Safety and Security Lighting

Did you know that landscape lighting can also perform other functions for your residence other than illuminating your landscaping?

Landscape lighting also provides additional security for your home as well as making the walkways around your property safer once they are properly illuminated.

Security – Some houses are designed in such a way, that they must have the standard 120V house lights installed on the house corners or over the garage and by the front and back doors, but others are designed where landscape lighting, when strategically placed will provide beautiful illumination of your landscaping as well as provide some additional security for your home.

Landscape lighting can remove the dark corners of your yard, bring balance to what you and your neighbors can see from the street, especially when streetlamps are close by. Landscape lighting can be used to brighten doors and window areas all around your house in some cases, which in turn, makes it easier for you and your neighbors to monitor what is happening outside your home in the evening and overnight. Landscape lighting also sends a message that you care about your property and that you are someone who pays close attention to your property, so would be burglars skip by your house. The University of Washington researchers call this “implied surveillance”.

Safety – Statistics show that the vast majority of outside falls are not caused by horseplay or abnormal behavior, but instead by normal walking. The National Institute of Health states that outdoor falls are made up by 78% middle aged men and 58% middle aged women and among all ages, the number drops to 47%. These are some really large numbers and while landscape lighting alone will not eliminate all falls, having your walkways and steps illuminated in some fashion can definitely help reduce these numbers.

There are may types of landscape lighting that can serve in this capacity, such as path lighting, wall and step lighting, accent and even down lighting from trees, which is my favorite. There is also hardscape lighting that can be used along walls or the house to consider when building a home from the ground up.

Please contact us at Exo Design if you would like to receive a free consultation on how we can make your house safer and more secure!