Amount of Light
If there’s no sunlight, it’s quite easy to fall down going down the driveway by your home. Besides, unlit driveway and entrance welcome burglars and thieves. Conversely, if the driveway looks like a Christmas tree, aesthetics is in danger and energy bills skyrocket for no reason. The optimum is simple. You may have heard designers who mentioned so-called “moonlight effect” – it means that your outdoor lighting should be lit as brightly as in a full moon night with the clear sky.
Purpose
Mind the fact that your driveway will be lit by a vehicle’s headlight anyway. So driveway lighting is more about defining limits of the pavement rather than about lighting the pavement up, unless you are going to do something but driving to the garage on the driveway. In this case lighting should be brighter.
What and Where to Mount the Fixtures
The best way to illuminate the driveway is to install path lights throughout the way, set up bollards with shielded fixtures and/or attach post lanterns to the side of the house. Also if there’re trees along the driveway, you can mount downlights in the trees. The moonlight effect, mentioned above, can be achieved by mounting low-voltage shaded lamps, preferably with LED bulbs.
Besides, you may want to set up a couple of long high voltage pole-mounted lanterns by the entrance to your place, so that they could play a role of a beacon for entrees.
Control
Thanks to motion sensors you can comfortably drive to your garage, get off the car and come in without turning the lights on manually. The same function keeps would-be intruders at bay and saves energy, making your house greener.
Solar Panel
One more good idea for making the house greener is a photovoltaic cell. And, yes, of course, they are applicable not only for driveway lighting, but for all other outdoor and even indoor lighting too.
