Help please

Can anyone tell me if you have to let your builder do the lighting in your house or can you supply your own. Builders mark up is double the price. We have signed contracts.

Depends on your builder. Ours wouldn't.

It is up to your building contract.

Most contracts state there is a central light outlet (like a bayonet) in each room / or so many downlights per room. If you want them to install actual light fittings you would need to ask the builder - but yes he is in his right to charge a fee.

We arranged through the our builder to directly approach the eleco to install our light fittings for us at his cost, not the builder. But then again don't use my experience as an example as our builder went bankrupt just before completion of our home LOL.

Depending on the builder. Ours allows for x amount of lights to be installed, we go out and buy & supply them.

Again dependent on the builder, but because you have signed the contracts, even if they would have allowed you to get your own done, they will now(probably) charge you a fee to remove them. Probably 30-40% of the cost anyway.

Good luck getting finance on a house with no lights (in the contract).

Our bank only had a copy of the contract with $$ on it not the building specs

well call me lucky

By lighting do you mean light fittings (pendants, chandeliers, etc) or the wiring, switches and outlet? If you are meaning fittings, the builder can just do the basics and then you can get someone to come in and put up your chandeliers, pendants, etc.

Hi Drew,
Depending on the builder, the smaller builders can leave out lighting supply and installation in your contract, but if there is any problems that come of an electrician installing them the builder is not liable. You would probably have to get the whole house wired for all the other power. If a builder is using a construction management contract, you will be able to shop the market for lighting and electrician quotes as long as they are licenced, say, if your brother is a sparky and licenced you can use him if you wish. Have a great day,

Sarah

Yep, does depend on the builder.
There is usually a standard lighting plan that builders offer that you can change (pre contract).
Our builder let us meet with an electrician on site before the first fix, and we changed almost everything and paid the electrician directly and kept the builder out of it. He's installing and supplying all the down lights but not any other lighting fixtures.

I changed my drawings and got them to replace the installed downlights (only one per room) to electrician to install owner supplied lights.
I got a credit back for the cost of the downlight, and a small charge for the installation of the light.

This way I could take my time, and grab exactly what I wanted and wasn't restricted to just their preferred suppliers.

We ended up having downlights put in by the builder, but we were going to just have the "provision" there and supply our own downlights later. I've heard of people approaching the sparky while he's on site to do this cash in hand, but our builder said any extra work by their contracters wasn't going to happen. We also wanted fans in most rooms, so for that we got the provision. The sparky put in standard light batons where the fans will go, presumably just to show that the circuit works. We'll have to get the Fans put in after handover.

Of course they will say that - they want them doing their jobs! But cash is a very powerful motivator......

To follow on with installing ceiling fans where light fittings were- its very simple. As a ceiling fan retrofit, the electrician told me to buy a ceiling fan remote (ranges $50-$90 depending whether its LCD) and the ceiling fan with light attachment. He used the same wiring from the old oyster light to the light switch. It took the electrician about 45min-1hour to do each fan.