Soffit Lighting Spacing
- Thread starter buellshit
- Start date
acer66
Well-known member
Does the entrance door have its own light?
Right side door has a 12” square light but it is on a separate switch and would remain off probably almost always. The soffit lights I’d be putting in would be 4 or 6” circular wafers.
coldh2o
Well-known member
Option 2 is more symmetrical to the house and garage.
acer66
Well-known member
Then I second the choice for #2.
ddurrett896
Well-known member
I had a similar setup and used that switch, cut the wire to the light in the attic, made a junction and tapped all the soffit lights off that junction.
Super easy and changed the switch to a WIFI on that turns on/off based on set times.
I am doing something similar. Those two wall lights on either side of the garage are no longer there and have been replaced by matching siding. I am going to use the switch that was tied to those to control the soffit lighting. I want to leave the actual square front door light in place for those cases where I need it to illuminate the step-in front of the door, such as when I have guests over and it's icy there.
Great idea on the Wi-Fi switch. Might do that.
I bought the GE Cync ones w/ dimming and color changing capability a while back on a really great sale but I can't remember whether they are 4 or 6. Hoping that the spread angle will be good for it cause I am pretty much stuck w/ these ones.
Shiftless
Well-known member
I put light by my front door so I can see the locks when I come home at night and look more welcoming and safer for guests. I also have landscape lights in the front yard to show the path to the door and accentuate landscape features.
That’s what I recommend instead of those bright recessed lights. If you want to illuminate your front walls, go with the recessed fixtures but with VERY low lumen value. Like maybe 100. Then add lights by the front door and trees and bushes.
Shiftless
Well-known member
I like landscape light fixtures like these. I have 4 similar fixtures in a small area near my front door illuminating low lying plants and rocks.
I run one watt LED bulbs in each one.
12 volts so wiring is easy and safe. A timer lets them run all night,
I run one watt LED bulbs in each one.
12 volts so wiring is easy and safe. A timer lets them run all night,
I have a few questions…
What do you want to do w/ the lightning? Goals
curb appeal
security light
you can get better results for both of those if you move the lights out away from the home
if the light is close or shines into the windows then the window blinds need to be down 100 % of the time - so that means no windows will be open for air flow during ideal times (not sure if you like that, some people Live 24/7 in AC )
will these be on dusk to dawn?
I have landscape lights on and they shut off around 1 am but run other lights D To D
What do you want to do w/ the lightning? Goals
curb appeal
security light
you can get better results for both of those if you move the lights out away from the home
if the light is close or shines into the windows then the window blinds need to be down 100 % of the time - so that means no windows will be open for air flow during ideal times (not sure if you like that, some people Live 24/7 in AC )
will these be on dusk to dawn?
I have landscape lights on and they shut off around 1 am but run other lights D To D
I have some small landscape lights but I just prefer the look of soffit lighting myself.
Curb appeal is the primary goal. I just prefer the way they look vs other forms. Will probably have them shut off part way through the night. They will be dimmable and be able to change temperature (really unlimited color options) and will probably be kept very dim and warm-ish temperature.
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I actually didn't expect to get responses of people disliking soffit lighting, so I started looking up images of soffit lighting and honestly, the images that I am seeing do not resemble the way people do it around my area for the most part.
Most of the search result images are of these extremely bright and/or cold temperature lights, of which there are way too many. Terrible look.
Around my area, it is typical to see soffit lighting that is well placed, with low lumens and soft temperature. Almost all cases that I've seen in person look very nice. That's the way I am going to do it.
Most of the search result images are of these extremely bright and/or cold temperature lights, of which there are way too many. Terrible look.
Around my area, it is typical to see soffit lighting that is well placed, with low lumens and soft temperature. Almost all cases that I've seen in person look very nice. That's the way I am going to do it.
Shiftless
Well-known member
That will look great.
CJ7VFR
Well-known member
The low lumen lights would be nicer than anything bright and a warmer color temperature will look better as mentioned.
My wife loves the soffit lights that can change colors. She keeps bugging me to install some so that she can change the colors to match the season or holiday. To appease her, and to not have to crawl around inside the attic of the house and garage to install and wire soffit lights I put color changing wifi bulbs in our outside light fixtures.
Now, from her cell phone, she can control the lights color, brightness and even have the ability to make the lights be on solid or slowly fade from one color to another or thru multiple colors. It's actually pretty cool to watch them changing colors like going from green to red at Christmas or changing from orange to purple for Halloween.
My only requirement was that from time to time I could change the color back to 2700K so it looked like regular incandescent bulbs were in there and the fixtures had a nice warm feel to them.
Jim
My wife loves the soffit lights that can change colors. She keeps bugging me to install some so that she can change the colors to match the season or holiday. To appease her, and to not have to crawl around inside the attic of the house and garage to install and wire soffit lights I put color changing wifi bulbs in our outside light fixtures.
Now, from her cell phone, she can control the lights color, brightness and even have the ability to make the lights be on solid or slowly fade from one color to another or thru multiple colors. It's actually pretty cool to watch them changing colors like going from green to red at Christmas or changing from orange to purple for Halloween.
My only requirement was that from time to time I could change the color back to 2700K so it looked like regular incandescent bulbs were in there and the fixtures had a nice warm feel to them.
Jim
Kind of a change from my original plan. I ended up putting low voltage wired landscape lighting (like path lights) in the mulch beds in front of my house. It cast light onto the house more than I had expected so now I am planning to only put two soffit lights over the garage since I can’t put the landscape lights in front of the garage too.
Opinions?
Opinions?
Shiftless
Well-known member
I agree with CD
Much better way to go. Plus, with that system in place you can easily add more lights further away from your house to illuminate landscape features or pathways. Lower output bulbs might be even better.
Much better way to go. Plus, with that system in place you can easily add more lights further away from your house to illuminate landscape features or pathways. Lower output bulbs might be even better.
I think the picture makes them look brighter than they are. These are only 100 lumen each.
Shiftless
Well-known member
Yeah, 100 lumens sounds about right for that application. Good choice.
Lots of lumens for a garage workshop… minimalist approach for landscape lighting.
popbigguy
Well-known member
I think 3 lights over the garage would look better and give more light.
I would do that but I have a motion security light/camera in the center.
Just wanted to post a picture of the final product in case anyone comes across this thread and is debating what they want to do on their home. The picture is maybe just a tiny bit brighter than it really looks in person.
Excuse the blue color in the bay window, the TV was on.
Excuse the blue color in the bay window, the TV was on.
