Hey everyone, may I ask if anyone has any pics of what your fixtures look like after a year or two or more? I live in the Midwest and I’m trying to figure out if I should cover my lights before the first winter to slow down the patina. Just curious if it’s worth doing.
Here is one of my three year old brass path lights. It does not develop a patina the way copper does. Regardless of which you have, you can't really slow down the aging process. Keep in mind, though, ideally you want your fixtures to be invisible or to blend into your landscaping. After several months, you'll forget that they're there.
Patina/aging is a natural process with brass/bronze & copper fixtures. For snowfall, the only thing we'd possibly recommend is considering using extension risers to help elevate fixtures above snow. If you live in an area where you experience a large amount of daily snowfall, this can be helpful for keeping the illumination from path lights visible, and also elevating ground-level fixtures like spotlights or flood lights above the snow line as well. Brass Telescoping Extension Risers can be handy for adjusting the height as needed as well, but we do have other options as well. The snow won't harm brass or copper, only potentially speed up the patina process with the fixtures basically being coated in moisture for extended periods of time. The only real concern could be moisture getting into fixture sockets from any snow melt if the fixtures are essentially buried in snow for extended periods of time. If the fixtures in question weren't designed to be submersible, this is where elevating the sockets above the snowline could come in handy.
