Landscape Lighting Repair
Greater Nashville & Williamson County
Gemmell Outdoor Lighting diagnoses and repairs low-voltage landscape lighting across Greater Nashville and Williamson County, all brands, including systems installed by other companies. The faults we see most are failed transformers, corroded connections, cut cable, water ingress and fixtures at end of life. We test the system first, then quote the repair in writing. Call (615) 914-4411.
What the Symptom Usually Means
Some landscape lights not working while the rest of the run still comes on is the most common call we get. That split is the useful clue, and it is the first thing we trace. A whole system dark at once is the transformer or its breaker. It is almost never the fixtures, because fixtures do not conspire to fail on the same evening.
One zone out points at a cable fault on that run. Usually that is physical damage from a spade, an edger or a fence post, and the break sits within a few feet of wherever somebody was recently digging. A single dead fixture at the far end of a run is a different animal: that is often voltage drop, not a dead lamp, which is exactly why swapping the lamp changes nothing and the homeowner ends up buying three of them.
Flickering, or lights coming on at the wrong hour, sends us to the timer, the photocell, or a connection working loose at the transformer.
Then there are the fixtures that have gone dim, foggy or faintly green. Those are at end of life. Water has got past the seal and either the lens has clouded or the LED itself has degraded. That is replacement, and anybody who quotes you a repair on it is selling you a second visit.
The Joint Is Where These Systems Die
The connection between a fixture lead and the main cable is the real failure point in low-voltage lighting. A connector that was never properly sealed, or a twist-and-tape joint buried in a wet bed, corrodes from the inside out where nobody can see it happening.
What makes it miserable is the timeline. It works fine for a season or two. Then it starts giving intermittent faults that track the weather, which means the lights are working perfectly on the afternoon somebody comes out to look at them. Middle Tennessee humidity moves the whole process along. We re-make failed joints with properly rated waterproof connectors instead of patching them, because a patched connection is a callback with a date already on it.
Systems Someone Else Installed
A good share of these calls are for systems the original installer can no longer service. Contractors who closed. Franchise branches that moved on. A previous owner's DIY install that was never quite right to begin with. None of that is an obstacle.
Most landscape lighting repair calls in the Nashville area arrive this way, with nobody left who knows what is actually in the ground.
We assess what is actually in the ground and tell you whether it is worth repairing or has reached the point where a redesign is the better spend. If both are genuinely options, we quote both. Where a system is fundamentally sound, the repair is usually modest and that is the end of it. Where it was built on undersized cable and thin fixtures, repairs turn into an annual subscription, and we would rather say so than keep collecting on it.
Maintenance Catches It Earlier and Cheaper
A failed step light is a trip hazard. A dead perimeter fixture is a dark spot somebody notices. And a transformer failure takes the entire system offline in one go, generally on the first properly cold night of the year.
Most of what a seasonal visit does is unglamorous: re-aiming fixtures that a season of growth has swallowed, clearing lenses, checking connections and transformer load, moving the timer as the sunset does. It is also where the small faults get found, which is the whole point, because the small ones are what turn into the expensive one. There is more detail on that in our maintenance and repair programs.
Questions, Answered
Why did all my landscape lights stop working at once?
When the whole system goes dark at the same moment, the cause sits upstream of the fixtures: a tripped breaker or GFCI, a failed transformer, or a timer or photocell that has stopped switching. Fixtures do not fail in unison. Check the breaker yourself, and if that is not it, call. Testing a transformer properly takes a meter.
Why are my low-voltage lights not coming on at all?
Before anything gets dug up, three things get ruled out: the breaker or GFCI, the transformer itself, and the schedule. A timer left on a winter setting or a photocell blinded by a new fixture will hold a perfectly healthy system dark for months. A whole system down is far more often one of those three than a broken wire.
Why is one section of my landscape lighting out?
One dark zone means a cable fault on that run. Physical damage is the usual culprit, so look at where somebody has been digging lately: a spade, an edger, an aerator or a fence post will all cut low-voltage cable without anybody noticing at the time.
Corroded connections on that run are the other candidate. Either way it gets traced with a meter. Opening up the bed and hoping is how a small fault becomes a long afternoon.
Why is one landscape light out when the rest of the system works?
One dark fixture on a working system is usually local to that fixture: the LED module, the connection at its splice, or water that has found its way into the housing. That is a different fault from several fixtures on one leg going out together, which puts the problem back up the run toward the transformer.
Do you repair landscape lighting installed by another company?
Yes, and that is most of what we repair. We service all brands. We assess the existing system, quote the repair in writing, and if it has reached the point where repairs have stopped being good value, we will say that instead of booking the work.
Does landscape lighting repair have to go back to the original installer?
No. Gemmell Outdoor Lighting takes repair calls across the Nashville area on systems it did not install, and who built the thing changes nothing about the visit. It starts the same way either way: find where in the wire run the fault actually sits, which is rarely the fixture that went dark.
Is it worth repairing an old low-voltage lighting system?
Depends entirely on what it was built from. Properly sized cable and solid brass or copper fixtures are worth repairing more or less indefinitely. Undersized cable and thin aluminum fixtures will fail again next to wherever you patched them, and at that point a redesign costs less across five years than the string of repairs will.
How do you repair low-voltage landscape lighting?
It starts at the transformer and works outward: load and connections there first, then the run itself, tracing for the point where voltage falls away or a buried splice has corroded through. Most calls that come in as 'the lights are out' end at one failed connection that was feeding everything past it.
How much does landscape lighting repair cost?
The fault has to be found before anyone can price fixing it, so the repair gets quoted after the system is tested. A transformer swap, a cable splice and a full fixture replacement are not remotely the same job. We put the number in writing and we do not start work off a verbal estimate.