Outdoor lighting: highlight the beauty of your home and garden
Outdoor lighting installed directly on the house or in the garden looks great and is super functional. And that's not all: as a home owner, you may be required by law to illuminate your home to ensure that nobody gets hurt. Read more about outdoor lighting for home and garden here.
There are many options for creating lit-up areas in your outdoor space. If you are looking to bring light to a specific outdoor area, simply select your topic from the list at the top left of the page get plenty of practical information to help you out.
Garden Lighting
Create a magical fairytale landscape in your own back yard.
There are many ways for your to highlight your home with the right outdoor lighting. The placement of just a few lights along your garden paths and driveway can look impressive and will add to your overall security. Outdoor lighting on the façades and in the porch visually upgrade your property. Round it all off with beautiful, atmospheric lighting for your garden, where there is virtually no limit to your imagination.
Outdoor lighting for paths and driveways
Good outdoor lighting on paths and driveways is crucial if you don't want to have to make your way from the carport to the front door in the dark. You add to your own safety and make life a lot easier for delivery services and visitors. Illuminated paths and driveways assist orientation and make your home look much more inviting.
Wall luminaires create basic lighting around the outside of your home. You can choose to only light up the façade at the front of your home, or to illuminate the entire circumference. Both will make your home more attractive and will visually upgrade your entire property. Outdoor lighting placed on the façades add to the safety of you and your family and acts as a deterrent for burglars. Ideally, you should plan wall lighting on façades before the house is built to include power outlets in the right places in your plans.
The first impression of your home is always the entrance area. Beautiful outdoor lighting on the porch raise expectations .And then there is the practical aspect of porch lighting. Forget fumbling for your house keys in the dark ever again! A house number luminaire can be a very special and attractive feature. And let's not forget: an illuminated house numbers can be vital, at it guides emergency services to the right door.
Your garden. Retreat, wellness oasis, common area and nature scenery all rolled into one. It really doesn't matter, which role your garden plays in your life: it should always be a place for you to be happy. The right illumination is crucial to give all those lovingly arranged flower beds, lawns, paths and possibly a pond the ambiance you want. Indirectly illuminated trees look imposing, a lit up pond is attractive and adds value to your property.
For most people, the patio is the one place they spend most of their time outdoors. The right lighting is essential to make this place as comfortable as possible. Wall luminaires are a great way to create basic lighting. Fairy lights and lanterns add to the ambiance. Battery-powered luminaires are a great choice if there aren't enough power outlets in your patio area, or if you want to be more flexible with your light options. A batter-powered standing lamp can be helpful for a night-time BBQ, and can later be moved next to the table to light up a game of cards with friends.
3. Are there legal requirements for exterior lighting on private homes?
Home owners in most countries have a public safety obligation. That means that you as the owner must ensure that visitors, the mail man or emergency services will not come to any harm on their way to the entrance of your home. This obligation also extends to paths, driveways, gardens and all other publicly accessible areas that lead to your front door. Much like the obligation to grit sidewalks in icy conditions, sufficient illumination must be provided on the outside of your home to prevent accidents.
It is, however, unnecessary to have the lights on all night long. A motion sensor for outdoor lights will ensure safe footing and will keep your electricity bill in check. In some communities in Germany (e.g. Berlin or Hamburg), an illuminated house number is a legal requirement. Make sure to enquire about relevant regulations from your local government before you start construction. Legal requirement or not – illuminated house numbers are always a good idea. The pizza delivery guy will find you faster, meaning your pizza will be hotter, when you get it.
4. What are the benefits of good outdoor lighting on the house and in the garden?
First of all, you as the owner must provide adequate outdoor lighting to ensure that nobody gets hurt on your property. Aside from compliance with legal obligations, outdoor lighting around your home has plenty of practical uses:
Deterrent for burglars: Shady types don't like brightly lit properties. Illumination gives your home a "lived in" look – even if you not at home at some point.
Orientation: Rummaging through your pockets for the house key or if you need to get something from the car after dark – exterior lighting makes your life easier.
Visibility: Friends, delivery or emergency services find your home a lot faster at night if you provide good outdoor lighting. An illuminated house number is an additional bonus in these situations.
Comfort: A well-lit home with illuminated paths leading to the front door feel inviting and attractive. Clever lighting makes a garden the place to be on warm summer nights. That's when everyone wants to stay outside as long as possible, and even in winter a well-lit garden can be a pleasure to look at from the comfort of your indoors.
5. Which lamps are best suited for outdoor lighting?
Functional or decorative – there are many luminaire and lamp options to light up your outdoor areas. We offered some advice on the suitability of various luminaire types for each area in previous chapters. The one essential common factor for all lamps and luminaires you install outdoors is their IP protection. It will protect against the ingress of solid particles and liquids to ensure the electrical safety of the luminaires and with it the safety for people, pets and the environment. Using LED lamps with high energy efficiency will keep your electricity bill in check. Lamps with integrated dusk sensor, motion sensor and specifically solar lights are even more cost-effective.
Dusk Sensor for Outdoor Lighting
A lamp with integrated dusk sensor will light up as soon as it gets dark. You don't have to worry about switching them on and off. You save money on your electricity bill, as the lamps are inactive during the day. Unlike lamps with integrated motion sensor, lamps fitted with a dusk sensor will light continuously all night long. A dusk sensor is therefore a good option for objects that need to be lit up all the time, like your house number, walkways or decorative elements.
Motion Sensor for Outdoor Lighting
A motion sensor will activate lamps when movement is detected. That might be a car passing by, a person approaching or simply a cat flitting past. A motion sensor makes sense for outdoor lighting in places you want to light up only as needed, for example your front door when you are looking for your keys, or the carport to park the car safely. A motion sensor will also keep a lid on your electricity bill. It will also make sure the outdoor lighting doesn't keep you up at night if you don't have blackout blinds on your windows.
Solar Lights
Solar lights need no connecting cable and can be placed wherever you like in the garden. Garden connoisseurs can have light in the right places, regardless of whether there is a power socket nearby. And best of all: solar lamps or solar panels don't need to be placed in a sunny position. Our solar lights will shine at full power, even if they are installed in the shade – in summer and winter.
6. How do I plan my outdoor lighting correctly?
Outdoor lighting around your house and garden needs good planning. If you are building a new home, you should definitely pinpoint all the locations for outdoor lighting right from the start. You will need mains power outlets for façade lighting, which must be installed during construction and insulated appropriately. Good planning can save you money later on when it comes to outdoor lighting in the garden as well. If you are planning to install decking on your patio, in-ground recessed luminaires will create beautiful light effects when you're all done. For those, who already have a home, there are many options to retrofit beautiful illumination for the outside of the house and for the garden. The Plug & Shine system allows the above-ground routing of power supply cables outdoors, so you can have spots or other light sources exactly where you want them. You can easily route the 24 V Plug & Shine system yourself – no need to employ costly specialists.
Light colours for LED outdoor luminaires
Take note of the colour temperature when purchasing LED outdoor lamps. Central Europeans generally prefer a warm light colour with 3000 Kelvin. In Southern Europe, garden enthusiasts usually opt for a colder neutral white with 4000 Kelvin. Paulmann outdoor lighting is available in both colour temperatures.
Installing outdoor luminaires
There are some big differences in the installation of garden luminaires. The Paulmann Plug & Shine system is one of the easiest to work with. The 24 V LED DC system is routed safely and easily and a great choice for making your own light ideas a reality. The costly and destructive digging of trenches for the installation of 230 V outdoor installations are finally a thing of the past. The Plug & Shine cables have the protection class IP 68, safeguarding them against water ingress, and are very easy to route above ground. The cable system can be expanded to up to 50 metres length and can be interlinked any way you want.
