How Long Does Landscape Lighting Last?

Lamps: about ten years. Quality 2700K LED lamps are rated to around 50,000 hours. Run roughly six hours a night, that is a little over twenty years in theory and realistically ten or more in practice, because heat and power quality take their toll. They tend to dim gradually rather than fail outright.

Fixtures: decades, if they are brass. Solid cast brass does not corrode through — it patinas to a darker finish and keeps going, which is why the good ones carry a lifetime manufacturer warranty. Stamped aluminium and plastic fixtures are a different story on the Gulf Coast, where humidity and irrigation typically finish them in four to six years.

Transformers: fifteen years plus. A toroidal transformer in a stainless enclosure is a simple, robust device. The failures we see are almost always the timer or photocell rather than the transformer itself, and those are inexpensive to replace.

Cable: longest of all, if it was buried properly. Direct-burial cable outlasts everything else in the system. What kills it is mechanical damage — an edger, a fence post, an irrigation trench — not age.

Connections: the actual weak point. This is where most systems fail first. Push-on twist connectors corrode in wet soil within a few years and take a whole run down with them. Sealed waterproof connectors largely eliminate the problem, and they are one of the clearest markers of a professional install.

What maintenance actually involves. Re-aiming as planting grows is the big one — a fixture perfectly aimed at a young crepe myrtle is pointing at a trunk five years later. Beyond that: occasional lamp swaps, clearing mulch and leaf litter off lenses, checking connectors, and adjusting the timer as the seasons shift. An annual visit covers all of it.

If your system has stopped working, the cause is usually connectors, a GFCI or a timer rather than anything expensive — see outdoor lighting repair.