Bad Landscape Lighting Installations Offer Benefits….For Other Designer Builders

Bad Landscape Lighting Installations Offer Benefits….For Other Designer Builders

By Mike Gambino

When landscape lighting system builders screw up, two things happen: the industry gets a bad name and other designer builders like myself get more work. Or a property owner has to live with the problem every day knowing the money they spent was a total loss and is not worth the cost of electricity to run it every night.

The lady called about a poorly performing landscape lighting system. Clearly, she was frustrated. The system was installed less than a year before. I ask her why she didn’t call the contractor who installed the lighting. She says she did, but that she’d like a second opinion. Basically, what she’s saying is that she no longer trusts that contractor.

Rosenfeld-1Here’s my guess: I know the contractor. He uses a revolving door of employees to install every job without supervision or project management of an experienced designer builder onsite throughout the duration of the project from when the first shovel strikes the soil to the adjustment of the last fixture after dark. I’m not saying that all employees are bad. I’ve worked together with my own team for years, and they are very talented. What’s missing is consistency. Using employees can work well if you have someone on the job every day who has a vision for how the project will look at night even during the day and who is not afraid to tell them what to do to make sure things turn out as desired.

If you don’t have some level of management to ensure certain standards from a responsible individual whose name goes on the project more times than not things are not going to turn out as planned.

Up to Code

So we go out to one of the transformers where the client complains the lighting has intermittently worked and find it improperly connected to the homes power source. The power cord is plugged into a GFI outlet that has no bubble cover that protects the outlet from moisture. There’s a right way to safely hardwire  a transformer so a GFI outlet doesn’t have to be used saving the homeowner the hassle of nuisance trips. Good companies do it, schlock outfits don’t. The transformer had a rats nest of wires of random length stuffed into the enclosure such that you had to hold the cable bunch and push it back in the box and close the door with the other. .

DSCN0544I ask her: Why didn’t you call him back?

It turns out she did call the contractor and he had come out to the house several times and reset the GFI and plug in timer that stopped working each time the power went off from the tripped GFI which was often in the first few months. That was until he stopped returning her calls.

This was only a small part of the troubles this system had. As I walked around the yard I saw several fixtures lying on their sides, the plastic stakes had broken. Red colored Wire nuts that should only ever be used on 120 volt wire connections inside enclosed and weatherproof boxes were popping above the soil in several places. Cables directly buried in the soil without the protection of electrical conduit pipe could also be seen in several areas of the yard heaving out of the soil.

LED lamps were blown out and there was evidence of water in several of the fixtures. Lights that were installed along a path were not close to being plumb and level in fact each had its own degree of weird angle protruding from the ground none of them by original design or intent .

If this was something out of the ordinary, it would be worth describing in greater detail. But it isn’t. Not long ago we replaced a lighting system that had been on the property for just a month. The original not only didn’t use conduit pipe to protect his cable but he also didn’t bother to bury the wire either and just laid it upon top of the ground totally exposed to damage and trip hazard.

The homeowner wants to know: How do we fix it? He calls the original installing contractor, who doesn’t want to touch it or even enter into a conversation about it. In the end, the homeowner hired us to tear out the system and start over. Since then, we’ve done several projects for their friends who had the same landscaper do their lighting all with similar results. At least they were consistent, consistently bad unfortunately for these homeowners.

Installation Errors

Wire nuts should never be used to connect outdoor lighting cables that are directly buried in the ground

Wire nuts should never be used to connect outdoor lighting cables that are directly buried in the ground

When we are called out by property owners to advise on problems like these what we’re going to do is give them a report and tell them the truth. That doesn’t mean throwing the installing contractor under the bus. But if the failures are due to installation errors then we are going to report that too.

I don’t want to be the contractor who goes around complaining about other contractors. But the truth is, most of the landscape lighting  we’re called on to replace is less than a couple of years old. And 80% of the time the problems are due to installation errors. Either the system was improperly installed or it’s missing key components such as cable inside conduit pipe, non weatherproof cable connections, or heavy duty ground stakes.

Every landscape lighting manufacturer claims that its product is superior to those of its competitors, but on one thing they’re all in harmony: Landscape Lighting products need to be installed correctly and consistently, according to the instructions spelled out in installation manuals. As long as contractors ignore that, there will be plenty of work for companies like ours.

facebook logoThis 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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