The floodlight instinct
The standard response to feeling exposed at night is a floodlight bolted to the corner of the house. The instinct is understandable and mostly wrong. One bright light gives you glare and deep shadow, and anything outside the beam is now less visible than it was before you installed it.Put all of that together and it looks different from a floodlight on a bracket. Lower output, more locations, better placement: that is the whole approach. It costs no more than the floodlight approach in most cases, and it works.
The principle worth remembering
What you want is consistency, not peak brightness. Spread the light out and the shadows soften. Even coverage takes away the dark edges, which is what you were actually after.
The overlap with the house
A permanent roofline system left on a low warm white lights the perimeter of the house every night. It puts light on every side of the house it runs along, from above, which is the right direction. Automatic beats intentional, because lighting you have to remember does not get used.
Walk it at night
The dark spots are rarely the obvious ones. Do one lap of the property in the dark and look. Look at the places nothing currently reaches. Ten minutes outside makes the plan obvious.
Motion sensors, used well and used badly
Sensors work well somewhere specific. The good use is somewhere nobody goes most nights. Used badly, they trigger on every cat and every branch until somebody disables them. The reliable base is consistent illumination, with motion as a supplement rather than the whole plan.
Your neighbors can see your lights too
Light that spills next door is a problem you will hear about. Light that goes past the fence is wasted twice. Shielding and aim keep the light where you paid to put it. It is a design question, not a compromise. Good outdoor lighting stays on the ground it was installed to cover, and keeping it contained is what makes the beam useful rather than scattered.
Lighting and cameras together
Plenty of properties have cameras and poor lighting. Even coverage is what makes footage usable. One harsh source produces glare and shadow, which is the worst case. Which means the lighting advice does not change: spread it out and keep it consistent.A schedule matters here too. Run it full through the evening and lower overnight.
Getting a proper plan
No two properties have the same dark spots, so the plan comes from looking at yours. EverCrest Lighting does security lighting alongside landscape, accent and permanent roofline systems for homes and businesses across Upstate South Carolina and Western North Carolina, based in Greenville. Consultations are free. Call (864) 252-1732 or
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