So I been having a problem on several landscape lighting jobs and the Hadco Rep finally fessed up.
On four jobs, a lighting designer I do a lot of work with specd Hadco Metal Halide transformers for some yard/tree up lighting. On his plan per Hadco documentation, was wiring distances of any where form 3-18 or so feet, with a print note not to exceed 20 feet on wiring distances. So we install the fixtures, making sure that the distances do not exceed 20 feet [tried to keep it to19 max, wire end to end and set fixtures from there].
So the fire up day comes late November on several jobs and guess what. About a third [18 total] of the lights do not work.... After checking connections, changing bulbs, changing breakers, waving our magic wands etc, we narrow it down to a total of 4 lamps per job [12 total] don't work, the others were simple loose bulb, one no bulb [silly apprentice] etc...
After numerous go arounds with the rep and designer, changing ballasts on several and endless frustration, still no go on the non working lamps. So the Hadco rep finally comes to the job, inspects the installs etc. and states that yea, Hadco has 20' max distance in there paperwork, but it really should be 10'........Long angry pause here.....................................................
So, I just wanted to A. warn everyone of this newly found out issue and B. get some feed back as to how you guys think I should handle this. I am currently indebted to these jobs for roughly 46 man hours of trouble shooting and repair, plus the now known replace and rewire cost, not to mention the fact that one job is holding up a substantial final payment for a measly 5k. The lighting designer and I both agree that the client not paying is an issue and we are working together to get them to pay. But 46 man hours and some misc. material costs, yea I’ll se that from Hadco, sure I will…
