Helpful Advice to Builders and Contractors

Here are some suggestions to builders and contractors who seek ways to be environmentally friendly to the surroundings of their edifices at night. This is done from the perspectives both of those who wish a safer nighttime environment (free from the dangerous glare that can cause people to be unable to adequately see things, or even criminals, in their immediate surroundings) and those who enjoy the natural darkness of night (and like, for example, to view the stars without having to travel great distances to see them). Do not forget, in worrying about low-lighting levels or lack of lighting, that the human eye is an amazing detector of low-light levels at night, that quite a bit can be seen in just starlight (in the absence of any artificial light), and that great contrasts between bright, glary light and darkness can be genuinely worse than no light at all!

• Use lights with very low lumen outputs -- no greater than 1000-1500 lumens, if at all possible. A 100-watt incandescent light bulb is brighter than most outdoor situations warrant, particularly if the fixture is well shielded with the shield focussing light down in proper places (instead of allowing it to go outward/upward as useless glare).
• Have any lights fully shielded (so that no light goes higher than 70-75 degrees above horizontal) -- whether indoor or outdoor.
• Turn everything possible off after a reasonable evening hour -- the earlier the better.
• Have all outdoor roadway and walkway surfaces be done in black tar (rather than concrete) or very dark brick or stone.
• The outside of all buildings should be done in very dark colors so as to minimize any reflection of artificial light off their surfaces from lights mounted on or near the buildings (this is important mainly if there are lights that can potentially reflect off the building).
• Be sure that lights do not emanate from the insides of buildings outward (i.e., have lights inside shielded as much as possible and of low intensity, plus have opaque curtains or blinds automatically drawn across windows after dark). Remember: you neighbor may want to look at the stars, and lights *inside* a house going outside unimpeded can be just as bad as poorly erected outdoor lighting!
• Red lights can and should be used to illuminate walkways after certain hours (if not always). These, and low-lumen white lights, can be mounted low near the walkway surfaces for high-quality illumination, so that even at human eye level, the light bulbs (sources) are invisible (eliminating glare).
• Any outdoor signage should not be lit at night; if it must be, (1) there should be no inside-out lighting of signs, (2) very-low-lumen lights should be used to gently illuminate signage, and (3) they should be fully shielded and mounted at the top of the sign pointing downward (and that therefore the signs be of low reflectivity or albedo -- certainly not white).
• Remember: when driving *and* walking up to a house or business, any directly visible light source is bad lighting -- and dangerous! Not a single light bulb should be visible to a driver or a pedestrian approaching a commercial or residential building (if a bulb *is* visible, it is bad lighting).
• Any and all floodlights should be fully shielded so that absolutely no direct light escapes the property being lit.

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