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There aren’t many things that are worse than the scenario every homeowner dreads – a noise downstairs, an unexplained creak of the floorboards, the sound of glass shattering – there’s a burglar in your home!

Between April 2014 and March 2015 there were an estimated 785,000 domestic burglaries in the UK alone. This is particularly alarming when you consider that most burglaries are caused due to the carelessness of homeowners.

Most house burglars are actually opportunists acting on our mistakes, with some spending many months tracking and planning potential targets, even going as far as to use social networking sites such as Facebook as research tools for finding unattended homes.

So how do you go about protecting your home from burglars? By listening to someone who spent a lot of time burgling!

Back in November 2011, a London based house thief provided the police with a checklist of the kinds of things burglars themselves avoid when scouting homes before he was sent to prison.

The most startling revelation was that 32 year old Leon Reid claimed he had never once forced his way into a single property, instead relying on the mistakes and oversights of imprudent homeowners.

The list detailed the types of houses Reid would target and which deterrents were most effective. Pebbled driveways, anti-climb paint and CCTV were all highly ranked. Even fake security measures would be enough to deter a would-be thief, as long as they were in evidence.

Interestingly, several of Reid’s recommendations involved lighting. According to Reid, something as simple as a properly illuminated house exterior would be enough to put off even the most seasoned criminals.

Architectural lighting and wide beam angled spotlights of at least 120^o are designed to bathe the area surrounding your home in bright, white light. To offer even more security, most are designed with an in-built motion sensor – with many of our PIR motion sensors covering a full 360^o.

Our LED floodlights offer an even more effective means of protecting your home. The light is much brighter than a traditional security light, with our floodlights ranging from 900 lumens, all the way to 20,000 lumens.

This allows the light to penetrate much further into the darkness, and can cover a much larger area with a single floodlight.

They also use a lot less electricity – up to 90% less. This is because they are a lot more energy efficient, losing just 10% of their energy to heat wastage. Halogen lights are far more inefficient, as they lose up to 80% to heat, explaining why they get so hot after they’ve been on for a while.

What this means for you then is that the cost of protecting your home stays affordable and isn’t prohibitive.

Changing exterior security lights can also be quite bothersome as they are usually installed in hard to reach places. Sometimes, this involves going up a rickety ladder to replace a relatively heavy unit.

LED floodlights last much longer than other kinds of floodlight though, lasting 2 times longer than fluorescent lights and 20 times longer than halogen equivalents. This means you’ll be changing them a lot less, drastically reducing maintenance costs and time.

Amusingly, Reid’s most feared security deterrent is actually one of the most obvious. A dog isn’t just a man’s best friend – it’s also a burglars worst enemy, alerting you to the presence of unwelcome guests!