The Worst Light Fitting of the Year Award 2012

[sparc]

You'll be familiar with the scenario - quote includes a number of basic white pendants, but you arrive to ... "I found these lovely fittings in John Lewis, M&S, Laura Ashley (delete as appropriate) and thought you could put these up instead "...

For me this is now an immediate "that'll be an extra £50 thanks ".. having learned the hard way that the shinier and slicker the design, the crappier the installation and maintenance will turn out to be.

B&Q seems to have got their act together in their lighting product management team, but John Lewis and M&S currently get my vote for the worst and most clueless.

 

[Strima]

Regardless of where they're bought from 99% are made in China and are therefore crap.

 

[Fin170]

British home stores currently gets my focused hate

Can't fit 'loop in loop out at light' wiring into the space given, crap screws and worse of all having to slide the glass features onto their holders. Holders (compressed metal) needed excessive playing around to get glass over them, said glass being paper thin and breaking very easy

 

[Doomed]

Supplied fixing screws always pants, never use them. As Fin170 says, those spindly glass push on bits, horrible. Whats wrong with a bare lamp on a pendant anyway?

 

[Strima]

My Mrs has got a silver Morrocan lamp that she wanted fitting. After a bit of searching I found one the same as this:

Chandelier Large Chrome Ceiling Light Rose with Hook Plug-In Detachable Lighting | eBay

I know, Ebay, the devil of all sites.

However the fitment is sturdy and feels well made. There are the standard rose fitments for looping and plenty of room to work with, no choc blocks which is always a winner, even two CPC clamps. Until you try to push the cable into the neutral of switch connection, then the whole thing falls to pieces, what a pain, especially when the screws fall into the shag pile rug.

Great idea as there's no struggling to lift a heavy lamp fitment whilst trying to get screws in, just the minor details that need looking at.

 

[stu_guy]

3 out of the 10 lamps missing or broken another trip to the wholesalers

 

[telectrix]

worst fittings have got to be those where it takes 15minutes to wire and fix the fitting, then 2 hours to hook on all the pretty baubles that come individually wrapped in plastic, and sellotaped up.

 

[NDElectrical]

Regardless of where they're bought from 99% are made in China and are therefore crap.

very true they tend to me china but quite a few are also uk/eu based

 

[mogga]

pmsl@ the bauble ones we had the pleasure of one of these in a stairwell stretching down 3 floors PAIN in the rear
the best was a bespoke one the client had made to do the front foyer of a big townhouse in edinburgh as she consulted the gaffer and listened to his input

 

[Top Cat]

When i quoted for a rewire about a year ago, the woman said yes to the quote if you can put up her own light fittings. Like a mug i said yes. When it was time to put them up they came in a tiny box and when you pulled them out they had about 15 arms that you had to assemble, then shades you had to put on then those stupid 12V lamps with curled over pins that will not go in the holder!

I had about 10 fittings to put up and each one took nearly an hour!

I now say i will do it, but done on an hourly rate.