Help needed assessing a light replacement quote for a lift

[baroncelli]

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 £3.80. 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?

 

[westward10]

Is the existing fitting an emergency luminaire. If it is I would not faff around with the existing fitting as they are in constant need for new tubes and function poorly in emergency mode. There a countless led replacements which show little difference in emergency mode.

Britesource Emergency 12w Round LED Light Panel 174x16mm

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[baroncelli]

Is the existing fitting an emergency luminaire.

I'm not sure, but probably (it's a lift, after all). There is a small red led indicator that's always on next to the downlight.

 

[littlespark]

Is the existing fitting an emergency luminaire.

I would think it is being inside a lift.

It might sound a lot of money, but the engineers will have a lot of overheads to cover, and they will supply a warranty with any work they do.

 

[westward10]

I'm not sure, but probably (it's a lift, after all). There is a small red led indicator that's always on next to the downlight.

It is an emergency then and a red charge indicator (they are now green and have been for some time) indicates it is not worth the expense of repair unless for aesthetics. See my link in #2.
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I would think it is being inside a lift.

It might sound a lot of money, but the engineers will have a lot of overheads to cover, and they will supply a warranty with any work they do.

Depends how many lights are in the lift car. You could have several with only one the emergency.
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I see you are in London so they may have to consider parking, congestion charge along with labour, parts, testing and certification but to be honest if the new fitting pops straight in labour is not likely to be exceeding an hour.

 

[Robson689]

How often does the existing light blow? The information online says 10,000 hours average which is well over a year

Even if it only lasted 3 months at £3.80 you could buy 126 of these lights for £479 and they'd last over 30 years

The quote is probably reasonable as companies have overheads etc that you pay for but you should consider whether it's even worth it considering the lights are so cheap and you seem happy enough to replace them yourself

 

[Midwest]

I work in maintenance, with several buildings with lifts. The lifts have a maintenance and service contract by a well known lift company. Anything needs doing in the lifts & shafts, is done by them. They also have to complete the compliance management for each lift. I'm not sure of pricing for replacements, but nothing cheap these days. I got some prices recently for damaged bollard lighting, nothing special, £120+vat.

The parent organisation, has recently changed policies on works carried out on the premises. Contractors have to provided risk assessments etc etc, along with their quotations. Soon I don't think I'll able to replace a 'light bulb'.

So @baroncelli I wouldn't concern yourself with the price of the quotation.