Lighting for the home, garden and terrace
Each and every one of us can help avoid light pollution. |
- Most people can manage without any ornamental garden lighting at all.
Light sources, luminaires and operation
Lamps with low lamp rating and warm colour temperature are adequate for outside areas around the home. Ligth-emitting diodes producing a warm white light are a good solution. They save energy and protect nocturnal insects. That is another way of saying they attract fewer "nasty bugs"!
Great importance should be attached to the use of shielded luminaires, i.e. light fittings that only beam the light where it is needed – in contrast to spherical luminaires, which radiate light in all directions.
Lighting should only be used in the garden, on the terrace or at the entrance to the house when it is really needed. Outdoor lighting systems can be operated with a motion sensor, for example. Make sure the sensor is properly positioned and set so that the lights are not switched on every time someone walks past the house.
- Motion sensor
To help avoid light pollution in the garden, the Viennese Environmental Ombudsman and Environmental Counselling Service have produced a brochure and fact sheet.
PDF (in German - Lassen wir die Nacht im Garten)
PDF (in German - Tierfreundliche Gartenbeleuchtung)
If you do not have a house, garden or terrace of your own but enjoy the sight of a starry sky, you can still make a contribution by communicating the right arguments and also by participating in a project called "How many stars?". For more information, go to Projects >>
Christmas lighting
In the run-up to Christmas, all those fairy lights, luminous snowmen and red-nosed reindeers consume more electricity than 10,000 Austrian households in a whole year! Millions of kilowatt hours of electricity are spent on this ornamental light every year.
If you think Christmas is not Christmas without a display of artificial lighting, you should at least check the lamp rating when purchasing your fairy lights; it can vary between one and five watts. A more expensive solution, but by far the most efficient, is to invest in fairy lights with light-emitting diodes. A timer should also be used to ensure that electricity is not used 24 hours a day (http://www.richtig-hell.at/gemeinden, August 2011).
Obtrusive light
The Austrian ÖNORM O 1052 provides for maximum levels of illuminance (in lux) to protect local residents from obtrusive light. Only in the case of street lighting is an exception made to these immission limits.
Conventional street lighting systems with inadequate shielding tend to illuminate not only the public thoroughfare but also the rooms of the houses.
At present there is no legal protection from obtrusive light immissions. It is theoretically possible to lodge a claim in civil law.
It makes more sense to discuss the matter with the local council; it might be possible to mitigate the problem by shielding the luminaires on the side away from the road or by reducing the level of illuminance in the course of the night.