LV Landscaping outdoor Wiring questions?

Just for fun - here's an example of someone who does extreme outdoor lighting and electrical - you've probably seen him on the DIY channel doing Yard Crashers and some of those shows - he lives a few miles from me, and does all his work under just a Landscaping contractor's license.  I knew about him long before the DIY channel found him - that was just his big break.  More ironic is the fact that he has no landscape lighting around his own home...
 
http://www.thelightinggeek.com
 
Thank-you work2play.
 
Yup yesterday I also spoke to the town's electrical inspector relating to the LV lighting endeavor.  It was not an issue and we did have a short "enlightening" conversation about LV in general. 
 
I'll have to check out the DIY channel.  I've shut off TV stuff (including news and weather) but my wife still watches and records much TV stuff.
 
I did speak to the owner of a landscaping lighting company (just lights) a couple of weeks ago that the HOA hired to redo some of the entrance to the subdivision lighting while he was doing work in our subdivision. We spoke about LED lighting.  He seemed to be stuck in the incandescent world.  Very professional and appeared to be knowing his trade very well.
 
Just getting ready to install the LV lighting.  It is all Kichler LED lamps; multiple styles.  Zoning the lighting a bit. 
 
Noticed that the Kichler LED lamps have an OK warranty. 
- 120 volt and 12 volt Design Pro LED Outdoor Products used for single family residences are warranted for fifteen(15) years or 40,000 hours, whichever comes first, on the Light Engine and all other electrical components. The warranty for these same Products for commercial use is ten (10) years or 40,000 hours, whichever comes first, on the Light Engine and all other electrical components.  
 
- Low voltage landscape lighting fixtures with brass, copper and stainless steel housings and the product exterior finishes on them are warranted for fifteen (15) years. Low voltage landscape lighting fixture housings made of brass or copper do naturally patina in color which is not a defect.
 
40,000 hours is 4.5 years on 24 hours / 7 days a week or 9 years on 12/7 or 18 years on 6/7.
 
A quickie update:
 
The endeavor is still occurring; a bit of a lengthy process.  3 lighting zones are using the Kichler LED lamps.  The Kichler LED lamps are in stone walls in two lighting zones and just the endeavor of carving blocks of stones for mounting these was an endeavor in itself. 
 
There is also a fountain and waterfall like structure with illumination.  Its not really a lighting zone though.
 
Zone #3 is the deck.  No outer back yard zones have been defined at this time.
 
7 more zones still are pending.  Total may be 12 zones with all LED outdoor illumination.  Now also at the point of retrofitting LV halogen outdoor lighting housings to LED illumination. 
 
I am still freaking out at the prices (wholesale) of the Kichler LED lighting.  The multiLED lamps are well constructed and I have not seen any outdoor LED lamps said contructed to date.  The warranty is excellent but the cost is astronomical.
 
The owners did have an architect draw up the landcaping design as a side contract.  I did do a bit outside during the stone cutting; not a pleasant experience.  The landscaper cut chases into the stone walls pre-assembly for the LV wiring.
 
I redid all of the lamps to main LV cabling wiring this past weekend as the Kichler lamps came with these outdoor clamps with a substrate to protect the wires; that said the Kichler vampire clamps were very large - too big. It did cause a bit of grief with my landscaper.   I redid his work not using clamps (he never did utilize the Kichler clamps) and small caps with some weather protectant subtrate which were kind of expensive even with the purchase of 20 to a pack.
 
That said I did install a new circuit and circuit breaker in the electrical panel only for the outdoor lighting with new conduit and new boxes; etc.  The main basement installed electrical is one main panel and one sub panel from what I can see.  The house HVAC is zone with multiple outside AC units.  I am guessing that one furnace (seen) is in the basement and the other is on the second floor (in my old house it was like this so guessing right now).
 
That was one piece of the endeavor.  HV electric is all in metal conduit and used metal boxes.  LV electric is all just Cantex plastic with plastic conduit glued and screwed (I am impressed with what I can do with plastic).  I did notice that the owner has TTS on his security and it does talk every time I open a door or window in the house.  I have yet though to look at the security panel (cameras all over inside of the house too).  The owner did ask me about automating his lighting as today it is not.
 
I did show the owner one 1000 watt toroidal archectural grade lighting multizone / multivolage / separate breaker low voltage transformer and a simple 12 VDC small multizone 150 watt transformer to show owner difference between using halogen lighting and LED lighting for outside relative to size and draw.  I did also install an RF remote control low voltage switch on a separate power supply for just the fountain/waterfall stuff. 
 
One issue I just ran in to was that the 500 feet of 12 guage wire is used up and the landscaper wanted to combine zone and I said no and making him run multiple zoned wires. I said he will need either another 500 feet spool or even maybe 1000 feet spool.   IE: the front of the house has sort of islands and more stone walls separated by cement.  I requested of my landscaper that he run a separate home run from each of these "islands".  In the back of the house he joined the deck lighting zone to one other lighting zone and I am making him run a separate zone after the fact.  This is a bigger issue because of the stone already set in place and is an endeavor that he has to finish this week.  The whole zoned thing isn't relating to how many lamps are on each zone (as if he was running halogen) but more related to autonomous control of the various low voltage lighting zones which they have specficied early on.
 
Its a materials cost issue right now which I don't think its such a big deal relative to the cost of the Kichler lighting.  I did initially specify purchase of a 1000 foot spool of 12 guage wire versus the actual purchase of the 500 foot spool of 12 guage wire; but I didn't say "I told you so" to my landscaper.
 
A 1M putup vs 1 .5M putup is trivial and in the scheme of things, especially armed with the knowledge of what was contained in the original spec is enough ammunition for the "sorry, so sad you didn't do as I told you" part of the equation.
 
The total load shouldn't be a concern, especially since the prints should call out the design elements for the zoning to begin with, if the architect did their job to begin with.....
 
Maybe it's just me dealing with subs and being a sub that thinks that way....the design elements should be called out and just because the landscaper didn't install or consider X or Y, that really shouldn't be your problem to consider, especially if it's called out on the prints or FPN's.
 
Maybe it's just me dealing with subs and being a sub that thinks that way....the design elements should be called out and just because the landscaper didn't install or consider X or Y, that really shouldn't be your problem to consider, especially if it's called out on the prints or FPN's.
It wasn't really much other than a discussion and me redoing stuff between the landscaper and me.  It was more my concern and the landscaper shortcutting the LV wiring a bit as he was more involved in the stone cutting stuff which was very labor intensive. 
 
The landscaper (company) has been taking care of my home for over 10 years and we are friends (that can be good or bad though depending on how you look at it).
 
That said we are friends enough that he understands my "yelling" of said little hiccups were not indicatory of malfeasance or to hurt any feelings; just being honest and putting stuff on the table during the concurrent implementation relating to the overall quality of doing a good job. 
 
He did have to move some already set in place stone for me to redo all of his "wiring" outside (literally) and that did actually slow down the efforts of completion a bit.
 
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