Outdoor Security Lights

When the sun goes down and night falls, burglars come out to play and your home is in the cross hairs of their radar. What can you do to steer would-be house breakers away from your home and improve the all round security of your property after dark?

When the shadows are lengthening and providing good hiding places for those that are generally up to no good, the best way to improve the safety of your property is to install outdoor security lights to chase away the shadows and with them those that would skulk beneath them.

There are plenty of different types of outdoor security lights to install that will provide a deterrent against casual thieves and would-be intruders and that's what I'll be looking at here.

Types of Outdoor Security Lights

There are many types of outdoor security lights that will do a very good job of illuminating your property and robbing an intruder of any hiding places where they may otherwise try to break into your home. They range from standard outdoor light fixtures that simply operate on a switch or more sophisticated systems that operate on motion sensors or have photosensitive sensors which will switch them on automatically when darkness falls.

The light themselves can range from standard light bulbs to florescent lights, spot lights and high power halogen flood lights that are capable of providing enormous amounts of light to an area that may otherwise be especially dark at night.

A good idea is to fit several lantern style lights around the house back and front fitted with low energy bulbs and leave these on all night. They can be hooked up to a daylight sensor that will automatically switch them on at dusk and off again at dawn.This provides illumination all round the house to eliminate shadows and areas that a thief might use to mask their activities.

Another good idea are powerful outdoor halogen spotlights fitted to places such as driveways, rear patios etc that are fitted with motion sensors that will trigger the lights to come on individually for a few minutes then switch off again if there is no further motion detected.

Outdoor Security Lights Placement

Placement of outdoor security lights is important to cover those parts of your property that may be vulnerable to the attentions of a would be intruder. Floodlights should cover exceptionally dark areas such as driveways, especially those that are overhung with dense foliage from tall trees.

The aspect of front of the house should be looked at first. If it has an open aspect onto the street and that street is well lit, then you will probably only need a minimum of permanent lighting, such as porch lights and some driveway lights to mark the drive entrance.

Either side of your house is often vulnerable if it is dark, which is often the case, so permanent lights along either side of the house walls with economic low wattage lights on darkness sensors will brighten up those areas and deter thieves.

The back of the house should also have some low wattage outdoor lights filled to the house wall as well as along fences in the back yard spaced out to provide ample light without being too bright.

Patios and rear house doors can be further protected with motion sensor equipped flood lights to illuminate a wide area with very bright light when movement is detected.

Finally, the ultimate plan of outdoor security lights placement will be determined by the aspect of your house, yard, patio and driveway along with any outbuildings such as a tool shed or gazebo. However you set out your lights, ensure that you test them at night to make sure you have not left any dark spots that a thief could take advantage of.