24 Mar Preventing Burglary with Adequate Garden Lighting
By Mike Gambino
As many already know, adequate lighting is a critical part of keeping the exterior of your home safe. Even though lighting is very important to home safety, a lot of homeowners don’t look at their lighting as being an integral aspect of safety. No matter where you may live, you should always make sure that there is plenty of lighting in place and that the lights are not easily disabled by intruders which means hiding control units and concealing power sources.
The lighting that is around the entry points-doors and windows of your home are very important, as most burglars like to focus on doors and windows before anything else. When it comes to the doors and windows of your home, any lighting at all is better than no lighting. If a burglar sees lights around your home, chances are he’ll move on. If the lights are non existent or off however, the burglar will more than likely proceed as planned as there is a better chance that his prowling or breaking and entering can be done undetected by neighbors and passers by in total darkness.
Gambino lighting offers a security level of lighting option which is also a decorative or aesthetically pleasing alternative to annoying glaring motion sensor flood lights visibly mounted on walls of the home. Motion sensor lighting can be falsely triggered by pets or wild animals which can create disturbance of your neighbors and your own sleep.
This special security zone is a a separately controlled zone of low level LED lighting that cannot be disabled by a burglar which is very economical to operate from dusk until dawn. It consists of lighting that encompasses lighting for entry points around the perimeter of the home and garage. Additional Lighting that is principally for decoration is programmed to turn off at the same time that the property owner usually retires to the bedroom to go to sleep.
If you own a garage, you should always use an automatic garage opener. Once they have been activated, most will automatically turn on the lights inside the garage. Your carport is also important to safety. If you are going to be away from home and return after dark then you should always make sure that their are lights on around your carport or parking areas.
Side and back yards of the home are particularly vulnerable because they are not visible from the street and should be included along with the security package of lighting.
To be on the safe side, exterior lighting can be integrated to work with some home alarm systems. This way if someone was to move through your yard, the lights would sound the alarm. Burglars don’t like alarms and they will normally flee the instant they hear an alarm sound.
If you are planning to use motion sensors in your yard, you should make sure that you have planned the locations carefully. People walking by the sensor or kids playing nearby can easily trigger it. When you set the motion sensors up you should always make sure that you hook lights up to them as well. This way, those in your family will know where the motion detectors are and they can easily avoid them. Wildlife is another story and can make for annoying and unpredictable activation of flood lights.
Having the right amount of lighting around your home will go a long way in keeping your family safe. Burglars don’t like to be around light, which is why it is so very important. If you don’t have sufficient lighting around your home, you should do something about it right away. It doesn’t have to be intense or prohibitively energy consuming and expensive to operate – all you need is enough lighting to make sure that a burglar thinks twice about breaking into your home. In this case a ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
This landscape lighting blog is published by Mike Gambino of Gambino landscape lighting inc. all rights reserved. Mike is a professional landscape lighting system designer/ builder and has been designing, installing and maintaining landscape lighting systems for more than 20 years. Mike resides in the Los Angeles area with his wife and 2 sons. To visit his website go to www.gambinolighting.com . To inquire about hiring Mike please click here .
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