How do I check outdoor lighting and paths before the dark months?

Falls are the biggest cause of injury at home for older people in the UK, and the outdoor ones cluster in the dark months on a wet or icy path between the car and the door. Almost all of it is preventable and cheap: light where the feet go rather than where the eyes go, remove the film of algae that makes a path slippery long before the first frost, and fix the single lifted slab everyone in the house already steps over automatically.

Safety

What you'll need

• Replacement lamps for each outdoor fitting
• A stiff brush and a path or patio cleaner
• Grit or rock salt, and a scoop or shovel
• A screwdriver and a cloth for sensor lenses
• Reflective marker or contrast paint for step edges (optional)
• Sand or mortar for a lifted slab (optional)

Step by step

1. Walk the route after dark, from where you park to the door.Note every place you cannot clearly see the ground, every step edge that disappears, and every point where you would be carrying shopping in one hand. That list is the job.
2. Replace failed lamps and clean every lens.A year of grime on a bulkhead or a floodlight lens cuts the output noticeably. Switch the circuit off, wipe the lens, and replace lamps as a set rather than one at a time.
3. Clean and re-aim the PIR sensors.Cobwebs and dirt on a sensor lens are the most common reason a security light stops triggering. Wipe it, then set the aim so it picks you up as you arrive rather than after you have already crossed the dark bit.
4. Set the timings and sensitivity so the light is actually useful.Long enough to cross the path and unlock the door, and sensitive enough to trigger from the gate. A light that comes on for ten seconds when you are already at the door is decoration.
5. Light the ground, not people's eyes.A floodlight aimed horizontally dazzles and destroys night vision, which makes the path more dangerous, not less. Aim downwards, use lower-output warm lighting along a route, and save the bright one for the drive.
6. Mark the step edges.A strip of contrasting paint or an anti-slip nosing on the front edge of each step is the single most effective anti-fall measure outdoors, and it works whether the light is on or not.
7. Scrub the algae and moss off before winter, not during.The green film on a shaded path is what makes it slippery, and it is far more dangerous wet than ice is on the same day. Brush and a path cleaner, or a pressure washer used carefully, in early autumn.
8. Fix the trip hazards you have stopped noticing.The lifted slab, the sunken drain cover, the tree root, the raised edge where the drive meets the path, the hose reel. Everyone in the house steps over them automatically and a visitor in the dark does not.
9. Find out why the path is wet and fix that too.A blocked gutter dripping onto a path, an overflow discharging across it, or a fall that holds water are all why one section freezes when the rest does not. Clearing a gutter often removes the only icy patch you get.
10. Cut back what overhangs the route.Shrubs, hedges and low branches that force you off the path or block the light. It also lets the surface dry, which is half the reason it grows algae.
11. Put grit where you can reach it without crossing the ice.Inside the porch or a garage, with a scoop. Grit stored in a shed at the end of the path is exactly where you cannot get to it on the morning you need it.
12. Check the handrails and the gate.Any step run of three or more should have something to hold. Test the existing rail by leaning on it — loose rails are common and are worse than none because people trust them.

Tips

• Two or three low-level lights along a path give safer footing than one bright floodlight, because even lighting removes the shadows that hide a step edge.
• Rock salt works down to about minus 6 or 7 degrees and needs to be down before the ice forms to be most effective. Once ice has formed it needs traffic to work it in, so a shovel first and grit second.
• Avoid salt on new concrete, on limestone and sandstone paving, and next to planting. Sharp sand or a proprietary non-corrosive de-icer is safer on those.
• Solar path lights are easy but weak by mid-winter, when there is least sun and most darkness. They are a supplement to mains lighting on a route people actually use, not a replacement.
• If someone in the house is unsteady, a light that comes on automatically from inside the door as well as outside removes the moment of stepping from light into dark, which is when most falls happen.

Common mistakes

• Aiming a floodlight outwards at head height — It dazzles, kills night vision and throws the path into shadow. It also annoys the neighbours. Light should be aimed down at the surface people walk on.
• Leaving the algae until it is icy — Algae on a wet path is slipperier than most ice, and it is invisible in the dark. It takes twenty minutes to remove in October and causes falls all winter if it is not.
• Running an indoor extension lead out to a light or a heater — Indoor leads are not rated for damp, and an outdoor socket or fitting is a registered electrician's job. It is both a shock risk and an insurance problem.
• Keeping the grit at the far end of the garden — The morning it is needed is the morning you cannot get to it. Somewhere reachable from inside the house, with a scoop already in it.

If it doesn't work

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