Where to Put an Outdoor Wall Light (and How High)

Outdoor wall lantern lighting a house entrance and garden path at dusk

An outdoor wall light is the one fitting in the house that strangers see first. It lights the keyhole, the step, and the face of whoever is standing on your doormat at seven on a January evening. And it is almost always mounted too high.

The clocks go back in the UK at the end of October. From that weekend onwards, most of us arrive home in the dark for five months. Here is where to put an outdoor light, how high, which side, and which bulb, in centimetres rather than guesswork.

On this page

How high should an outdoor wall light be ?

Mount the light so that the centre of the lantern sits 165 to 180cm above the ground. If you want one number to remember, use 170cm.

That is roughly eye level for an adult, and it matters because of where the brightest part of the fitting is. At 170cm the light falls across a face and onto the lock, which is the whole job. Push the same lantern up to 210cm, which is where a great many of them end up, and you get a bright ceiling of light above everyone's heads and a shadow exactly where the key goes in.

Two adjustments to that number:

  • Measure from the ground you stand on, not from the threshold. If there are two steps up to your door, the person ringing the bell is standing 30cm lower than you are. Take the height from the step they are on.
  • Tall fittings sit lower. With a lantern like the Retro Garden Porch Lantern, which is 43cm from top to bottom, hanging the bracket at 170cm puts the glass well above eye line. Set the centre of the glass at 170cm and let the bracket land where it lands.

American style glass porch lantern in black, mounted beside a front door

Compact lanterns are the easiest to place well, because the light source sits close to the middle of the fitting. The American Waterproof Porch Lantern is 20cm tall, and the French Retro Courtyard Lantern in the round profile is 18cm. Both hang at 170cm without any arithmetic.

Which side of the door

Put the light on the lock side, the side the door handle is on, not the hinge side.

It sounds like a detail and it is the single change that makes the most difference. On the lock side, the light falls directly on the keyhole and nothing stands between the lantern and the lock. On the hinge side, the open door itself casts a shadow over the very thing you are trying to see.

Horizontally, aim for 15 to 25cm between the fitting and the door frame. Closer than that and the lantern looks pinned to the architrave; further away and it stops belonging to the door and starts belonging to the wall.

One light or two

A single light on the lock side is correct for most British front doors, and it is what we would fit on a terrace or a semi with the door set to one side.

A matched pair either side of the door is a different proposition. It reads as formal and symmetrical, and it only works when the door is genuinely centred in the elevation and there is at least 40cm of clear wall on each side. Georgian and Victorian front doors with a fanlight above usually qualify. A modern porch with a glazed panel to one side usually does not.

If you are fitting a pair, buy them at the same time in the same finish. Outdoor metal weathers, and two lanterns bought a year apart will never quite match. Both the oval and the round courtyard lanterns come in silver or gold, which makes them straightforward to pair.

Where there is a roof over the door, a ceiling fitting is often a better answer than a wall light, because it lights the doormat from directly above with no shadow at all. The Vintage Glass Porch Lantern is a 19cm bulkhead made for exactly that position, and the Outdoor Pendant Light suits a deeper porch where you have the headroom to hang something. The clearance rule from our guide to how high a pendant light should hang applies outdoors too: leave at least 2.1 metres from the ground to the bottom of the shade.

Paths, driveways and gates

The front door is one light. Getting to the front door is a separate problem, and it is the one most homes have nothing at all for.

The gate or the side entrance. One lantern at the gateway, at the same 170cm, turns a dark opening into an entrance. The Retro E27 Garden Gateway Lantern is 34cm and made for a gatepost or a boundary wall; the Vintage Industrial Courtyard Lantern is the plainer, more utilitarian version of the same idea.

Retro cast aluminium garden post light standing 1.8 metres tall

The driveway. Here you want height, because you are lighting a surface rather than a wall. A post light does what no wall fitting can: it stands in the open and throws light in every direction. The Retro Lawn Lamp is 1.8 metres and rated IP65; the White Aluminium 2-Lantern Lamp Post is 2.2 metres and carries two heads, which suits a wider drive or a pair flanking an entrance.

The path itself. Space low-level lights every 2 to 3 metres, and stagger them left and right rather than lining them up like a runway. The Landscape Bollard Light is 60cm and wired; the Solar Pathway Lights are 65cm, stake into the ground and need no cable at all, which is the honest answer for a path where running armoured cable is out of the question.

The same logic applies to a wall with no power near it. The Solar Wall Light charges by day and switches itself on at dusk, so an outbuilding or a far garden wall can be lit without an electrician. Indoors, our rechargeable and cordless lights solve the same no-cable problem.

The back garden and the patio

Behind the house the brief changes. You are no longer lighting a lock; you are lighting a place you want to sit in.

Two principles carry most of the weight:

  1. Light surfaces, not eyes. An up-down light grazes the wall above and below itself and leaves the middle of the garden dark, which is exactly right. The IP65 Up-Down Aluminium Light comes in 41cm and 61cm; the compact version and the Waterproof Up-Down Surface Light do the same at a smaller scale.
  2. Several small lights beat one bright one. A single floodlight over the back door flattens the garden into a car park. Three modest wall lights at 170 to 200cm, each doing a little, give it depth.

Slim black aluminium up and down wall light for outdoor use

For a covered balcony or a passage down the side of the house, a flush fitting is more robust than anything that projects. The Waterproof Corridor and Balcony Lantern is built for that run, and the Vintage Waterproof E27 Porch Lantern is the wall-mounted equivalent.

Everything above lives in one place: our outdoor lighting collection. If you are choosing finishes to sit alongside what is already inside the house, our wall lights and ceiling lights share the same palette, and a lantern at the front door reads best when the hallway lighting behind it is warm rather than cold.

The bulb and the switching

Colour temperature: 2700K. The same warm white we recommend for every room indoors is the right choice outdoors, and the difference is more visible outside than in. A 4000K or 6500K bulb in a porch lantern reads as a security light, or a hospital. 2700K reads as somebody being home. If a neighbour's outdoor light looks harsh and faintly blue, that is the whole reason.

Brightness: less than you think. 400 to 600 lumens is plenty at a front door. There is no daylight competing with it outside, so the eye adapts and a modest lamp goes a long way. Most of our lanterns take a standard E27 bulb, which means you can change your mind about brightness later without changing the fitting.

Switching. Three sensible options, in the order we would reach for them:

  • Dusk to dawn. A photocell switches the light on as the daylight fails and off at sunrise. It is the right choice at a front door, because the light is on before you arrive rather than after you have started fumbling.
  • PIR motion sensor. Excellent at a side gate or a bin store. Wrong at a front door: a light that snaps on as a guest approaches is a security measure, not a welcome.
  • Switched from inside. The most controllable and the easiest to forget. Fine for a patio you use deliberately, weak for the front of the house.

Weather ratings, plainly

An IP rating has two digits. The first is protection against solid objects, the second against water, and outdoors it is the second digit that matters:

  • IP44 — protected against splashing. Enough for a fitting under a porch roof or a balcony soffit that never takes direct rain.
  • IP54 — protected against spray from any direction. A sensible minimum for an exposed wall.
  • IP65 — protected against jets of water. This is what you want anywhere fully open to the weather: a gatepost, a driveway, a garden path.

Where a fitting is rated, we state the rating on its page. The IP65 Waterproof Garden Porch Light, the Retro Lawn Lamp, the Landscape Bollard Light, the Solar Pathway Lights and both up-down fittings are IP65. Where a page does not give a figure, write to us before you buy for a fully exposed position and we will find out rather than guess. The same two digits govern bathroom lighting indoors, for the same reason. Every rating from IP20 to IP65 is explained in IP ratings explained.

Two practical notes the rating does not cover. Fit the lantern the way up it was designed to be fitted: mounted upside down, a glass shade collects rainwater. And in a coastal town, expect any outdoor metal to weather faster than the same piece would three miles inland.

Five mistakes worth avoiding

  1. Mounting at 200cm or above. The commonest error by a distance. The light goes over everybody's head and the lock stays dark.
  2. Fitting on the hinge side. The door shadows the lock every time you open it.
  3. Using a cold white bulb. 6500K turns a well-chosen lantern into a floodlight. Use 2700K.
  4. One big light instead of three small ones. Brightness is not the same thing as good lighting, outdoors least of all.
  5. Buying the second lantern a year later. Pairs bought apart never match, because the first has spent a winter outside.

In short

  • Centre of the lantern: 165 to 180cm above the ground the visitor stands on.
  • Side: the lock side, 15 to 25cm from the frame.
  • Pairs: only where the door is genuinely centred, with 40cm of clear wall each side.
  • Path lights: every 2 to 3 metres, staggered.
  • Driveway: a 1.8 to 2.2 metre post beats any wall fitting.
  • Bulb: 2700K, 400 to 600 lumens, E27.
  • Rating: IP65 anywhere open to the weather, IP44 under a roof.

Three places to start

If you are lighting the front of a house from nothing, this is the order we would do it in.

  1. The door, first and always. One lantern on the lock side at 170cm. The IP65 Waterproof Garden Porch Light at £29.90 does the job; the French Retro Courtyard Lantern at £69.90 does it with more presence.
  2. Then the way in. A lantern at the gate, or a 1.8 metre post on the drive. This is the step people skip, and it is the one that changes how the house feels from the road.
  3. Then the garden. Two or three up-down lights on the back wall, or a run of solar pathway lights if there is no power to work with. Add them a pair at a time and stop when the garden has depth.

Compare the options side by side in outdoor lighting.

Common questions

How high should an outdoor wall light be mounted ?

Set the centre of the lantern 165 to 180cm above the ground, and use 170cm if you want a single figure. That is about eye level, so the light falls on a visitor's face and on the lock rather than over the top of both. Measure from the step the visitor actually stands on, not from your own threshold.

Which side of the front door should the light go on ?

The lock side, the same side as the handle. On the hinge side, the opening door casts a shadow across the keyhole. Allow 15 to 25cm between the fitting and the door frame.

Do I need one outdoor light or two ?

One on the lock side is right for most UK front doors. Fit a matched pair only if the door is centred in the elevation with at least 40cm of clear wall either side, and buy both at the same time so the finishes weather together.

What IP rating do I need for an outdoor light ?

IP65 anywhere fully exposed to rain, such as a gatepost, a driveway or a garden path. IP44 is enough under a porch roof or a balcony soffit that never takes direct water. IP54 is a sensible minimum for an open wall.

What colour bulb is best for an outdoor light ?

2700K warm white. Cooler temperatures such as 4000K or 6500K make a porch read as a security installation rather than a home. 400 to 600 lumens is ample at a front door, because there is no daylight competing with it.

Should an outdoor light be on a motion sensor ?

At a front door, prefer dusk to dawn, so the light is already on when you arrive. Keep motion sensors for a side gate, a bin store or a back passage, where you only want light when something moves.

How far apart should garden path lights be ?

Every 2 to 3 metres, staggered from side to side rather than in matched pairs. Closer spacing looks like an airport runway; wider than 3 metres leaves dark gaps between the pools of light.

Before you drill

Hold the fitting against the wall at 170cm, stand where a visitor stands, and look at it. If your eye goes to the glass rather than to the bracket, the height is right.

If you are unsure about a particular wall, a porch or an exposed coastal position, write to us at contact@thelightheritage.com. We answer every message ourselves.

Browse the full outdoor lighting collection, or see what other people are choosing in our bestsellers. And for the rooms behind the front door, the two guides that go with this one are how high should a pendant light hang and what size table lamp do I need.