We've used these for two Christmas seasons now - for about a month at a time. We also bought 4 strings of solar lights with the green wire covering. This year, 3 of the 4 with the green coating were destroyed by... birds? Not sure - chunks missing from the green insulation. Only one of those survived, BUT all 4 of these kept doing their thing, lighting our 1/10th of a mile drive beautifully! I'll be replacing the dead green ones with more of THESE for next season!!