit core drilled for a better position — charged at $175 an hour with a one-hour minimum. Weekly maintenance members take 20% off labor, and the quote is free and given before anything is ordered.

Most retro-fits never need one. A 12V light going back into an existing niche and conduit is pool work: we do it, and the transformer already on the wall gets checked against the fitting first. An electrician is required where an older 240V hardwired assembly has to be disconnected, or where the fault sits upstream in the panel or the house wiring. That part is billed by them rather than by us, and we say it is coming when we quote, not on the day.