Outdoor lighting can be an essential part of your home security system. A dark house is an invitation to burglars and home invaders. Properly placed outdoor lighting will making it harder for burglars to approach your home unnoticed and greatly increase your security.
Why Home Security Lighting Is Important?
Old-fashioned home burglary is still the most common type of home invasion. According to U.S. Department of Justice statistics, an average of 3.7 million household burglaries occur each year. 88% of all burglaries are residential. The most common type of burglary by far is privately owned single unit homes.
But the theft of property is not the only concern. More than one quarter of all burglaries occur while a household member is present in the home. And while only a fraction of those result in actual violence towards a household member, there are still over 250,000 cases of violence against a household member during a burglary each year.
What Can You Do About It
While residential burglary is a fact of life, not all homes are burglarized at the same rate. Homes without any security measures are 300% more likely to be burglarized than homes with security. So a little bit of security goes a long way.
There’s an old joke about running away from a hungry bear. You don’t have to run faster than the bear, you just have to run faster than the other people running from the bear. The same is true of home security. When a would be criminal cases a neighborhood looking for easy targets, making your home even a little more secure than the others enough to send the criminals somewhere else.
Outdoor Lighting As Security
Some of our other blog posts have talked about the value of outdoor lighting for appearance. Good outdoor lighting can beautify your home, add curb appeal, and boost the value of your home. It can also make outdoor spaces more usable at night, such as decks, patios, and pools.
While all of these functions of outdoor lighting are important, there is little in life that is more important the your safety and the safety of your family. Designing your home lighting with security in mind can let you rest easier at night, knowing that your home is last on the list for a would be burglar.
Where to Put Security Lighting
Beauty and security don’t have to be mutually exclusive. In fact, the very same lighting that adds romance, character, and curb appeal to your home can also deter any would be criminals. When placing your lights, it’s important to know how criminals enter your home so that you can effectively light those spaces.
- Front doors. Nearly one third of burglars gain entrance to a home through the front door.
- First Floor Windows. Almost a quarter of burglars enter a home through a first floor window.
- Back Doors. Another quarter of burglars enter through a back door.
- Garages. While less common, almost 10% of burglars will enter a home through the garage.
- Unlocked Entrances. Leaving an entrance unlocked is an easy way for burglars to get in. Most homeowners know better, so the number of burglars entering through unlocked entrances is relatively small, but if you leave it open, you are inviting burglars into your home.
- Second-Floor Windows. This is the least common place for burglars to enter. They are usually hard to reach, but there are still enough cases to count, so don’t forget about these seemingly safe spaces.
Now that we know where burglars get in, we can start thinking about how to light these areas in a way that deters would be criminals. A lot of this lighting will be the same lighting that is suggested to increase the beauty and curb appeal of your home.
Lighting the Front of Your Home
In other blogs, we have talked about wash lighting for the facade of your home. Wash lighting provides a warm, even glow to the front of your home. It also greatly reduces the number of dark corners or poorly lit areas that a burglar would look for. Wash lighting can also cover those hard to reach areas, like second story windows.
Lighting driveways is a great way to secure your home. First of all, it makes entering a garage undetected nearly impossible. In addition, your driveway is a main entryway to your home, so lighting it means there are fewer ways to get from the street to your house.
Lighting pathways is great for the safety of your family and guests. A lighted pathway makes it easy to get to your entryway without stumbling on small obstacles or steps along the way. It also shuts down another potential path from the street to your home.
Lighting the Back of Your Home
The back of your home is usually more secluded than the front, making it an inviting entrance point for would be burglars. But a properly lit backyard or rear of the house will make it just as unappealing as the front of your home.
Just like the front of your home, wash lighting can do away with dark corners and places for burglars to hide. In addition, lighting rear entrances to your home makes back doors or basement entryways much more difficult for burglars to approach. Deck or patio lighting also create a well lit buffer zone between a darker backyard and your home.
Landscape Lighting for Security
Don’t underestimate the value of landscape lighting for the overall security of your home. Landscape lighting tends to be focused on specific areas of your garden or yard that you want to highlight. This may include rock walls, standout trees, or appealing garden beds. The great thing about lighting these areas is that those are also prime areas for burglars to hide as they approach your home.
If your house backs up to a forested area, take extra care to light the trees closer to your home. Using bullet lights or flood lights (depending on the size of your trees), you can turn the edge of the wooded area into a beautiful pallet of light and texture. It can also make it a much harder place for burglars to hide or lurk in the bushes.
Downlighting, provided by special lights placed high in a tree, can give the effect of soft moonlight to the area beneath a tree. This can also effectively remove any chance a burglar may have had to use that tree or that space as cover.
Extra Tricks to Make Your Outdoor Lighting Even More Secure
Even with lighting in all the right places, there are a few things you can do to make your lighting work even harder to secure your home. First of all, lighting only works if it is on. Use timers to make sure that all of your lighting is set to turn on at dusk and stays on until daylight.
In addition, use LED lights to minimize burnout and make sure that all of your lights fixtures are working all of time. And even with long-lasting LED lights, take a stroll around your home a night from time to time just to make sure everything is working. LED lights have extremely long life, but damage to a fixture can end its usefulness prematurely.
NightVision Outdoor Lighting uses only LED lights. That ensures that your lights are on and functional for as long as possible. With our worry-free replacement lighting guarantee, if a light does break or burn out, or even if you accidentally cut a wire working in your garden, NightVision Outdoor Lighting will send replacement lighting to keep you out of the dark. Just contact us to receive our excellent customer service.
Don’t Wait To Secure Your Home
Don’t let your home be a potential target for criminals. Call NightVision Outdoor Lighting today for your estimate and start making your home more secure today.
