Step lights
Step lighting is often achieved by means of decorative garden lighting techniques using downlights and wall spotlights or of one sort or another mounted on adjacent structures or walls, or using tree spotlights. Where there is an absence of these outside lighting platforms, specific step lights need to be incorporated in the garden lighting design for practical and safety reasons. Where there are flanking walls, use of discrete surface or recessed steplights or bricklights provides localised outdoor lighting. In the absence of walls, the choice is often between spreadlights (garden lights on a stick) and bollard lights (garden lights in a stick).
A surface mounted step light is often used where recessing a garden light is difficult, expensive or impractical; its role is usually confined to lighting across the treads of 2 or 3 steps, but as these surface mounted garden lights are very easily installed, they are often used for other outside lighting jobs as well, such as washing light from under a seat or across a deck and lighting around the edge of patios. Hooded types such as the M2077 or eyelid variants such as the M2066, either in brass or brushed chrome, are even used on pergola beams to give a soft, non-directional glow of light onto an area below. Surface steplights are generally 12 volts, although the Cobus 240v exterior wall light range is often used for steplighting despite its slightly larger size.
A recessed step light is a garden light set into a wall or flanking structure and whose role is usually lighting across 2 or 3 steps on a wider staircase. They are usually 12v units as MR16 halogen lamps have permitted development of compact sizes of outdoor step lights, but some allow fitting of focused led modules to provide a lower-energy alternative, such as Megabay's brass M2006 or Elipta's stainless steel E5111 eyelid models, or Elipta's E5211 stainless or E5211 copper plain rim models. Eyelid models hide the lamp from view if you are walking past them, but don't hide face-on glare, so don't install them facing a conservatory, for example.
Step lighting is a functional requirement rather than a garden lighting technique. Lighting for steps themselves is required for proper visibility and confidence in movement. Each tread should receive direct lighting, unshadowed by the riser above, from light sources shielded within the step light so the pedestrian is not blinded or distracted by glare above as he or she ascends the staircase. A rule of thumb is to first choose the group of 2 or 3 steps to be lit by each light, then establish the correct lighting position where the light will be forward of the risers and above the treads of the steps to be lit if unshadowed lighting of both treads and risers is to be achieved. Step lighting is best provided by small lights set into or mounted on a flanking wall; they are often characterised by shields, grills, inset lamp housings or "eyelid" hoods that hide the light source from passing overhead view. The new ME Lighting EyeLED step light incorporates 6 led's hidden under an eyelid hood to do just this, cleverly making a surface mount light look like a recessed one while achieving total simplicity of installation.
Where there are no flanking walls, then lights in risers may be the only alternative, in which case they should not be so bright as to disorientate a person climbing the steps. Small recessed l.e.d. lights are often the best choice for this approach.
