Fighting Light Pollution

Lighting outside of your home can help to safely navigate walkways, stoops and driveways, while also welcoming guests, or highlighting landscape areas. If some care is taken when choosing light fixtures, bulbs and positioning, outdoor lighting can be a useful way to enhance your residence in the evening hours. In contrast, badly-applied outdoor lighting can be blinding and ugly. Glary lights are a nuisance to your neighbors and also disturb nearby wildlife. The key is to know what the causes of problem lighting are, and to avoid them. Until recent years, there was little knowledge of so called "light pollution." Today, many communities (including Branford) have written laws to curb poor lighting practices.

Outdoor Lighting Don'ts

Reduce the glare! Outdoor lighting glare comes from seeing the bulb directly, or when a fixture's bulb is too bright for the application. Glare can detrimentally impact our ability to see at night. It is not only ugly, but painful to look at. Lighting with glare can defeat the purpose of your lights in the first place!

Light your home, not your neighbors. Unwanted lights shining beyond your property can detrimentally impact people, animals and insects living nearby, even disrupt their sleep. Remember that during the fall and winter months, tree leaves have fallen. This puts homes (and home lighting) more in open view of each other.

Don't shine light up into the sky. Light that is shining upward serves no purpose, and is a waste of illumination and energy. Light spilled upward into the night sky makes it difficult to see the stars, because it masks the sky's darkness.

Turn off outdoor lights when retiring to bed. Lighting that is left on from dusk to dawn is usually intended as a security measure. Unless you plan to sit up all night and watch your property, dusk to dawn lighting won't help much. It can instead light the way for any would-be intruder. All-night lighting can be costly too, as replacement bulb and energy costs add up.

Outdoor Lighting Dos

Treat your home outdoor lighting like stage lighting in a theatre. Light the subject without shining light in the audience's eyes. Choose fixtures that direct the light downward onto areas where it is needed. Avoid using wall-mounted flood lights, and if you must, re-aim or shield them to keep glare out of the viewer's line-of-sight. In fixtures that have a bulb in plain view, try using lower wattage/lower brightness bulbs. Remember, at night we can see quite well in lower light levels when it is applied well.

Get outside at night and look at your home lights from the neighbor's perspective. Check to make sure that you are not unintentionally shining lights into other homes or natural areas. If you notice lights on your home that could be a nuisance to others, try shielding, re-aiming or replacing these to minimize light trespass.

If you have security concerns and wish to deter theft or vandalism at night, lighting will serve you best when it is motion sensor-activated. As recommended by security professionals, a sudden change of environment like a light turning on, or alarm sounding will not only startle intruders, but it can also alert the homeowner or neighbors nearby. Integrated alarm systems are considered a more reliable security measure than lighting and they use less energy too. Because of growing public awareness to light pollution issues, new and improved homeowner lighting products are currently available. Good outdoor lighting can enhance the appearance of your property, welcome you home at night, save you money and help you be a good neighbor too. Let the stars shine!

[You can find out more about the value and effectiveness of quality nighttime lighting at the website of the International Dark Sky Association <www.darksky.org>.]

By Bob Crelin

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Last updated 18 September, 2004 .