I was sloppy and let the front of my house go dark; that's not a good idea in this area.
I had an incident (yes, I did call the police, but I fell back to sleep after an hour of waiting for them to show up; dunno if they ever did) very late the other night (the darkest side of the early morning) that motivated me to get my security lights back in order. I decided to skip friendly, neighborhood aesthetics and went for ugly, expeditious, affordable function.
The above fixture is now on the West side of the garage door.
The above fixture is now on the East side of the garage door.
You get the idea. During the daylight hours the industrial-grade-ugliness of these units sends the message that my house will be very well illuminated at night and that I am not screwing around trying to be polite; go prey on the neighbors. After dark, the motion detectors decide when to light things up; I have the range of the motion detectors of each unit set to overlap. I checked the function of the units out after dark and they really do cover the driveway (and everything in it) with a flood of light all the way out into the cul de sac. While the lights may attract the attention of the neighbors (not that they ever bother to call the police until the morning after) I also believe the amount of light will not annoy anyone other than the prowlers (I stayed below the maximum wattage of the fixture, but I will upsize the bulbs if I feel it is needed).
The security light fixture on back of the house that I put in seven years ago still works but my guess is that it is nearing the end of its service life; I think I will purchase another one of the above fixtures and install it back there.
Today I will shop for a somewhat more fashionable security light fixture for the front entrance.
No comments:
Post a Comment