Where Should Security Lights Be Placed?

Where Should Security Lights Be PlacedOutdoor lighting can take your beautiful home’s curb appeal from good to great. Aesthetically,  lighting puts the home’s best features on display and makes the property stand out as a strong presence in the night. Functionally, a well-lit home makes your outdoor spaces enjoyable at night and provides visibility for guests who may not be familiar with the landscape.

But most importantly, good outdoor lighting is vital for the sake of safety. Security lighting helps protect your home from intrusion. With lighting in the right areas, anyone with malicious intent will either be deterred from their plan or will have to do their worst while in plain sight. For the most effective lighting plan, let’s look at where to place your security lights.

Entrances

The bulk of your security lighting should illuminate the entrances to your house. This helps to deter intruders from sneaking into your home, and it keeps you safer while you’re unlocking your door. It’s important that more than just your front door stays well lit. Back doors, sliding doors, garage doors, and even vulnerable windows all need good lighting.

The purpose is not to put a floodlight at every door. Too much lighting can actually make it hard for you to see when someone is approaching. Instead, the goal is maximum visibility. You want it to be easy to see who is at any entrance, and you want it to be obvious to any would-be wrongdoer that every entrance is well lit.

Blind Spots

Lighting the entrances is the first step, but there’s more. Blind spots – places where someone could hide without you seeing them – should be lit as well. The purpose of security lighting is to let you see. Blind spots obviously get in the way of that. Pay special attention to bushes, trees, and other vegetation that make hiding possible.

Sheds

A shed, workshop, or other extra building can be considered a blind spot. People who have ill intentions could easily hide inside or behind an external building to wait for a chance to do whatever bad things they have planned. Putting security lights on your shed or other structure is a great way to deter this kind of behavior. For example, a spotlight with a motion sensor installed on the back of the building would light up the area suddenly and likely surprise an intruder.

Pools, Patios, and Gardens

You want good lighting around major features in the yard. Many people won’t consider their patio, pool, or garden to be a blind spot. But if kept dark, each of these can be a potential hiding spot for an intruder, so they all require appropriate lighting.

There’s an additional factor to consider. Security lighting isn’t just about preventing intrusion. It’s also about keeping welcome guests safe. You want to be sure that no one can accidentally stumble into the pool without seeing it. Lighting your features is vital for all aspects of safety.

The good news is that you don’t have to limit yourself in your lighting options. You can use aesthetic or ambient lighting on your features to make them visible for safety and gorgeous at the same time.

Pathways

Combining security and ambient-lighting strategies for pathways means they’ll be beautifully illuminated and also safe to traverse. A well-lit pathway is also necessary to prevent someone from sneaking up on you while you unlock your door — an unfortunately common strategy for burglars. Your driveway should be similarly well-lit.

Perimeter

For houses that have a meaningful property line or fencing, lighting around the perimeter is important. The idea is to make it difficult to sneak onto the property in the first place. You want regular lighting along any perimeter fencing just to be safe. If your property doesn’t have fencing, a line of lighting around the perimeter can still help increase your security and define the property’s edge.

Up High

The last thing to know about security lighting is that you want it up high. By all means, your ambient lighting can be wherever it gets the best effect, but the lights designated for security should be high enough to prevent tampering. If a nefarious individual can simply turn off all your lights as they approach, the entire setup can be rendered worthless. Put lights above the roofline or on posts high enough to protect them from tampering.

Security lighting is essential. It quite literally makes your home a safer place in many respects. If you want to explore security lighting that maximizes safety while promoting efficiency and maintaining your beautiful property aesthetic, Andy’s Sprinkler, Drainage, and Lighting is who you need to contact. Call us today at 972-418-6998. We’ll help you explore your options and design a lighting plan that is perfect for your home.