13 Jan High Performance landscape lighting- How bad do you want it ?
By Mike Gambino
We have been working on a project this past week in a very exclusive high end double guard gated community. The system we are installing is a 100% Gambino LED landscape lighting system.
One of the neighbors stopped their car and asked how we got our lights to be so bright and effective. I told him that we have very high quality transformers, fixtures and LED’s and 24 years of experience and knowledge to put it all together to get results like these.
He said he had LED’s installed in his yard less than one year ago and was already having problems. The color of the light was unattractive, dim and some even have begun to flicker. He asked if I could come over to give him a quote to fix it. I told him no which came as a surprise to him.
I told him that what he had was not repairable. He has some very low quality fixtures and LED’s and there is nothing short of removal and replacement of the whole system that would change this. I asked him where the original installer was and he said he would never call him back as they apparently parted on bad terms. I’ve heard this story way too many times in the past with halogen landscape lighting and now with LED.
Buyer Beware there is a lot of cheap junk out there. And if you should happen to have some of this junk installed, professionals such as myself will take very little pity on you after the fact. The case may be that due diligence was not done before the purchase. The low bid was chosen. A non specialist was hired and or any other of the myriad of reasons why a homeowner will find himself in such a bind. That is not my issue. My issue is to make sure that it doesn’t happen again if you are serious about making things right.
If you are asking why it is not possible to just replace the fixtures in order to fix the problem then I will tell you.
You can’t build a quality home that will last on a weak and broken foundation. Any professional who agrees to do that then they should not be practicing in this trade. If the fixtures are failing then its a good chance that they were cheap and if that is the case you can pretty much rest assured that the rest of the components share the same lack of quality. Cheap parts are installed by cheap installers and you always get what you pay for.
Personally we take pride in our work and the Gambino name is on all the proprietary products we offer. We will not put our components with our brand name on them on a system that we are unsure of. It just makes no prudent business sense to do so.
Most homeowners believe that the last one to touch it is responsible for it and that is totally unfair. To inherit a previous installers headaches and nightmares and pre-existing conditions when they were the ones who originally installed the system is also bad business.
What it really comes down to is how badly do you really want to solve your problems? There is no cheap and single bullet solution . That thought process is what got the homeowner in this situation in the first place. I have been in this business a very long time and I have never seen a cheap solution that will perform and last the test of time.
If you want to become a doctor you must invest the time and money in many years of schooling and practice to become one. Same is true of any other valued profession. It takes investment in time and expertise and it takes money.
Luckily in regards to a high performance landscape lighting system you would only need to invest in one and not both of the requirements.
You provide the capital investment and we provide what we do best which is the rest .
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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