Building With Bay West Homes

The journey of building a new house...

Tuesday, April 16, 2002

Something to be aware of when it comes to lights: don't assume your salesperson knows your floor plan as well as you do. We bought our lights from Signature Lighting because a good friend of the family worked there. The whole process was great, and our lights are beautiful. But there's a catch: we didn't understand how high our lights would be in the stairwell (having never done this before), and our salesperson didn't explain that we would need to order extra chain to bring the light down to a reasonable level. As it stands now, the light is so high that when we need to change the light bulbs, we need to get a 12 foot ladder (which cost around $600 CND). I assumed it would be low enough to change easily, but you know what they say about assumptions...

I just got off the phone with Signature Lighting, and it was a frustrating conversation. Even though we were never offered extra chain, it's "our fault". Apparently there are people who like to have their lights really high. I can certainly believe that, but why weren't we asked if we were those people? It costs $45 to get Signature Lighting to come out and lower the light. I reluctantly agreed after realizing that they were refusing to take responsibility for not offering us the option or explaining that the light would be too high to change without a ladder. I became a little angry when Signature Lighting asked for my credit card number before coming out to do the work. What kind of policy is that? I pay for things when I see the results and the quality of the work. Every other company I can think of works the same way - would you pay your builder 100% of the money before the house was finished? The woman I was speaking to at Signature Lighting explained it was "their policy" and offered me no options. Not a very consumer friendly company...but I still love our lights. :-)

The lesson here is that you should have a clear understanding of how high your ceilings are, explain that to the lighting company, and tell them the lights need to be low enough to reach for light bulb replacements.