Let there be light

While taking a little break at a recent job site, the homeowners began describing their desire for more exterior lighting along the side of their house, where the driveway shifts to a walkway to the entry gate for backyard access.

Apparently, they had recently become concerned that the darkness between their house and the neighbour’s may be an invitation to some unsavoury behaviour in the space. Fortunately, I was able to suggest a remedy for that lingering worry, and subsequently implemented it before wrapping up the larger project.

No matter where you live, theft and vandalism are always a possibility. Although well-lit areas may not totally prevent these crimes, proper illumination can serve as a deterrent, which is sometimes enough to avoid waking to an unwelcome surprise.

The home’s front porch consists of full-length stairs that begin along the walkway side and continue towards the front-door entry. And because the porch is built as an inset, a ceiling light fixture mounted along the deep soffit does provide a bit of light in that area.

Although the homeowners switched that light on every evening as a pre-nightfall ritual, it unfortunately did not illuminate much of the area, and left the walkway leading to the backyard completely dark.

After assessing the main switch controlling that lighting circuit, I determined that both the line power and neutral wires feed the switch box, whereby only the interrupt is sent to the light box outside controlling the light fixture.

Bright ideas

With this knowledge, I was able to suggest important upgrades to greatly improve the brightness along the side of the house — mounting a series of LED slim lights on the soffit along the walkway would provide the desired nighttime lighting, which could then be controlled by a timer switch programmed for “dusk-to-dawn” via a link with the atomic clock.

To start, equidistant locations for four three-inch LED slims were chosen along the side soffit. After tracing a circular stencil at each location, the soffit was carefully cut using tin snips.

Once the holes were created, the first LED wiring box was connected to the interrupt wire, which then daisy-chained to the next three side LEDs. In that these four slims were in line, it was relatively easy to fish the wire through the space above the soffit.

Along the front porch, two six-inch LED slims were mounted on the soffit, centred on either side of the front window. The slim closest to the front door simply replaced the existing light fixture whereby the second six-inch LED was introduced. The lead from the first six-inch LED was fed through the soffit cavity to the second with relative ease much like the four smaller LEDs along the side of the house.

The trickiest part of this installation arose along the corner of the house, where the last three-inch slim LED ties into the far six-inch. There was not much space within the cavity above the soffit to fish the wire, and having to wrap the wire around the corner edge made it nearly impossible. Luckily, I remembered to bring my six-foot threaded metal dowels, which can be bent around any corner.

Although it took a few attempts, I was finally able to find the correct angle and curvature of a dowel that, once pushed through the three-inch hole, appeared at the six-inch hole. The tie-in wire was taped to one end, and the dowel was pulled through along with the wire. This lead was then connected to the six-inch box, completing the series array of lighting controlled by the one existing circuit. A quick flip of the switch to test the circuit proved all the lights were functional.

The final task involved replacing the existing toggle switch with the programmable timer switch. Although this particular timer can handle up to 50 presets, the homeowners were comfortable using the “dusk-to-dawn” setting (which adjusts based on sunset and sunrise at any time of year), thereby eliminating the need to manually turn on the lights every night and switch them off again the next morning.

The programming can seem a bit complicated and includes entering GPS location to ensure the switch accurately adheres to local sunset and sunrise times. The lighted display on the switch actually details when the lights will remain on and off. And for whatever reason, the lights can also be manipulated manually, defaulting back to the preset during the next sun event cycle.

As the main project was nearing completion, with the new soffit lighting in operation for a few days, the homeowners could not stop raving about how well the areas of concern on the property were now so well-lit at night. Apparently, even the neighbour feels safer negotiating the gap between the homes now that the entire walkway is fully illuminated throughout the night.

The “set it and forget it” switch is also a huge hit with my clients — they hadn’t realized switches so convenient were available. Even though the programming aspect of the switch installation can be intimidating, it seems as though this added side project has really paid off. When the sun goes down, the lights come on and when the sun comes up, the lights turn off… automatically. It’s just like magic!

RenoBoss.Inc@outlook.com