Good step lighting for safety

Step lighting is what I like to call safety lighting. Its purpose is to guide you safely from one level to the next, highlighting the path your feet must follow. Obviously, if you can’t see where you are going at night, a trip or fall could cause serious injury. In some cases, particularly for the elderly, this could be life threatening. The older we get, the harder it is to see at night. This means that effective outdoor lighting is even more important for our older generations.
To appreciate good quality step lighting, it’s important to discuss glare. Glare is defined as “a very harsh, bright, dazzling light.” When trying to see where to step, glare is not your friend. Glare actually diminishes visibility of the step by drawing your eye to the harsh light, not directing your vision to the uneven surfaces. Good step lighting fixtures must minimize glare from all angles to create safe pathways to walk.
Glaring step lighting
There are many options when it comes to step lighting. With the tremendous advancements in LED lighting, the options have exploded. What I like LEAST is the usual in-step brick light with either the flat glass front or the louvered face. The glass face fixture creates a lot of glare which can actually distract you from looking at the step itself as you approach. The louvered option only lights a very small area of the step instead of the whole step. A better option: LED linear lights which fit under the lip of the step. The linear design not only gets rid of the glare issue, it also does a great job of lighting the whole step.
Also a good option in many applications is the deck style light which can be mounted on a wall or post. These smaller fixtures may be installed on one or both sides of the steps. A deck light points the light down to the step (away from your eyes), and spreads the light more evenly on the steps. This is a great choice as it can light more than one step at a time requiring fewer fixtures to accomplish the task.
Even step lighting
Another method would be to place path/spread fixtures at the top, or along the steps, in planters or flower beds. Path lights are frequently considered decorative elements in the landscape, and come in a wide variety of designs to accommodate almost any style preference. When using this type of fixture, it’s important to make sure that you cannot see the source of the light (where the glare comes from) when going up the steps. This style lighting can further reduce the number of fixtures needed as the spread angle is wide lighting the steps very well.
Each step feature must be considered individually to choose the proper fixture required to do the job well. The needs and tastes of the homeowner, and the unique situation each step creates for residents and guests, calls for individual attention by your lighting designer. Let’s stay safe around our homes at night.

Here in central Texas we are fortunate to have some very dark skies but that also means we have some very dark changes in elevations or steps.  Let us come out and do an evaluation to find the best method of illuminating those areas for you.  Contact us here.