Popular Techniques For Mounting Wall Lights Outside

One of the more popular uses for wall lights around the home is, believe it or not, outside. It can be used to completely change a person's perspective of an area of your property at night, or even of your entire home. To ensure that you are achieving the sort of perspective that you want, however, there are a number of tips and techniques for mounting fixtures that you should familiarize yourself with first.

Wall Washing This technique involves large walls and other big surfaces being lit up using an even distribution of illumination from a fixture. This type of lighting is able to 'flatten out' textured surfaces, which has led to its common use in covering up imperfections and illuminating certain features. Unless you want a reflective or flattened out look, properties with textured or glossy walls should not use the washing technique.

Grazing This is similar to wall washing in that it aims to achieve an even spread of illumination on surfaces. These wall lights differ to those used in the previous technique, however, in that it does so without sacrificing on the attractiveness of textured surfaces.

Spotlighting This technique involves smaller features of your property (such as sculptures, landscaping structures, plants and so on) being illuminated. In terms of wall lights, these fixtures are used to illuminate a feature that is situated above or below.

Light Scallops This technique is commonly used to add a certain impact to the exterior of your property. With diffused lighting or a reflector lamp, you can create a softer effect with the fixtures, whilst PAR lamps will ensure that you have a more defined scallop on your walls.

LEDs When it comes to choosing the globes that will be used in your wall lights, LEDs tend to be a very popular choice. As they operate on a low-energy system, they can be used for long periods without bumping your electricity bill into extreme proportions (and you can do your bit for the environment). They are also renowned for producing light (not heat), so they are perfectly safe for use around plants and children without risking fires or burns.

If you are in the process of choosing wall lights for use somewhere in the landscape of your property, you should begin looking at the various techniques that you can use and picking up some tips. This will ensure that you present your home in the best possible light at all times, regardless of whether it is day or night.

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Can You Use Energy Saving Lighting Outside?

Whilst there are not many people spending too much time outside at the moment, it is steadily growing closer to that time of the year when homeowners are preparing their properties for the nicer weather ahead. One thing that they may do as a part of this is update the globes in their outdoor lights, getting them ready for long nights of entertaining under the stars. Is it a good idea, however, to swap over to energy saving lighting?

There are three main purposes for lighting that has been installed outside:

Security, such as illumination at your front door or garage Accent, such as illuminating features of your landscape Task, such as over your patio or swimming pool areas

Like indoor lighting, each of these fixtures can really increase your electricity consumption, especially if they are turned on for extended periods of time.

It is possible, however, to save some money by fitting all of your outdoor fixtures energy saving lighting, unless they are controlled via motion sensor. So, if you have a floodlight above the garage for times you come home late at night or you use a fixture to illuminate a tree or sculpture, you should swap these over to energy saving globes as soon as possible - the savings (both in money and carbon emissions) will be almost instantaneous.

To further prove why you should use energy efficient lighting outside wherever possible, let's look at some of the figures:

An incandescent globe only produces around 14 lumens per watt, which will cost you around $20 per year to run (if switched on for 8 hours a day) and will produce about 349 pounds of carbon. Now think about the cost and emissions when compared to every single outdoor light you have. An energy efficient globe produces around 55 lumens per watt, which will only cost you around $15 per year to run (also for 8 hours a day) and will only produce about 87 pounds of carbon. Now think about the savings you will make by swapping over.

As you can see from the statistics outline above, not only can you use energy saving lighting outside, you really should be using it for all fixtures that do not operate off motion sensors. Not only will this allow you to considerably lower your home's electricity consumption, it will help you to sleep easy at night knowing that you are doing all you can for protecting the environment. Don't wait - switch over your outdoor fixtures today!

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