Amateurs, Do it yourselfers, Inexperienced installers all give the low voltage landscape lighting business a bad reputation

17 Dec Amateurs, Do it yourselfers, Inexperienced installers all give the low voltage landscape lighting business a bad reputation

By Mike Gambino

Two recent posts in the same day from an online landscape lighting message board that really hit a raw nerve with me as everything that is wrong with the low voltage landscape lighting industry trade today.

Original poster #1-       14 gauge wire Again ?                                                                                                                                                                                          Hey guys, First post from a retired golf course superintendent installing my own personal lighting. Thanks for all the very pertinent info throughout this entire website.

I am installing:

(3) 6 watt xxxx uplights 18 watts
(2) 4 watt path. 8 watts

26 watt total
60 watt xxxxxxx transformer plugged into 20amp GFCI outlet

Longest run 85 feet

Anyone see problems using 14 guage throughout the entire installation?

Someone replied with a link about forum etiquette in regards to DIYer inquiries and another simply saying why not just use 12 gauge as the cost difference is not significant for such a small project

Original poster #1-Thanks for your reply, but I’m not sure I qualify as a DIYer.* Maybe retired superintendent doesn’t mean anything to you but is sure does to me.**

Through my years I have laid more acres of sod, treated1000’s of acres of turf,* laid copius yards of drainage pipe, supervised the installion of over 5 miles of irrigation pipe from 12″ down to 2″, lord knows how many miles of wire to support that, installed multiple residential irrigation systems, tracked wires for buried valves and ground faults, constructed many rock walls, stairways, and patios, and fully understand the effect of flow loss, whether that be water or electricity.

It was my job to complete as many projects in house as possible.* This was at times challenging but none the less,* saved the owner huge amounts of capital and allowed us to do more with our budget.* I also have* been under the impression that being a good steward of your money is paramount.** No need to over engineer if not necessary.

I am just asking advice from one professional to another what their thoughts were on a particular subject.** I have made my living on making decisions in grey areas where answers weren’t always available,* but I always try to bring as much information to the table to as possible.

No hard feelings, and thanks for your time and consideration.

There are several things wrong with this inquiry

#1- The fixtures of choice are from an on-line importer/retailer who touts themselves as having great customer service, are the primary and most vocal and active sponsor of the forum constantly using it to promote their products yet not one response from them after a whole day.

#2- Not one of the skill sets the original poster mentions has anything remotely close to do with designing and installing low voltage landscape lighting on a property.

#3- The question in and of itself alone shows the lack of experience and capability.

#4- The erroneous sentiment that even with absolutely zero experience installing a system one can do it as a simple do it yourself project because they can buy the components on the internet.

Here is post #2 that came the same day in a different thread. It’s from someone who claims to have built systems before and this particular one three years ago which is having problems (for a few weeks) that he cannot figure out. Again the description of the build techniques, and blind archery with no logic troubleshooting procedures are tell tale signals that this installer really had no business offering this service on a pay basis to clients. LED interference? couldn’t be further from the problem (see below for my opinion based upon the facts stated)

Original poster #2– LED interference? I am a bit stumped

We installed a mid size 30 light LED system about 3 years ago and have never had any problems. It has 3 runs of 12-2 breaking up the various sections of the lighting and has been on a 300 watt transformer. The other day, homeowner calls and says for the past few weeks the system will kick on and the back and side lights all come on, but the front don’t come on immediately. He says they will usually come on about an hour or two later. I found this very odd and he said it has been doing this pretty consistently for a week. He then says recently it has flip flopped to the front coming on and the back staying off for a few hours then finally flipping on. He adds that when the lights are collectively all on, they seem to be fine the rest of the night. At this point, the natural causes are sketchy based on the information I have.

It doesn’t really seem like a short in the field because it seems to flip flop and then after a period of time they all collectively run fine until shutdown. Im thinking that the transformer must be failing at the lugs. All three runs tie into the single common and the hot sides are two runs on 14 volts and one run on 15 volts. I go over and run some tests. The transformer has a digital astro timer so I turn it on and everything works as it should. He tells me it usually occurs when the timer self starts so I set a faux start time for the timer a few minutes ahead of current time and it kicks on as it should. Check the lights and no problem. I check outgoing power from the transformer and everything is registering fine. I tighten up all lugs as a precautionary measure and tell him let’s try it again for a few nights. He calls back a few days later and says it was fine the first night I left and then the past 2 days, same problem… Front doesn’t come on as scheduled, but does eventually come on a few hours later. Flaking transformers can become a headache if they are not failing constantly so I just said, let’s change the transformer and timer try it again. I change the transformer and timer, this time I put all runs on single common and all hot on 14 volts, just to ensure that power is distributing from the exact same point for piece of mind. Once again, works fine the first night, next night front lights are out again but eventually kick on a few hours later.

At this point, im getting a bit baffled. Whenever im there, nothing is failing. The customer isn’t lying, he has been an excellent customer of mine for years and I can tell he wants to help with whatever information he can provide me that would lead to a symptom or cause. Every time I have been there everything tests out fine and it tested out fine before I replaced the timer and transformer as well. Lights get proper voltage, transformer is doing it’s job, etc, etc. It’s very difficult for me to troubleshoot because I literally can’t troubleshoot something that is working properly and I can’t force it to fail. I have kicked it off and on countless times, run multiple faux start times to allow the timer to kick on independently and still absolutely no issues when im there.

I have arranged to go back tomorrow night and be there at dusk when it kicks on to troubleshoot (as it should fail at this time because it has been for the past 3 days). I have to admit, I am meeting my match a bit here. I pride myself on being a very thorough lighting tech and installer, but I am starting to wonder if I am running into some type of ghost interference that occurs at or around this time of day. I have asked him about any additions (electronic or otherwise) of recent memory. He added an atomic clock recently and I thought maybe that was causing some type of issue. Had him unplug the clock, but still the same problem.

A few more anomalies as well. The transformer breaker has never tripped during any of these events or since it has been installed. Everything always tests fine (all 3 times I have been there since this started occurring, I have yet to be able to replicate the problem that is occurring). I had him pull the timer and plug directly into the transformer tonight when he called. He said no change, front still out, back is on. Calls back an hour and a half later and says they are working properly again.

Any ideas or similar experience would be appreciated. Im wondering if I could possibly be dealing with some type of emi that occurs at a certain time of day or possibly an led bulb/lamp that is acting sporadically and creating a cancellation on a run.

Here is the blind leading the blind with response #1-I have been thinking through this since I first read it early tonight. Boy, it sure is a puzzler. Are the LEDs integrated or separate lamps? I do understand that these have been OK for three years. If this were me and I couldn’t come up with anything reasonable, I think I might start replacing LEDs one at a time. It makes no technical sense, but I would replace the first one on each run and then move out from there.

In my 25 years designing , installing and maintaining low voltage landscape lighting systems I have never experienced anything remotely close to this scenario not even once on any system that I have installed and I have installed 1,000’s.

This shot gun approach , change everything , until the problem is finally found is unprofessional, unnecessary and expensive.

The transformer and the timer are not the problem , he should have known that before changing them out unnecessarily . He doesn’t say what he means by his statement that “everything is registering fine” when he turns on the lights neither what his opinion of “proper voltage”. Moving all three cables to the 14 volt tap is illogical and ineffective as well as it is clear that there are problems on 2 home run cables not 1 and there were already 2 cables on the 14 volt tap so moving the one from the 15 volt tap makes no sense. No its not a short in the field or the breaker would be tripped and all lights would be off. There is no “ghost ” interference and the recently installed atomic clock has no bearing.

First rookie mistake was splitting 30 fixtures over 3 cables. LED or not this is something we do not do as it complicates troubleshooting if in the event problems crop up like he’s experiencing with his system.  Not isolating the front yard and back yard lighting on different transformers and timers so they can be operated independently at different time schedules which is what most people want is also something that I have rarely if ever done. If that breaks the budget then maybe the client wasn’t ready to buy.

There are only 3 possibilities here that could be causing this

#1 and most probably that there is two damaged homerun cables that are not damaged to the point that they do not work but after heating up after being on for awhile some contact is made and the continuity complete to turn on the lights further down the run of that cable.

Two of them being damaged the same way is not a highly unusual possibility if they are both buried together in the same trench without the protection of being inside of conduit (which is something we do as standard on every job and know of no other company that does this) and the same shovel hit them at the same time. This is what I have always called the most problematic type of cable damage and difficult to diagnose and find.

#2- Poor, not weatherproof  and failing wire connections. Again the heating and cooling in the cable once it’s been on for awhile determines whether the lines will transmit power at any given time or not caused by intermittent contact.

This is a common problem by poor and amateur installers.

#3- Is not so probable but I guess possible as I’ve never seen it yet but there might be one or more bad LED’s that are affecting all of the other LED’s on that cable.

I have said it time and time again if you want to hire inexperienced and amatuer service providers or attempt a project on your own then expect expensive problems like this to be “Not the exception but the rule”, not just a matter of it but when.

My suggestion – contact the online reseller, bricks and mortar distributor or wherever the products were purchased from and make it their headache. Tell them to send someone out to fix it (Good luck with that) . Afterall they deserve it for selling electrical products to unqualified installers in the first place. Then you’ll find out how great their “customer service” really is.

This landscape lighting blog is published by Mike Gambino of Gambino landscape lighting inc. all rights reserved. Mike is a professional landscape lighting system designer/ builder and has been designing, installing and maintaining landscape lighting systems for more than 20 years. Mike resides in the Los Angeles area with his wife and 2 sons. To visit his website go to www.Gambinolighting.com . To inquire about hiring Mike please click here .

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