Stay Secure: How to Make Your Home Safer with Outdoor Security Lighting
Each year, more than 3.7 million homes are broken into across the country. For each break-in, homeowners have to file insurance claims to help pay for the damage. While your homeowners’ insurance policy will help cover the cost of repairs or replacement items, it’s far better to prevent the break-in in the first place.
Sure, an alarm system is a great place to start, but that’s not always enough. The easiest way to secure your San Diego home is to improve its outdoor security lighting. Not sure where to start?
Let’s take a look at a few simple ways to boost your home security efforts.
Understand Why Outdoor Security Lighting is Important
Before you install or upgrade your home’s exterior lighting, it’s important to understand why it matters. Every window and door in your home is a potential entry point for would-be thieves and burglars.
When those areas are in the dark, it’s easy for someone to slip in unnoticed. Light makes it far more difficult. Even a small lightbulb can illuminate an entry point and make thieves visible from the street. When they feel visible, they’re less likely to target your home.
Consider Motion-Sensor Outdoor Security Lighting
Motion sensor lights installed on the outside of your home illuminate the yard anytime they sense movement. Things like people, wildlife, cars, and unwanted intruders can all set the sensors off if they get close enough.
When nothing is happening in the yard, the lights stay off. This saves you money on energy bills and keeps your neighbors happy. If bright lights are on constantly, you may find yourself subject to a few angry comments.
Choose an Energy Efficient Bulb
Whether you want a motion-activated light or are using lights you control with a switch, it’s important to install an energy-efficient bulb.
Instead of old-fashioned incandescent bulbs, choose high-quality bright LED bulbs.
These LED bulbs use a fraction of the energy traditional lights need. Best of all, they’re often brighter and light up a larger portion of the yard at any given time.
By installing outdoor LED security lighting from the very beginning, you’ll set your home security efforts up for success. Since the average LED bulb lasts up to 50,000 hours, you can expect to set up the system and forget about it for at least a few years.
Landscape Lighting is Not Enough
Landscape lighting frames out your plants and highlights parts of your yard, but those areas are often set away from the house. Landscape lighting systems are simply not designed to make thieves and burglars noticeable.
That said, the system can help. Think of landscape lighting as a supplement to security lighting. It highlights the areas of your yard that standard security lighting may not reach.
As long as you don’t rely on it as your only security lighting, it will be a useful addition to your home security efforts.
Don’t Just Pay Attention to the Outside Lights
Driving around San Diego and the surrounding area, you will see a lot of houses with porch lights on, but that alone might not be enough. You also need to light up the inside of your house.
Just because no one is home doesn’t mean you can’t create the appearance of someone being in the house.
Most thieves target homes that look unoccupied. Nothing makes your home look empty like dark windows at night. Set a few lamps on timers, especially if you’re going on vacation for a few weeks. Stagger the timers to make it seem like someone is in the house at night.
If thieves are casing the neighborhood, they’ll be less likely to target your home.
Choose the Right Color Exterior Security Lights
Lightbulbs come in almost every color of the rainbow, and then some. Though it might be tempting to pick a colorful bulb, it’s probably not practical for security reasons.
Colored light does not always let your eyes see what’s right in front of them. This means a burglar or intruder may be able to slip right past the light system without you noticing.
Instead, look for bulbs that have either clear light or white light options.
The lack of color makes activity in your yard stand out clearly.
Don’t Leave the Lights on All the Time
A dark yard could be a hazard, but a constantly lit yard is just as bad.
When you leave the lights on all the time, it sends a signal to thieves that your home is a good target. Why? Because it makes it look like no one is home even when you are.
Turn the lights off periodically. Ideally, keep them off during the middle of the night and use a motion sensor to detect movement when you’re not awake.
This makes it look like someone is at home all the time.
Do What You Can to Reduce Shadows
Shadows give thieves a great place to hide, and some security lighting systems actively create shadows.
Take a look at your yard at night and map out where the shadows are. Once you have a clear picture, take a look at your exterior landscape lighting bulbs. Often, replacing them with a new bulb will make the light brighter.
If it doesn’t, you may want to add a few new fixtures to get rid of the shadows once and for all.
Don’t Put Off Upgrading Your Security Lighting
Security lighting keeps your home safer and protects against thieves and home intruders, whether you’re home or not. But that’s not all.
The right system can add value to your San Diego area home. If you plan on selling your house in the future, having a good security system in place will make the property more attractive to prospective buyers.
The more buyers that are interested in your property, the higher selling price you’ll be able to get!
Let the Experts Help Keep Your House Secure
Ready to invest in a better outdoor security lighting system? Contact us today to schedule a free consultation.