Field guide
Outdoor lighting maintenance by season
An autumn and winter checklist for garden and driveway lighting: lenses, timers, cable joints, drainage and fading markings.
Autumn: leaves, lenses and timers
Clean lenses, uncover low path lights and adjust timers before the first dark commutes. Leaf build-up can hide the fitting and the edge it was meant to reveal.
Winter: water, joints and corrosion
Check cable joints, low points and fittings near wet soil. If a route is still hard to read after maintenance, the issue may be contrast rather than lamp output.
Spring reset and repaint checks
Spring is a good time to review faded driveway and parking cues. If markings disappeared over winter, measure before repainting rather than copying the worn remains.
When repainting is part of maintenance
For hard outdoor routes that still need a visible cue after cleaning and relamping, compare hard-surface line marking paint after measuring the line length.