Is this quote for a lift light replacement (LED) reasonable?

[apprentisorcier]

Our building has a lift where one of the lights burned out and our building management got a 479£ quote from a lift management company for fitting a led replacement.

I took a look at the light bulb and found it's a CFL Philips Master PL-C 18W/830/4P one, available for 3.8£. I bought one, replaced it, and it works.

I then tried buying a couple of Philips CorePro LED PL-C 6.5W 830 4P which in theory were marketed as lamp-by-lamp replacements and tried them in: both light bulbs flickered heavily for a few seconds and then died.

I read a little bit around and it seems that there might be at least two types of issues:
- the LED lights are incompatible with integral emergency packs
- not all of the HF ballasts that might drive the CFL lights are compatible with the LED ones (see https://www.novelenergylighting.com/media/uploads/Philips-Corepro-PLC-4PIN-Compatibility-List.pdf)

I see ballasts cost 10/17 quid, and installation seems a matter of connecting 7-8 wires. I'm not sure about battery packs, but it looks like there are LED-compatible emergency packs going for about 40£ and installation of similar complexity.

My question is: given all this, is a 479£ quote reasonable?

 

[Geoff1946]

It's clearly heavily loaded, but to do any modifications they have you over a barrel because they are then signing the lift off for safety.

However, why are you bothered? If you've found a replacement lamp and its working why not just leave it and forget LED conversion?

Or have I misunderstood something?

 

[Doc Hudson]

My question is: given all this, is a 479£ quote reasonable?

You do not say where about in the country you are, what travel and/or parking costs may be involved, or various other overheads related to the work. The best answer to your question is to get two or more additional quotations for the same work. Just googling costs of some materials that you think are applicable may or may not be a accurate measure.

Doc H. 

 

[Evans Electric]

Its at most a days work  by someone local  .      I'd say £480  was a total rip off .   Half that is reasonable .  

 

[TonyMitchell]

Without knowing the full scope of the job, the quote does seem rather high, however may be unavoidable, depending on the maintenance agreement in place on the lift.   It is highly likely that such a contract will preclude work being carried out by parties other than the lift supplier or their authorised contractor.

 

[Geoff1946]

Might be worth asking them to review or break down their quote, perhaps hinting that they may not get automatic annual renewal if their services are proving too costly.

 

[binky]

LIft companies are plain epensive becuase it is a fairly closed field of work. There aren't many lift companies, and many send people hundreds of miles to do a job. Having got the light working again, I ould ask them how much to convert to LED next time a service is due.

I have, in the past, converted a lift to LED, it's not hard to do, but with regards to insurance it was probably a mistake to take on work like that. I won't do it these days.

Locked to prevent hi-jacking (again)