Design and installation
A deck is used standing, walking and sitting down, so every light on it is judged from all three heights. The light belongs on the boards and the treads. The lamp belongs out of sight.
Tell us about the deck or dock
Illustration of a canal-front deck
If the deck lights are in your eyes
If your deck is bright but you still squint across it and cannot see the steps, the lights are at eye level. A deck is used standing, walking and seated, and a fixture that is comfortable from one height can be a bare lamp from another. Every source goes below the eye, aimed at the boards and treads.
Deck lighting fails in a particular way. A light is put on top of every post, because that is where a light obviously goes, and the result is a ring of glowing caps at exactly the height of a seated person. The floor between them is no brighter, the stairs are in shadow, and the water or the garden beyond has vanished.
Turn it over. Put the light under the rail, under the nosing of each step, under the bench and under the cap, pointing down. Now the floor is lit, every edge is drawn, and nobody can see a lamp from anywhere they are likely to be.
On the water in Naples there is a second reason. A dock in Royal Harbor or Aqualane Shores faces other people across a canal, and light at eye level on your side is glare on theirs.
The eye-line test
A deck is used seated, standing and from across the water, and a fixture that is fine from one of those can be a bare lamp from another. Turn fixtures on below and choose where you are. Every red line is a lamp in your eye. The fixtures that point down light the boards, the treads and the edge, and never draw a line.
4 lamps in your eye
A ring of glowing caps. Every post cap sits at the eye level of someone seated, the floor between them is no brighter, and the stairs are in shadow.
Rail and post lights
A rail is the right place for light and a post cap is usually the wrong one. A fixture under the handrail, aimed down, lights the floor along the edge and cannot be seen. A glowing cap on top of the post sits at the eye level of everyone seated on the deck.
A small downlight fixed to the underside of the top rail, or to the inside face of a post below the rail, throws a pool onto the boards at the foot of the balustrade. Spaced along the run it marks the edge of the deck all the way round. Looking at the rail from a chair you see a lit floor and a dark handrail, which is the right way round.
A lit cap is a lamp on a stick. It is at standing eye height for a child and seated eye height for an adult, it lights the top of the post and the air around it, and a row of them forms a bright fence between you and the view. They have a place as a marker at a gate or the head of a stair, used singly and dimmed. As the main lighting for a deck they do the opposite of what is wanted.
Looking at the rail from a chair, you should see a lit floor and a dark handrail.
It earns its place at the edge, at a gate, at the top and bottom of a stair, and at any change of level. Along a rail that has a wall or a planter behind it, or where the floor is already lit from a pavilion roof, it adds nothing. We light the stretches where someone could walk off the deck and leave the rest dark.
Glass and cable rails need a word. Glass reflects any source beside it, so the fixture goes under the cap rail and is aimed away from the panel. Cable rail has nowhere to hide a fixture, so the light comes from the posts or from the deck edge below.
Deck stair lighting
A stair is safe when the front edge of every tread can be seen, going up and coming down. That is done from the riser, from under the nosing or from the stringer beside the flight, the same on every step. The bottom step matters most. Point at a number to light that part of this deck.
Coming down, the last step is where the rhythm of a stair ends and the eye has stopped checking. Coming up from the lawn in the dark, it is the one you have to find. If only part of a flight is lit, it is the bottom, and it is never left out.
A stair is read as a pattern. Each front edge is a bright line with a darker riser under it, and the lines are evenly spaced. Light every step alike and the pattern is clear. Skip one, or let one fixture run brighter, and that step looks like a different height.
A line of light tucked under the fascia washes the skirt of the deck and the ground at its foot. It draws the edge of the structure from the lawn, so nobody walks into it, and the source cannot be seen from anywhere.
A lit stair that ends in darkness is unsettling. The deck at the top carries on at a similar level, with small lights in the bench fronts and posts throwing soft pools on the boards, so the stair is part of a route and not a bright object on its own.
Illustration of a canal-front deck and its stair. Steps built into the ground, in stone or pavers, are covered on our pathway lighting page.
Deck surface lighting
The floor of a deck is lit at its edges, under its seating and from any roof above it, never from the middle of the boards. Edge markers show where the deck stops. Light under a bench or a cap lights the floor around the chairs. A pavilion roof carries the general light, dimmed. Point at each.
Retrofit
Most decks and docks we light are already standing. Cable can usually be run under the joists, inside the rail or behind the fascia, and many stair and rail lights fit from the surface. A deck built low to the ground or a dock over water can need a board lifted, and we say so before we start. Tick what yours has.
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Cable can be run out of sight, under the joists, inside the rail or behind the fascia, and most stair and rail lights fit from the surface. That is the usual case.
Some runs will need access from below. A deck built low to the ground or a dock over water can need a board lifted, and we say so before we start.
With few routes for cable, the deck is looked at from underneath before anything is promised. If the structure is being built or rebuilt, the time to run cable is before the boards go down.
Looked at from underneath before anything is promised. If the structure is being built or rebuilt, the time to run cable is before the boards go down.
Dock lighting
A dock needs less light than any other structure on the property and is the easiest to overlight. The walking line and the edge are marked low and shielded. The working corner by the lift is brighter but switched separately. Kept low, the light on the boards leaves the water visible. Point at a number on this Naples canal dock.
A dock is a narrow floor with water on both sides. What a walker needs is the line of the boards ahead, lit low and evenly, so the edge is always in view. It takes very little light, because the eye is adapted to the dark water around it.
The places people come to grief on a dock are the edge, the end and any change of level: a step down to a floating section, a ladder, the gap at a lift. Each one gets its own small light so it reads as a break in the floor.
Where the boat is boarded, lines are handled and gear is carried, more light is useful, but only while it is in use. That corner goes on its own switch or zone, so it can be bright for ten minutes and then off.
Bright light on the dock surface ruins the view of the water, because the eye adapts to the boards and the canal goes black. Kept low, the deck light lets the water stay visible. Light in the water itself is a separate subject.
Water carries light a long way and reflects it further. A fixture that looks modest on your dock can be a hard point of glare from a lanai across the canal. Every dock light is shielded so the lamp cannot be seen from the opposite bank.
Who does the work
NightScapes Landscape Lighting has lit decks, docks and waterfront properties in Naples since 1998. Todd and Sherry own and run it, outdoor lighting is its only work, and its Google Business Profile shows 63 reviews at 5.0. Deck and dock lighting is checked from a chair, from the stairs and from across the water.
Much of Naples lives on the water. We light decks and docks on the canals of Royal Harbor and Aqualane Shores, in Port Royal and the Moorings, on Marco Island, and inland around the lakes of Pelican Bay and Grey Oaks, as well as across Lee and Collier counties.
The same people who set the lights come back to look after them, which on salt water is most of what makes a dock light last.
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On the water
A deck or dock fixture in Naples is in salt air, in full sun, on a surface that is hosed, rained on and walked across. Metals, finishes, fasteners and sealed connections are chosen for that. The board matters too: hardwood, pressure-treated pine and composite each hold a fixture differently.
Salt settles on everything near the Gulf and the bays, and it is concentrated on a dock. A fixture whose protection is a coating lasts until the coating is breached, and then the metal beneath pits. Solid brass, copper and marine grades of stainless do not rely on a coating; they darken or dull and carry on. On a dock, that decides the material before anything else is considered.
The fixture is rarely what fails first. It is the screw that holds it, rusting and staining the board, or the connection behind it, where salt and moisture creep into the copper. Fasteners are matched to the fixture so two different metals are not left in contact in salt water, and every connection is sealed against water, not just taped. When one does go, the symptoms are covered under corroded connections and failed fixtures.
A recessed light in a deck board is in the lowest place on the surface. Water, sand and sunscreen all end up in it. Fixtures set into the floor are chosen to be walked on and hosed over, with a lens that sits flush so nothing pools on top, and they are kept out of the places where water naturally runs.
Dense hardwood holds a fixture tightly and has to be drilled cleanly. Pressure-treated pine is soft and the chemicals in it are hard on some metals. Composite expands and contracts with the heat of a Florida afternoon more than timber does, so a fixture set tight in it in January can be pinched in August. Each wants a different mounting.
The route from the house to the water is part of the same job: the walkway from the house to the dock. And where the deck is a paved pool surround inside a screen cage, the rules change again: pool deck and screened lanai lighting.
Questions we hear
Where deck lights go, how lighting makes a deck safer, whether composite boards can take fixtures, what color to use, how to look after it near salt water, and whether a deck that is already built can be lit. These are the questions people ask first, with the answers we give on the dock.
NightScapes Landscape Lighting Outdoor lighting only, Naples since 1998 Choose a question
Ask us about your deck or dock. Choose a question, or call and we will answer it on the phone.
Below eye level and aimed at the floor. On stairs, under each nosing or in each riser. On rails, underneath, pointing down. At the perimeter, low at the edge. Under benches and caps. What you want lit is the surface you walk on and the edges you could step off. What you never want is a lamp you can see from a chair.
By showing the three things that trip people: the front edge of every step, the edge of the deck itself, and any change of level. Brightness does not do that. A bright, glary deck is harder to walk on than a dim one lit properly, because glare closes the eye down and the edges disappear.
Yes. Composite boards take recessed lights, riser lights and under-rail lights much as timber does. The differences are in the fixing, since composite moves more with heat than hardwood and does not hold a screw the same way, so fixtures are chosen and mounted for the board they are going into.
Warm white, in nearly every case. It is comfortable to sit in, it flatters timber and skin, and it sits easily beside the lighting on the house and the planting. Cool white on a deck reads as a work light. Color, where it is wanted, belongs on a separate zone that can be switched back to warm.
Keep lenses clean, which near salt water means rinsing them of the film that builds up. Check that nothing has been knocked out of aim or come loose from the board. Look at the connections once a year, since that is where salt and moisture get in first. All of that is part of a maintenance visit.
Usually. Cable can be run under the joists, inside rail channels or behind a fascia, and many stair and rail lights fit from the surface. A deck built very low to the ground or a dock over water can need a board lifted for access. We look at how it is built first and tell you what is involved.
It can be done at any time. Many owners plan it for the fall, so it is in place for the months when evenings outside are at their best and the house is in use. If the deck or dock is being built or rebuilt, the best time is before the boards go down, when cable can be run with no lifting later.
Free Consultations and Estimates
Tell us whether it is a deck, a dock or both, what it is built from, and where the stairs are. We walk it with you, from a chair and from the water, and show you where each light would go.
Tell us about the deck or dock
