Exterior lighting?

[Wayne02]

What kind of lighting do you have around your place?

Lets start at the front or main entry door to your house. Do you leave the porch light on all night or just part of the night, or maybe it is on a motion sensor and only comes on with movement?

What about other areas, perimeter of your house, driveway, outbuildings, the yard etc. what type of lighting do you have in these areas? Is your place completely dark at night or do you have some lights burning?

What about mercury vapor lights, do people still use these for general yard lighting? Are they more or less energy efficient vs. floodlights and such?

I'm not a big fan of lighting the place up all night long like some folks seem to do, but I'm finding limitations when using just motion activated lights, at least through some of the common walk path areas. For example the motion light will come on when I exit the house and provide some lighting for X distance, and the motion light on the out building provides lighting for X distance near the building but there is a distance that is not lighted well and not conducive to installation of even more motion lights. Flashlights work of course but it gets old having to haul one with you every night.

Thanks

[jbos333]

I leave no lights on outside at all, unless needed at that time. I have more than enough exterior lighting on the house and garage but do not leave any of it on. In fact, I leave just one interior light on over the kitchen sink, a small flourescent. That is on 24/7. Then just the ones I need in whatever room I'm in at that time.

[sammyd]

We have one metal halide light on a pole mounted in the middle of our 4 car garage with a dusk to dawn sensor. We can see to get from the house to the garage and to enter and exit the cars safely.
Used to have one mounted on the side of the garage so we could see to take care of the rabbits, cows, and chickens when the days get short. But I needed the power for something else and unhooked it. Have to have good night vision to get the chores done around here since the pines block out most of the light from the pole.

[edcopp]

In the daytime we use a thing called the sun. At night, weather permitting we use the moon and stars, and yes we can see the stars where we live.

We do have a porch light that we use when we are coming or going.

If you are coming to visit at night which is rare, we will see your headlights before you get to the house. We will turn the light on for you.

Now if you are coming at night to do some stealing or other frowned upon activity, you have the problem. I know where all the briar patches and junk piles are. Most likely you don't. I will be heavily armed, just in case you are. I may cary a flashlight, but am not likely to use it.

My bill for this lighting is very small.

[roadless]

We have motion dector lights at my garage which lights the walkway to the house.
The front door has a motion dector light.
We have a huge light on the peak of the house for those times when we want to light the majority of the yard.

[fellini123]

We do have low level flurescants (sp) at the front door and the door to the kennel. We leave them on all night as they are enough to see to walk to cars, or between each outbuilding. Also on the garage we have a motion activated LED whole yard light.
In the side yard, which is also the big yard for the dogs, we have flurescants along the perimeter of the house. they are only on when the dogs are outside. Because it is a large yard and the dogs do run at night I would like to install lights at the far corners of the yard so you could see the dogs clearly. But so far we have not done that.....maybe this year.
Alice in COLD COLD Virginia

[Nature Man]

I do not use outside lights but have them if needed. Most of the time I just use one of those millon watt hand held spotlights. I try to discourage evening visitors. If I am away at night I take a small flashlight with me to get from the barn, where I park my truck, to the cabin.

Bill

[deb]

We have 1 60 Watt light mounted on back of the house which stays off 99.9% of the time. We don't advertise the house or make it easy for someone to approach the house. We like the night sky and we like keeping a low profile.

Some neighbors down the hill from us have pole lights, lights on their driveway, lights on their houses & lights on their garages. We can always tell when they go out or are expecting company by which lights they turn on. If we can figure it out, don't you think a burglar would figure it out as well?

Deb
in Wi

[ace admirer]

lights that turn on with a switch when needed. dark at all other times...it un-american to have a always on light...

[jtsummie]

Originally Posted by ace admirer

lights that turn on with a switch when needed. dark at all other times...it un-american to have a always on light...

Except at motel 6, "we'll leave the light on for ya"

[GrannyG]

We have front and back porch lights....only on if we are coming in from church at night. We have a pull string light by the side of the woodpile, so we can walk out the back door, turn on the light, and get wood to bring in at night if we need to. We have motion detector lights on the garage area....the wind will also kick them on if the tree limbs move....and I have a big Mercury light out in the garden that is on all night long for security purposes.

[momtaylor]

Originally Posted by jtsummie

Except at motel 6, "we'll leave the light on for ya"

they have to leave the lights on to keep the 'BUGS' at bay or they'll carry you off

[rambler]

I have one yard light, 30 watt regular bulb, on a switch, on a pole in the yard. Put it on when folks come over or I need to see where I'm going. Leave it off otherwise.

I put a motion sensor on the 40 watt bulb in he porch, nice to walk in at nite & have a light to unlock, or unload my stuff.

We put 2 little solar light thingies by the front steps, they offer a tad of light for a few hours, mostly so I don't stumble on the cats sitting around the house.

Otherwise, it's dark out. Keeps the bad people away. I'm 23 miles from the sherriff's office, in my case, no point in lighting up the place so the bad people can see what tyhey are stealing. Driving by on the road, you don't really even know where my buildings are with the lights off.

--->Paul

[Kris in MI]

Originally Posted by edcopp

In the daytime we use a thing called the sun. At night, weather permitting we use the moon and stars, and yes we can see the stars where we live.

We do have a porch light that we use when we are coming or going.

If you are coming to visit at night which is rare, we will see your headlights before you get to the house. We will turn the light on for you.

Now if you are coming at night to do some stealing or other frowned upon activity, you have the problem. I know where all the briar patches and junk piles are. Most likely you don't. I will be heavily armed, just in case you are. I may cary a flashlight, but am not likely to use it.

My bill for this lighting is very small.

LOL, you just described what we have at our place, pretty much. Except you left out the dogs that are outside dogs; the big German Shepherd especially loves to sleep on the front porch where he can 'greet' any and all visitors If you come by often enough that he knows the sound of your vehicle you get the tail wagging greeting. Otherwise he barks like he's auditioning for the hounds of hades. And he has a nice 'smile' to go with that bark.

We also have motion detector lights on the front of the garage where you pull up to park. They come on long enough for you to get out of your vehicle and walk to the door. So the actual porch lights don't get used very much, the front porch only when we are expecting visitors who don't know to use the back door. And that kind rarely comes at night. For those who might try it, see above about the German Shepherd.

I don't like being lit up at night. My neighbor on the other hand has the opposite opinion; she has at least 4 mercury lights on her house and outbuildings. From across the field the glow she creates looks like a small town.

[||Downhome||]

I keep a flashlight handy it gets so dark here you really could get lost.

[Jenn]

Turned off yard light when moved here. Have flood lights leave on sometimes, not as a routine.

[ErinP]

We have a couple of pole-mounted yard lights and several extremely bright yard lights for the corral (for calving time).
Only one light stays on all the time, though.

DH and I have decided that once we get moved to our own place, we're going to have a yard light, but it'll be one that we can flip off from the house.
We lived on a place once that had a set-up like that and really liked it.

[Forest Breath]

We live WAY out in the country. I bought my fiance' a nice set of solar lights for his birthday. We have 12 solar lights outside, going up the walkway, one by the root cellar, two beside the house and one by the back porch. We have a sloar lantern hanging on the clothesline in the backyard.

Chris has an LED headlight thing that he wears to the barn when it is dark and when he goes out to the woodhsed. We have oil lamps around the house. One at least in each room and several in the busiest rooms. We make home made candles to sit around and use as needed also.

The trick is keeping the matches in the same place all the time. Nothing worse than hunting for matches in the dark.

[cfabe]

Right now we have one metal halide pole light in front of the house that we usually leave on so I can see to load the wood burner in the dark. I don't like it, but around us nearly every house has at least one of these things. I'm planning to change over to a series of normal incandescent flood lights that I can turn on/off when necessary to provide light around the house and drive and the path to the barn.

[GREENCOUNTYPETE]

everything on a switch and off unless i want to see then off again when i am done i don't like lights on just seems like a waste of electricity

when i go get wood i have a head lamp that works well it is led and uses batteries very sparingly

the dog can see in the dark just fine and he barks when he wants back in

i have neighbors that leave all sort of lights on but i don't care for it