November 11, 2026 · 8 min read · Security cameras
Where to put security cameras on a house
Start at the doors, not the corners of the house. The walk-around we do before any camera is chosen, and the views we take out on purpose.
The short answer. Put security cameras on the ways into the house: every door a person can reach from outside, the driveway aimed along its length, the side yards and any gate. Mount door cameras 8 to 10 feet up and angled down so they return a face. Check every view after dark, and take out any view of a neighbor’s window or yard. IntegrateIT plans and installs residential cameras across Kansas City, Missouri and the Johnson County suburbs from our showroom in Overland Park, and the plan comes before the price.
A common way to place cameras is one on each corner of the house, pointed outward. It looks thorough from the street. In practice the corners see a lot of lawn and very little of the places a person actually walks up to, and the footage that matters, a face at a door at night, is the footage the system does not have. So we start somewhere else.
Count the ways in, not the square footage
Stand at the street and look at the house the way a stranger on foot would. Count every path from the street, or from a neighbor’s yard, to a door or a window: the front walk, the driveway, each side yard, any gate, any place the fence stops, the back of the house. That list is the plan. Each item on it gets a camera that sees it, and the size of the house barely enters into it. A large house on a tight lot with two ways in can need fewer cameras than a smaller one on a deep lot with a side gate, a detached garage and a long drive.
That is also the honest answer to “how many cameras do I need?” It is the number of ways in on your property, plus any interior choke points you decide to cover. Anyone who quotes a camera count over the phone, without that walk, is guessing.
Entries first
- The front door. A dedicated camera, mounted 8 to 10 feet up and angled down. A video doorbell is a useful supplement here, but it is a wide, close, low lens and it is not this camera. (The doorbell is its own job.)
- Every rear door. Patio doors and walkout basement doors each get their own camera, placed under the eave. One wide camera on a back corner covers less of the rear of the house than it appears to.
- The door from the garage into the house. If you want an interior camera at all, this is one of the places it earns its keep.
The driveway and the approach
Aim the driveway camera along the drive, not across it. A face or a plate is readable when the person or the car is moving toward the lens; a camera set side-on to the drive records a blur as it passes. On a long drive the position matters too. A camera at the garage sees a car that has already arrived. A second one down at the apron sees it coming, which is the difference between footage and warning. A long or gated drive is better served by detection than by motion alerts, and that is a design of its own: driveway and perimeter detection.
Then the side yards and the gates. These are the approaches people forget, and they matter, because a side yard is where someone stops being visible from the street.
Height and angle
Height is a trade. Too low and the camera can be reached or turned. Too high and it sees the crown of a head. Aim each camera at the approach it watches, not at the widest view it can take in. For doors, 8 to 10 feet, angled down, is where a camera stays out of reach and still returns a face. Under the eave is the usual home for rear cameras: protected from the weather, out of reach, and close enough to the doors they watch.
Plan for night
Most of what people call a bad camera is a bad night image. A camera that looks right at noon can see nothing useful at two in the morning: infrared light washing back off a soffit, headlight glare down a long drive, a porch fixture that blows out the one face you wanted. None of that is visible during the day, so every aim is checked again after dark before we call the job done.
Two things help. The first is a camera chosen for its low-light performance. The second is light at the right moment: a camera that sees a vehicle on the drive at night can bring up the entry walk lights, which gives the sensor something to work with and tells whoever is standing there that they have been noticed. On a Control4 or Crestron system that is a routine piece of programming.
What not to point at
- A neighbor’s window or yard. Any camera whose frame takes in a neighbor’s window or yard is re-aimed or removed from the plan. That is our design rule, not a legal opinion, and we hold to it.
- The street. A camera aimed at the road records passing traffic, sends alerts all day and takes in other people’s property. Watch your own drive and walk instead.
- Living space. Inside, cameras go only at choke points: the main stair, the back hall, the door from the garage. Anyone moving through the house passes one of them. Cameras in the rooms a family lives in rarely earn their place.
Wiring comes before placement
On paper a camera can go anywhere. On a real house it goes where a cable can reach it, so the cable path is settled while the camera positions are still being chosen, not afterward. We use wired PoE cameras wherever the cable can get there: one cable carries power and video, there is no battery to change, and the camera does not fall off the network when someone restarts the router. Each place the cable passes through the outside wall is sealed and flashed, not just caulked, because that is what keeps water out of the wall over many Kansas City winters.
In a new build the answer is simpler still: pull a cable to every likely camera position at rough-in, even for cameras you may add later. (The pre-wire checklist, room by room.) The cable runs back to a recorder in the house, not a monthly cloud subscription, so the video stays at home and keeps recording when the internet drops. (Recording at home versus the cloud.)
What you get from us
- A coverage plan drawn on your property, before a price: every approach, the camera that sees it, and what it will see after dark.
- The cable path in writing, including where each run enters the house.
- A fixed price from that plan, after a no-cost site walk. (What drives the cost of a security system.)
- A warranty: five years on our workmanship, from the final invoice; the equipment carries its manufacturer warranty.
How we choose the camera line, the recorder and the alarm side of the design is on our security camera installation page.
About IntegrateIT. We have integrated hundreds of homes across the Kansas City metro since 2021, from our showroom at 15108 Glenwood Ave in Overland Park. Control4 Platinum Dealer with a Control4 Certified Showroom · Lutron Certified Dealer · Crestron dealer · Josh.ai dealer.
Daniel Alon, co-founder, IntegrateIT. Overland Park, KS. November 2026.
Further reading
Where to go next if this article gave you the framework but you want the brand- or install-specific depth.
- Service: security cameras · Kansas CityThe placement procedure, the camera line and on-site recording.→
- Service: driveway and perimeter detectionFor a long or gated drive, where motion alerts are not enough.→
- Article: recording at home or in the cloudWhere the video lives and how long it is kept.→
- Article: indoor vs outdoor security camerasWhat each kind is for, and where each one goes.→
Planning cameras?
Book a no-cost site walk. You get a coverage plan drawn on your own property before anything is priced.
Questions
Questions we hear
Where should security cameras go on a house?
On the ways in. Start at every door a person can reach from outside: the front door, the patio and back doors, a walkout basement and the door from the garage. Then the driveway, aimed along it, the side yards and any gate. Interior cameras, if you want them, go only at the choke points everyone inside has to pass, like the main stair or the back hall.
How many security cameras do I need?
Count the ways in, not the square footage. Stand at the street and count every path a person on foot can take to a door or a window: the front walk, the driveway, each side yard, any gate, the back of the house. Each of those wants a camera that sees it. A big house on a tight lot can need fewer cameras than a smaller house on a deep lot with a long drive and a side gate. A coverage plan drawn on your own property is what turns that count into a number.
How high should a security camera be mounted?
For a door camera, 8 to 10 feet up and angled down. That is high enough to be out of reach and low enough to return a face rather than the brim of a hat. Rear cameras usually sit under the eave, where they are protected and out of reach.
Should a camera point at the street?
Not as its main job. A camera aimed at the street records traffic, fires alerts all day and takes in other people’s property. Aim the driveway camera along your drive, where people and cars are moving toward the lens, and let it see the end of the drive rather than the road beyond it.
Can my cameras see my neighbor’s yard?
We design so they do not. Any camera whose frame includes a neighbor’s window or yard is re-aimed or taken out of the plan. That is our design rule rather than a legal opinion, and it also makes for better footage, because the frame is spent on your own approaches.
Wired or wireless security cameras?
Wired PoE wherever a cable can get there: one cable carries power and video, there is no battery to change, and the camera does not drop off when the router restarts. On most finished homes there is a workable cable path, and finding it is part of choosing where each camera goes.
How do I get a camera plan for my house?
Book a no-cost site walk: call or text (913) 804-7575, or plan it online at integrateit.tech/estimate/. We walk the property, mark every approach, say what each camera will see after dark and where the cable runs, and give you a fixed price from that plan.
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