How Bright Should the Outdoor Lighting Be?

Outdoor and landscape lighting is a great way to decorate your home. But we often run into homeowners who are divided on their decision to install outdoor lighting. They imagine a beautiful home with resort-style lighting. Often, they see other homes with great outdoor lighting and appreciate the added appeal of those homes. But another partner may not be sure. They imagined a house lighting up a hotel on the Vegas Strip. Maybe they've seen a house with old-fashioned floodlights sticking out like a thumb.

We're happy to tell you that modern lighting designs can improve curb appeal while avoiding the pitfalls of excessive light pollution. However, this still leaves a problem. How bright should the outdoor lighting be? Our night vision outdoor lighting experts are here to tell you why and how to light up your home.

There was a time when outdoor lighting design was nothing more than throwing some floodlights onto a property and lighting up the night. You may see some classic buildings still lit this way. Huge, bright lights can be seen from miles away, glare from treetops and behind buildings. Needless to say, times have changed and so have styles. As technology develops, lighting designers have more options. Designs became more subtle, using various lights and brightness to achieve the overall effect.

Modern lighting designs often combine lights of different intensities. Some lights, like motion-sensing security lights, can be very bright. Other lights, such as step lights, maybe just bright enough.

One problem to avoid in outdoor lighting design is the dreaded photo bounce. When you go from a dark room to a bright space, there is a light-bouncing effect. Your eyes squint involuntarily as they try to adjust. Sudden bright light can be blinding. It may take an uncomfortable few minutes for your eyes to fully adjust.

At night, this effect may be worse. If your home is unevenly lit, you may be able to go in and out of dark and bright light several times just by walking around the house. This prevents the eyes from adjusting and just means you are blinded by both light and dark. Softer and even more even lighting is the best way to avoid photo bounces and should be one of the top concerns in your design.

Intuitively, your lighting should vary according to its function and location. But how do you measure how bright a light is? It's important to understand this when planning your outdoor lighting design.

In the past, it was all about the wattage. You can tell how bright a light is by the wattage it uses. A 45-watt bulb is delicate and often used for decorative purposes. 60-watt light bulbs are common throughout the house. They provide a useful amount of light for most purposes. The 100-watt bulb is extra bright where you need to see clearly. They are most commonly found in work areas such as kitchens or garage workbenches. For exterior lighting, designers specify the required wattage for each fixture.

That all changed with the advent of the LED. LEDs can produce the same amount of light as a 100-watt incandescent bulb that requires only 23 watts. Wattage is no longer a reliable measure of brightness. So how do you measure brightness independent of wattage? The answer is lumens. Lumens are a measure of how much light a bulb actually emits, independent of the wattage that produces it. In modern LED outdoor lighting designs, you'll see designers refer to lumens, not wattage.

Another factor that has become more pronounced with LED technology is light temperature. When incandescent bulbs are the primary lighting source, we only have a few options. You can choose from soft white, cool white, and most recently, daylight. Color temperature (a measure of how warm/yellow or cool/blue your light is) becomes very precise when using LEDs. Color temperature is measured in degrees Kelvin (K) and typically ranges from 3000K (very warm/yellow) to 6000K (cool/daylight).

Everyone loves a starry night sky. But if you live in a city or even a densely populated suburb, you likely won't be able to see the stars. That's because of light pollution. Light pollution is the result of thousands of lights in densely populated areas that combine to create a glow above the city. That light makes it hard to see the stars. It also has detrimental effects on many animals that use light to coordinate movement and behavior such as sleeping, feeding, and migration.

Another type of light pollution is called light trespass. Light trespass occurs when light hits an unintended area or direction. Think about that light in your neighbor's garage that shines annoyingly straight into your bedroom window. When installing an outdoor landscape lighting system, it is critical to consider light trespass and how to avoid it. Being a good neighbor means keeping your light to yourself.

Glare is another problem. If the light is too bright or in the wrong direction, it can be blinding from certain angles. Whether the light is shining on a driver on the street or guests in your home, glare is unpleasant and unsightly.

The best way to avoid light pollution, light trespass, and glare are to use specially designed luminaires. Many fixtures come with built-in anti-glare and anti-intrusion devices so light only shines in the intended direction. The type of lighting you use will also make a difference. Light pollution can be reduced by using more downlights and fewer uplights or floodlights. If you can only point light where you want it, there will be less light escaping upwards into the night sky. Using appropriate brightness levels is another way to avoid light pollution. Keeping your lighting subtle and using only the lumens you need will reduce glare, pollution, and trespassing.

With everything we've said about brightness, style, and light pollution, you're probably ready for the punchline. How many lumens do I need for landscape lighting? As with all aspects of landscaping and outdoor lighting, the answer depends. The general rule is that you want to use as few lumens as possible to create the desired effect. The type of effect you are trying to create will determine the number of lumens you need.

The following is a basic overview of the brightness of landscape lights:

Path lighting: 100-200 lumens

Stair light: 12-100 lumens

Flood light: 700-1300 lumens

Motion sensor light: 300-700 lumens

Pond/Pool light: 200-400 lumens

Hardscape lighting (Wall): 50-185

Landscape: 50-300 lumens (50 is suitable for gardens or small bushes)

You'll notice that all of these examples are given as ranges. There is no single, objective measure of how many lumens a particular application needs. That's the benefit of working with an experienced lighting designer. They help you get the light you need, not the light you don't.

The above briefly introduces the brightness tips of outdoor landscape lights. If you want to buy outdoor landscape lights, please contact us.

TFB Lighting is a professional custom outdoor landscape lighting manufacturer. The company covers an area of more than 8,000 square meters, and has large scissors, folding equipment, automatic spraying lines, welding production lines, lathes, drilling machines, milling machines, planers, punching machines, machining production lines, etc. The company mainly produces various garden lamps, floor lamps, lawn lamps, wall lamps, underwater lamps, wall lamps, spotlights, street lamps, solar and landscape lamps and other products. With many varieties and high quality, it is widely used in decorative lighting in various roads, squares, parks, villas, pedestrian streets, garden communities and other places.