Laiton Antique Brass TRI Colour

Laiton is an adjustable garden spike spotlight in solid brass with an antique brass finish — and the material is the reason to buy it. Where a powder-coated aluminium spike depends on its coating, and fails once that coating is chipped by a mower or scratched by gravel, Laiton's corrosion resistance is the metal itself. It takes a replaceable 5 W MR16 LED globe, so it is serviceable as well as durable.

The choice to make: antique brass is a living finish

The antique finish will not stay as it arrives. Solid brass darkens and patinates with weather, watering and handling, unevenly and faster on the surfaces that get touched. That is the intended effect and it is why Laiton suits sandstone, aged brick and established gardens where a crisp painted fitting looks wrong after one season. If you want the fitting to look identical in five years, brass is the wrong choice. Buy the whole run at once so every spike starts from the same point and ages together.

Where it works

• Established and heritage gardens around sandstone, aged brick and mature planting, where brass reads as part of the landscape.
• Uplighting feature trees in a bed that is walked past closely, where the fitting itself is seen in daylight and needs to look considered.
• Coastal and beach-house gardens under some shelter, where painted finishes chalk and brass simply darkens.
• Courtyards and formal beds with gravel or paving, where the fitting is knocked and scuffed and a coating would be the weak point.

Specifying it

Note the ingress rating: Laiton is IP54, which is splash resistance, not immersion. That makes it a genuinely different specification from the IP65 spikes in this range — it suits a bed with drainage and some shelter, and it should not be sited where water pools, where a sprinkler plays directly on it, or in a hollow that holds runoff after rain. Get the drainage right and the brass will outlast everything around it.

The base is MR16 and the globe is replaceable; replacements must be MR16 rated for 12 V DC, as an MR11 or GU10 will not fit. Laiton is 12 V DC and requires a 12 V DC LED driver, and must never be connected directly to 240 V. Tri-colour selectable at install, paired as 270 lm at 3000K, 285 lm at 4000K and 300 lm at 5500K, with a 90° beam, 90° tilt, a 225 mm spike and a 1 m reinforced cable. Installation by a licensed electrician.

Backed by a 3-year replacement warranty.

Supplied and supported by Lights For You; Laiton is IP54 rather than IP65, so describe where it will sit and how the bed drains and we will tell you whether it is the right spike for that position.