19 Oct Potential Additional Landscape Lighting Costs
By Mike Gambino
You have budgeted out your home landscape lighting project, gotten all of your funding in order, and have even signed the contracts with your chosen landscape lighting professional. All of this is great, just exactly what you should have done, but if you worry that you may still end up exceeding your original budget or facing unexpected costs you are, unfortunately, not entirely wrong.
A good landscape lighting professional will always give the best estimate he or she possibly can but sometimes there are surprises along the lighting way that can cause costs to exceed the original estimate and which simply could have not been foreseen when they gave you said estimate.
For instance, say you have hired a lighting professional to install a new system on your property. The trouble is, once the lighter gets on the job and begins to lay out and install the system, they may discover that the existing house power locations they were depending upon turn out to not be sufficient to power the transformers and achieve the beautiful effects that both client and contractor expect. Suddenly the initial simple job becomes a whole different one altogether. It’s not typical but in cases like this the cost to complete the job is obviously going to change, perhaps by a considerable amount if other unforeseen troubles pop up.
Perhaps you hire a landscape lighting pro to remodel or repair an existing system. Often times problems below ground are not discovered until the digging begins. Again, through no real fault of their own, the cost of the work is going to go up.
Another consideration is the cost of landscape lighting supplies. If your project is one that will take a quite a long period of time – or if you received your estimate several months before the actual work began – there’s always a chance that the price of supplies used to complete the project as agreed will increase and with it your final bill. If your contractor includes the cost of supplies in his estimate, before you sign the contract ask him or her whether those costs are subject to change and, if so, how that situation will be handled so this can be written into the contract as well. This is particularly the reason why I like to collect all of the money up front for fixtures made from brass and copper materials which widely fluctuate in cost over a period of time for my client’s project at the time of contract signing so they are immune to such raises for materials when a project takes longer to complete due to unforeseen delays or delays waiting for other work to be completed first.
Often what will happen with a modest budget project is that a property owner will begin having a system installed preview it at night and immediately see the need to increase the project because it’s looking so good, sometimes far beyond what was originally budgeted for. I have seen this often and happens on most of our Gambino landscape lighting projects that start off very modestly. I equate it to the eating of one potato chip analogy that you just can’t eat one chip as their is a great desire to keep eating more. Beware- When landscape lighting is done well it can be addicting.
Homeowners can also be their own worst enemy when it comes to busting their landscape lighting budget. It is oh so tempting to change your mind and opt for that more expensive design or higher grade fixtures once the project is underway. Most lighters won’t mind but do understand that your costs will increase and do not act surprised when that final bill is higher than you expected.
If you are going to make a change, make sure you understand the cost in terms of both materials and labor before you request a change order to your contractor.
The best way to avoid getting stung by hidden and unexpected landscape lighting costs is to budget for them in the first place. When you have that final budget add at least 10%, possibly as much as 25%, to it to be safe. Hopefully you won’t need it and you can spend the extra on a nice new rug or whatever, but at least you will have that safety net there if you need it.
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 28 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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