Ardd + Winter / Cooper Lighting is a $%& show. Will never buy from again.

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brantmacga

brantmacga

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Location
Georgia
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Former Child
Title says it all.... apparently everyone here knew this but me.

Ardd & Winter lighting is a terrible company to deal with, and i shall never buy a fixture through them again. They quoted me (via my supplier) and sent submittals on an industrial LED low-bay w/ integral battery backups; this fixture doesn't exist in their line card (although they had no problem making up a submittal that clearly shows they do), so within 6/wks of me needing the fixture, they have to send me a request for a variance on the fixture. It takes two weeks to get this approved through the architect and engineer. Now i have to install external battery packs; yes that is more $$ for me to install. Am i getting any compensation back? NO. ALSO, THEY CHARGED ME FREAKING FREIGHT ON THE BATTERY PACKS.

It also takes them three months apparently to build this fixture, so since they waiting 6/wks before its due to tell me, and it took 2/wks to get approval, these fixture are going to be two months late. They flat out refused to help in providing a temporary fixture to get me through the fire marshall inspection; in their words per my sales rep, "well we can't resell them." No #$%^. What do you think i'm going to be able to do with the fixtures i have to buy in their place now? My material supplier is going to provide some mickey-mouse temp fixtures at cost, but i have to overnight ship them to the job today.

I wanted to note also that i was told almost every fixture on this job was "in-stock", including these. Nothing has yet to arrive on time from them. I've been waiting, waiting, waiting because i'm under the assumption here from everyone i talk to that these fixtures are on the way. Now i have a fire marshall inspection Thursday AM, so i will be working around the clock starting tomorrow to get all of the temp fixtures in. Only to come back in a few weeks, take them down, and start over.

The goal right now is to just get through the job and get paid, and then i can start burning offices down.

/rant
 
Well, I didn't know either. Sorry for your troubles man.

I looked at their site, their front page shows some pretty fancy looking lighting installs, tho looking thru their webpage, it seems they just list other manufacturers and dont appear to actually make any products themselves. :?

If NOTHING else, you should have been told about the 3 month lead time to build the fixtures, as I'm sure you would have chosen something else had you that information.

On an aside, I've noticed that it seems a lot of LED fixtures are not stocked by distributors even at a regional or national level. We called our local supply house about some high-bay, 2x4' battery backup LED fixtures. They didnt stock them, they weren't a stocked item, having to be ordered from the manufacturer (maybe Lithonia that time?). We wound up going with 6 bulb T5HO fixtures. Had the same issue with pole top mounted street light fixtures.
 
JFletcher said:
I looked at their site, their front page shows some pretty fancy looking lighting installs, tho looking thru their webpage, it seems they just list other manufacturers and dont appear to actually make any products themselves. :?
Click to expand...

They are a manufacturer rep. Anytime you quote large fixture packages it will go through a company like this. They are one of maybe four that all of my suppliers buy from.
JFletcher said:
If NOTHING else, you should have been told about the 3 month lead time to build the fixtures, as I'm sure you would have chosen something else had you that information. ....
Click to expand...

Yeh, I could’ve made arrangements with the customer/GC. They were about $40k lower than the Lithonia package, so I’m sure the customer would’ve elected to stay with this package, we just would’ve been able to plan for it instead of me having the egg on my face.

I’ll never buy from them again. Ever.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
It's hard to believe this isn't a case of breach-of-contract in some way with some sort of legal recourse. Loss-of-profit?
 
Ardd + Winter / Cooper Lighting is a $%& show. Will never buy from again.

Ardd + Winter / Cooper Lighting is a $%& show. Will never buy from again.

LarryFine said:
It's hard to believe this isn't a case of breach-of-contract in some way with some sort of legal recourse. Loss-of-profit?
Click to expand...

I called my supplier today to air more grievances about it. I was told they would setup a conference call to discuss.

The new issue that I’ve found with these external battery packs they’ve sent instead of an integrated battery as shown in their submittal, is that it’s a battery operated driver; so I have to wire it inline of the fixture driver and the LED. These industrial low-bays hang 6’ from the bar joists, and come pre-wired with a cord that has power and 0-10v dimming leads. So there’s that. Someone is paying me for it, that’s for sure.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
brantmacga said:
I called my supplier today to air more grievances about it. I was told they would setup a conference call to discuss.

The new issue that I’ve found with these external battery packs they’ve sent instead of an integrated battery as shown in their submittal, is that it’s a battery operated driver; so I have to wire it inline of the fixture driver and the LED. These industrial low-bays hang 6’ from the bar joists, and come pre-wired with a cord that has power and 0-10v dimming leads. So there’s that. Someone is paying me for it, that’s for sure.
Click to expand...

well, you could be grateful that it wasn't metalux you were dealing with.

i couldn't get them to quote a $8k lighting package, until after i'd started work.
my wholesale house swagged it, as they had metalux pricing history. nothing
fancy, just a 3k sq ft office. we penciled it in at $12k, to cover our butts.

price finally showed up at about $41k. the entire bid on the job was $54k.

owner of the building was cool. we built a nice lighting package for $9k, the
lights looked better than metaphux.

if you need a support group, i'll give you the owner of my wholesale house.
as an independant wholesale house, this decent, honest, religiously observant
man can swear like a sailor or a rodbuster, on the subject of lighting reps.

we jointly concluded that the lighting rep occupation was created so inbred white
trash could have a job besides running meth labs.
 
Fulthrotl said:
well, you could be grateful that it wasn't metalux you were dealing with.

i couldn't get them to quote a $8k lighting package, until after i'd started work.
my wholesale house swagged it, as they had metalux pricing history. nothing
fancy, just a 3k sq ft office. we penciled it in at $12k, to cover our butts.

price finally showed up at about $41k. the entire bid on the job was $54k.

owner of the building was cool. we built a nice lighting package for $9k, the
lights looked better than metaphux.

if you need a support group, i'll give you the owner of my wholesale house.
as an independant wholesale house, this decent, honest, religiously observant
man can swear like a sailor or a rodbuster, on the subject of lighting reps.

we jointly concluded that the lighting rep occupation was created so inbred white
trash could have a job besides running meth labs.
Click to expand...

Now, now, be completely honest here. You don't want to keep your feelings bottled up. Tell us how you really feel... :angel:
 
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