Heh! Its all good... I find keeping the same lamps my outside lights Boring. I hate lamps that last years lol. I get bored after a few months usually and end up changing them, i wanna test as many of mine out as poss cos i aint getting no younger!

So the story with this starts in June 2011, it came with a Venture 250watt SON-T, however I wanted to use my Osrams in it, my first NAV-E had a manufacture fault, it leaked and only lasted in this until May 2013!, it happend at night though, and I had to stuff the Venture in whilst it was on, (and dark)!!, pretty soon I realized 250watt was a bit overkill at this height, and downgraded it to 150watt in July 2013, (using Philips gear, and a Thorn 150watt SON-T), its 3rd lamp. Having by now fitted my first 50watt SON-T on the fence in August 2012, I now didn`t see the need for this to be 150watt, and down graded it again to 70watt, (4th lamp), using a Edison/Venture 70watt SON-T, which its been running until Christmas eve just passed, so why did I not stop here? Well to be honest, my little 50watt MBF on the front has done me proud, it just enough light, white in colour, and takes me back to the 70s when our streets were all in MBF, I secretly wanted more mercury lamps in use!, (indeed the Astra was originally going with 250watt MBF), but having more SON than anything else, I went with that to start with. I pondered for a few days going with 80watt, but to downgrade lumens from 6000 to 3700 for a slightly higher wattage didn`t seem a good idea, so I settle for 125watt, yes its a higher wattage, but 300 lumens brighter than the SON, and its white light without using halide or LED.

So reading this, is this you settled on a lamp for this now?

LOL, I won`t say yes, (although I really want to), but I`m exactly the same as you Dan!, I get board with lamps that last too long! , I have promised myself to leave my front light as 50watt MBF though, so I have to try hard to leave the Astra now! , I do like the good old mercury lamp though, so I should be fine........he says......

Well ive promised my self to leave the side lantern SOX and leave the lamp thats currently in it, in it. So far ive managed to leave it alone for 9 months nearly 10 that was fitted on 5th march 16 when the previous lamp a 55w Vision failed. however the lantern has been up nearly 2 years (18 & 1/2 months now. Which for me is good. The Beta 79 has been up since atleast last christmas i would say and apart from the vision lamp that failed in that on the 7th nov, and a few different photocells ive tried on it, ive largely left it alone. The 18w SOX lantern i fitted on 25 aug 15 ive left alone, ive not even cleaned that in the time its been up. However i had to open it in August of this year as i discovered the original lamp i fitted and planned to leave alone was showing signs of going black so i pulled that out before it got wrecked and changed it for a GE. Thats been left alone since. Sign light has had one lamp change on 6th nov but orherwise has been left alone.

The best I`ve done is with my GE Lucalox on the fence, thats been in since August 2012 on the same lamp, just in a different fitting.

I like to leave my lamps alone once they go in they stay in! The tempo on my barn has been going all night every night since sept 12 missing only a few hours due to power cuts, this lamp is now starting to leak sadly! The 18W SOX around the back is now back on and my 2 150W in the gardens are on part night, also on part night is the 100W SDW-T when the cell works the 55W SOX is on all night