How To Clean Exterior Lighting

Unfortunately, our exterior lighting doesn’t get the tender loving care as frequently (if ever) as it would like. Being exposed to the elements often ends up with the lighting being coated with dirt and dust. Cleaning up your exterior fixtures, however, can make your entire outdoor area look much nicer (even newer), and can increase the brightness of your lights at night by up to 20% - why wouldn’t you want to achieve this?

Begin by turning off all exterior lighting in your yard and allowing the globes to cool down completely. Often, it is best to begin cleaning in the morning or early afternoon, when your globes have had a number of hours to cool down.

Next, you can dampen an old rag with some clean water. Remove each globe from its socket and wipe them down with the rag; this will remove all of the dust that has gathered over time. Once you’re finished, replace the globe back into the exterior lighting fixture. Spray some glass cleaner (such as Windex) onto the same rag, and use it to wipe down any glass that you happen to notice in your fixtures, such as the panels in a lantern, for example.

Take a new cloth and dampen it with water. Use it to wipe away all of the dirt and dust that has gathered on the metal parts of your exterior lighting. If you find that the metal has grown dull, you can apply a teaspoon of metal polish to each fixture and polish it gently with the cloth.

Whilst cleaning your exterior lighting is not a chore that you can complete every day or even every weekend, it is something that should be done around twice to year to ensure that they look much nicer and illuminate your yard as best as they can. It doesn’t take long – an hour or two, at the most, is all you need.

Trends In Exterior Lighting

Gone are the days when the only feature in our backyard was that lawn setting or the birdbath we bought twenty years ago. Today, exterior lighting features hugely in turning our yards into oases of entertainment and play areas, helping to increase the amount of time that we can use our outdoor space.

Pathways

Also known as area lights, this form of exterior lighting is used to light walkways, as well as to highlight nearby flowerbeds and shrubs. It illuminates in a soft, circular pattern.

Deck

These forms of outdoor lighting are generally mounted to the outside wall of the home, or even on the railing around the deck or patio. Like path lights, they illuminate in a soft, horizontal direction and reduce the glare that other types are known to give off.

Spotlights

Also known as accent lights, this form of exterior lighting is commonly used to highlight trees, statues and other clever or creative architectural features. They use beams of illumination that can be directed wherever you please.

Step

These forms of outdoor lighting are generally found in masonry or wood constructions, and are used to add a sense of safety and security to people using their decks or steps at night.

Ultimately, the purpose of exterior lighting is to tie together the relationship between our homes and our surrounding landscape. This is why the emerging trends are focused on bringing the indoors outdoors, without neglecting that security is also important. If you want to increase the amount of time your family uses your outdoor spaces, check out some of the above illumination solutions.