[Closed] What's with showy external house lights?

I feel like you really had to dig deep to find this annoying. Which is a good thing, as it means everything else in your life must be going pretty well.

Congrats.

It so you can find your house in the dark.

It's like this...

[img] [/img]

...but with houses.

Scary houses. Cool. 🙂

christmas lights or just external lights?

My house is butt-ugly 1970's grey rendered semi.

Thoughtfully the million pound+ house opposite has some nice lights, so improving my view. I suspect if I returned the favour the neighbours would object...

I'm with Jamie on this one.

Having said that, I am going to defend the use of lights on two main points:

1) It's called aesthetics. They may annoy you because you don't know what they're for, but you can hardly deny that they can look nice.

2) Britain is the gloomiest place on planet earth. I mean, I love it and everything, but you would be hard-pressed to argue that it is nicely lit for more than a few months a year.

In Canada, having oodles of snow means having zillions of light reflectors all over the ground. This makes for a beautifully-lit atmosphere all the time. Which is pretty good compensation for the fact that it is -30 degrees for 5 months of the year.

Here in the UK, we have... nothing. So, between the cloud cover, no street lighting (or if there is, its hardly-visible, soft orange glow is so widely-spaced that it's border-line pointless), and grey streets, it makes for a very dark place.

Ergo, house lighting is nice.

Probably would have happened earlier, but LEDs make it cheap as chips to run loads of lights now. I expect it will get worse, like it has on cars with stupid shapes round the headlights and animated indicators.

Well let's be fair that's a very nice showy detached house so why not show it off. Looks good in my book.

I have LED lights around my house controlled by PIRs but that's only to deter the mad axe-man, not to show the house off.

or they turned all the street lights off and its pitch black. seems to be mostly why round here. what's next people fuming about posh cars on council estates

I'm with you OP, on the grounds that it's unnecessary light pollution.

Surely all those lights do is create dark shadowy areas for ne'er do Weller's to hide in *

* Not being serious for those of you unfamiliar with the original article about turning off street lights at night....

Jealousy?

I floodlight the garden and have lights on the workshop, just because I like it!

[url= https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7579/15713717708_4eb7be7686_z.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7579/15713717708_4eb7be7686_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/pWyUPo ]12v 10W LED flood lights[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/brf/ ]Ben Freeman[/url], on Flickr

I love a bit of dark. Street lights not in urban jungles piss me off too. Just disturb wildlife and spoil the view. I mean I wouldnt take to the internet and rant about I'm not sad or anything but......

It’s to illuminate there generic white German modest car

we have LED soffit lights that come on at dusk and go off at ~10pm
Running these is probably much cheaper than a single 1000w halogen security light that comes on for 3 mins a day and when we get home in the evenings we can find the door and not walk blindly into a roaming bear 😉
I also have some showy house lights.. bought one, got shipped 1 box of 8. These are round the back though so only 1 neighbor gets to admire the beauty of these lights

on second thoughts looking at the house in question i think its so the other residents of the block of flats in the photo can find their flat.

I like it, it's all about the ambience.

Maybe they hate moths enough to ruin their sex lives

Is it only for those with modest houses that bother you?

Anyone also confused?

No. I think they look okay and if people want them then that's fine with me. Life really is too short to let things like this annoy you. Chill 😉

We have a rather famous racing car designer living down the road, he moved in 3 years ago into an aging 7 bedroom river view Manor House.
Over the last few years it’s been transformed from a 30’s opulent mass, into a Southfork Ranch style gauche monstrosity complete with grounds boarder lights, lights that follow the entrance road, lights that illuminate both paths that wrap around the grounds and uplights that shine on both front and rear of the property.
It’s crass.

It’s crass.

Maybe he likes it?
People like different things, who would have thought it?

I am also a fan of darkness at nighttime. Quite happy for street lights to be off and streets to be quite dark. But that's unlikely unless you move to one of those conservation villages sadly.

Nah, it lights up the Hamble River.

It’s crass.

I have them and I enjoy the fact they annoy you.

Nice, hope they annoy your neighbours too..

I like that you have them too, spot you a mile off.

There are brand new developments in Bristol with lights like those fitted from new, and I’ve seen them elsewhere, so the OP can divert his ire from the innocent owners to the thoughtless developers.

bikebouy - Member

Nah, it lights up the Hamble River.

It’s crass.

It must be pretty crass as there are a fair few shockers on the Hamble from memory!

The ones in the op's pic look ok to be honest.

That said, there is a house near me with lighting that really shouts "trying too hard".

I might be biased though as it also ticks a few cliches that... Interest me. 😉

Easy ....

Light up your nice house and leave your crap car in the shadows.... 😀

It’s to illuminate there generic white German modest car

And all in just one small sentence. Take a bow...

The light fittings in the pic are 16.99 from screwfix and run on 3.5w Leeds, hardly ostentatious. I have them at either side of my garage as we live in a very dark plot. They do have a similar effect to the op but they light the way too.

It had a client that had gas lights on on the gate columns and then lights along both sides of the drive that lit sequentially from the gatehouse to the main house.... At the same time the fountains started up.

The whole place was nauseating

Can't see any issues with it myself, I think the uplighters/downlightes thing looks good. I was going to do it round our house but controlled with a pir, which is ideal after coming home from a bike ride in the dark.

Doing the wiring was a fuss and I would have needed to run conduit round the house so got some battery operated ones instead.

Works a treat as they're linked, so when one is activated they all come on, and they're only on for 30 seconds.

I quite like the look of those house lights when done tastefully.
But, I think there is enough light pollution as it is without needlessly illuminating a house.

Think they look nice. And quite handy if you are trying to find a house at night and looking for house numbers. I'd rather live in a nice environment than one that is not so nice. And having a few lights on is far more effective at deterring burglars than any alarm system or CCTV network. I keep my outside lights on over night for security purposes. However they're quite dim and point the light in a downward direction, I am aware of light pollution but living 10 miles form a large town/small city a few lights on my home is not going to move the needle on the light pollution issue.

My biggest bugbear is people who put up satellite dishes/TV aerials, and can't be bothered to route the cables nice and neatly.