The exterior-lighting of Eichler homes — as most of you know — can be described as deficient at best. Along the way, we've been updating the electrical when/where we can, including adding a few additional exterior lights where we can.
One area that's ironically dark is the front of the house. With the low-wattage burn of CFLs, we leave the front entry light on almost 24/7 and the path lights come on at dusk. However, we really wanted a motion-triggered driveway light.
As you've seen, these can get really ugly and we ideally wanted to match the back light (a Remcraft fixture)– but I did not run electrical to the location when we had the roof done, so I though we were out of luck. Come to find out, penetrations in a foam roof are not all that uncommon, as long as you do it correctly (and seal it with the right stuff). An email to our roofer confirmed that Sikaflex-1A (available in Concord at White Cap) was the material of choice to seal the puncture. So, with a yellow tube of caulk in hand (and a drill), I proceeded to drill 2 holes in my roof — one where the light was to sit (in between the front garage doors) and another where the power was to drop down into the garage — in this case in an area to be triggered by a remote (off-light/off-center) motion sensor (the post and beam will eventually be painted brown almost hiding it). Weather-proof PVC conduit protects the wire.
So, in a few hours later, we had motion-activated entry lights that coordinated well with the Eichler design. Best of all, it works.
