12 Sep Preventive Landscape Lighting Maintenance isn’t a Commodity Service
By Mike Gambino
In the early days of low voltage halogen landscape lighting, those small number of lighting specialists who offered preventive maintenance, built programs based on the knowledge of what services were most necessary to ensure the best and most reliable operation of the equipment. All the services required to ensure reliable operation were included in the contract. The basics —fixture and timer adjustments, lens cleaning, foliage pruning, bulb changing, for example — were always included. On more comprehensive visits o-ring lubrication, tree mounting hardware adjustments were also included.
Yes, in those days, operating logs were created to record service intervals and other conditions of a customer’s equipment. These logs not only assured customers of a thorough inspection, but also were a written record of the system operation, providing a great tool for checking on proper and efficient operation.
Was that enough? Not quite. Preventative maintenance also included a couple of operating inspections during the season. The thinking was that the additional cost could be greatly offset by finding and uncovering a potential problem before it led to complete failure and downtime. Especially halogen bulb burnouts which when burnouts began to occur would lead to additional burnouts due to the decrease in resistance which lead to an increase in voltage to the remaining bulbs.
At Gambino landscape lighting, we’ve often said the more spent on preventive maintenance, the more we can save a property owner in emergency service and repair costs and lost of system use. Plus, the energy savings potential for fine-tuning a system, for example, far outweighed the cost of another inspection and adjustment. For instance fixtures that are covered with debris or plant foliage are still consuming electricity however the perceivable light output has significantly been reduced.
Numerous studies have shown that a comprehensive and effective preventative maintenance program not only reduces emergency service calls, repairs, and costs, but also helps reduce energy costs. In spite of this, today I see the trend moving toward reducing the cost of preventative maintenance programs.
Granted, bulb burnouts have been significantly reduced with the inception of LED lighting and as a result such reductions often are at the request of property owners to cut their costs. But I find the contracting community too willing to play the low bid game. The thinking, wrong as it may be, is that it’s easier to drop price than to sell the value of doing the right job and make rediculous representations that systems need little to no maintenance since there are no bulbs to change. Unfortunately, the owners often don’t realize the gravity of such decisions.
From time to time, we lose a maintenance contract because the property owner felt preventative maintenance services were not needed, can do them themselves or feel they can have a cheaper service provider provide them. This is a huge mistake as no one will take better care of a system than the original designer/builder.
Often times a few yrs later these customers contact us because there are issues that crop up that they cannot deal with or repair on their own.
These same owners usually then have a large repair bill due to the lack of proper service which might have prevented such a costly renovation.
So this owner saved a few thousand dollars on the Preventative maintenance program, but spent in excess of $3,000-$5,000 in repairs to bring the system back up to spec. One can only wonder what their energy costs were during this same period.
Commoditizing Preventive maintenance
The customer push for lower priced maintenance programs on LED systems resulted in fewer inspections. The multiple in-season inspections are long gone. Now, even one in-season inspection can be difficult to sell. And to make matters worse, the amount of time and the services provided are being squeezed even further.
Preventive maintenance costs and hours are squeezed so much that it’s almost not worth doing sometimes. The truth is, everyone obsessed with the cost of Preventative maintenance contracts is forgetting that repairs and energy costs are higher with an ineffective maintenance program.
Now consider the cost of employer productivity. Many studies show the cost of lost system performance due to an lack of maintenance makes any potential savings of a cheap or lack of preventive maintenance program totally inconsequential.
So what is the answer? Unfortunately it appears that contractors must offer some cheap maintenance programs just to be in the game. However, it’s incumbent upon the professional landscape lighting designer builder to educate property owners about the importance and benefit of a comprehensive maintenance program. It is truly the most economical way to operate a landscape lighting system today.
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