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CJ Sparks Electrical, Data, Fire and Security contractors

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    • Reference
  • Mistake 1: Steel conduit
  • Mistake 2: SWA - not the holy Grail?
  • Mistake 3: 230v lights
  • Finally the right recipe
  • Pricing

Garden Lighting

When it comes to garden lighting, we consider ourselves seasoned veterans

We’ve learned what does and doesn’t work, and how to make the lighting last as long as possible.

Mistake 1: Steel conduit

We have seen and fitted steel conduit in a couple of installations.

The thought process here was that you couldn’t go through the conduit with a shovel and you could rewire it later down he line with ease. In practice, it doesn’t quite work as desired.

  • The conduit basically fills with water, and a semi setting gel has to used to resolve this. It takes a long time to fit (very labour intensive) and rewiring would only work if you don’t use the gel and the conduit boxes where accessible. Fortunately, in our two cases, the conduit system was used to pull in the right cabling, so it worked out in the end.

Mistake 2: SWA - not the holy Grail?

SWA or steel wire armoured cable is the tried and tested method for outdoor installation.

The problem is two fold:

1) There is a mis conception that it can’t be cut easily. Well take a good sharp shovel and you’ll go right through it. We’ve seen enough damaged SWA to know that.

2) The gland (the part that the allows the cable to join to a connection box) isn’t all that waterproof.

This results in tripping issues if you don’t install the boxes above ground. Fortunately, we did, but when we went to fill the connection boxes with gel, it just leaked out of the gland. We spent ages siliconing these before filling with gel, which isn’t really ideal.

Mistake 3: 230v lights

Clipping all of our cables above ground and making sure we mounted our joint boxes to the fence was best. This meant that if something went wrong we could get to the appropriate joint and cabling and do what we needed.

For 4 years we were installing 230V GU10 spike lights with LED lamps with fairly few problems.

Then the manufacturer we were using changed the way they make the lights. At which point every garden had some sort of issue with a light and we had to go and replace these.

We were only given a 1 year warranty but honoured those lights for 2 years at our own cost.

  • Third party light - water in base

    Third party light - water in base

  • A light we installed, after the change in manufacturing causing issues with water

    A light we installed, after the change in manufacturing causing issues with water

  • Condensation within a light fitting

    Condensation within a light fitting

Finally the right recipe

The whole time we were fitting outdoor lighting, one thing didn’t change. Generally, for ground lights, we were fitting Collingwood, and we were never getting call backs on these (apart from one LED driver issue which are a separate part that powers these lights).

Warranty issues were becoming a big problem a problem with other lighting, so we spoke to our suppliers and tried to negotiate the best deal we could on Collingwood.

Unfortunately, the price was fairly consistent across all the suppliers and it seems Collingwood are pretty stubborn on their prices. Maybe, quite rightly, they are very good products. We’ve fitted Hunza and Luxr before, both with at least a 10%+ failure rate in our experience.

Anyway, we started fitting Collingwood spikes – among other products and making sure we only run SELV (<50v ac or 120v dc) within the garden. This means our installations are as safe as they can be, least likely to trip and are as reliable as they can be.

Since then, we’ve had one driver failure out of over 100 gardens with this type of install over a 3 year period.

  • Outdoor lighting in a Wandsworth garden

    Outdoor lighting in a Wandsworth garden

  • Seating area LED lighting

    Seating area LED lighting

  • Spike lights, highlighting the feature trees

    Spike lights, highlighting the feature trees

  • Seating area hanging lighting (Moon light)

    Seating area hanging lighting (Moon light)

  • LED spikes highlighting features in the garden

    LED spikes highlighting features in the garden

  • Hot tub lighting

    Hot tub lighting

Pricing

We have fairly standard pricing for most of the outdoor lighting products we supply and fit.

See the gallery below:

Prices are typical but may change depending on the circumstances including the number of fittings, environment, fitting media etc.

  • 3W warm white LED Collingwood spike light in black finish - £222.00 excluding VAT  (£198.00 including VAT) supply and fitting

    3W warm white LED Collingwood spike light in black finish - £222.00 excluding VAT (£198.00 including VAT) supply and fitting

  • 1W LED micro spike light for illuminating small features finished in polished stainless steel, suitable where the light fitting will be seen - £135.00 excluding VAT  (£162 including VAT) supply and fitting

    1W LED micro spike light for illuminating small features finished in polished stainless steel, suitable where the light fitting will be seen - £135.00 excluding VAT (£162 including VAT) supply and fitting

  • Deck/Ground light - 1W LED for inserting in the side of steps or decking £135.00 excluding VAT (£162.00 including VAT) supply and fitting

    Deck/Ground light - 1W LED for inserting in the side of steps or decking £135.00 excluding VAT (£162.00 including VAT) supply and fitting

Find us on Checkatrade

Reliability & Timekeeping

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Tidiness

0

Courtesy

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Workmanship

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  • Reliability & Timekeeping

    9.92
  • Tidiness

    9.87
  • Courtesy

    9.94
  • Workmanship

    9.83

This is the third time I have used CJ Sparks and I have been happy with their work each time. I would definitely use them again. Very helpful in advising in advance of the work and excellent job done by their team.

10/10

CJ Sparks team arrived promptly and always wear protective covers over their shoes. They were really friendly and carried out the work in a professional manner and the client was really pleased with the work. I would recommend their services.

10/10
  • A member of CheckATrade as a member since 2006 for customer feedback and checks

Registered address: The Old Granary, Dunton Road, Laindon, Essex, SS15 4DB
Trading address: Suite F, Jubilee Centre, 10-12 Lombard Road, Wimbledon, London, SW19 3TZ

T: 020 7757 7457
E: sales@cjsparks.com

Company number: 08189126 | VAT: 154 0870 19 | Copyright © CJ Sparks Ltd 2017

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