when i do demos, it always takes me about 1 hr+ to set it up, cuz well im a designer and im never satisfied. But yeh one of my boxes (from unique) weighs in at over 100 pounds. bad times there. But hopefully before long i can stop using the demo kit as much. Thats when your known well.
MY demo kit weighs...
I gotta tell you, I am developing a love/hate relationship with my demo kit. the more I use it, the more jobs I get, which i am thrilled to say i have picked up 3 landscape light jobs in the past week, after doing 6 demo's. after a dead time of a month, I am happy to be doing at least part time lighting work again before the big christmas light work starts September 15.
my love hate thing goes like this- I love having 4 75 ft runs of multi-plug cord, 20 brass mr-16 uplights, 5 deck lights with clamps, 2 600 watt trans, and a few paths and a few extension cords. really everything you need for a decent medium home demo.
my hate thing is weight. I have maxed out 2 very large ice chests on wheels w/ collapsable handles ( like luggage) , and I keep the paths and deck lights in a seperate box. each ice chest easily weighs 65-75 lbs, and I am tired of loading and unloading these things in the back of my truck.
I know that firefly does awesome demo's, and probably easily doubles the weight of mine, but I am also curious about the rest of you guys- what do you bring and how do you lug it around? how much time do you give yourself to setup, bid and load back up a demo? I am taking about 35-45 minutes to setup, 15-20 to write out and bid, and 20-25 minutes to load up and go home. all by myself. some demo's take longer if the customer wants me to move around lights, but a single demo typically takes me from 7:30 pm leave house time to around 9:30-10:30 get back home time at this time of year. February is much easier as you can get there at 4:30 pm and be back home by 6:30 pm. let me know if my experience is normal, or what you guys are doing different.
my love hate thing goes like this- I love having 4 75 ft runs of multi-plug cord, 20 brass mr-16 uplights, 5 deck lights with clamps, 2 600 watt trans, and a few paths and a few extension cords. really everything you need for a decent medium home demo.
my hate thing is weight. I have maxed out 2 very large ice chests on wheels w/ collapsable handles ( like luggage) , and I keep the paths and deck lights in a seperate box. each ice chest easily weighs 65-75 lbs, and I am tired of loading and unloading these things in the back of my truck.
I know that firefly does awesome demo's, and probably easily doubles the weight of mine, but I am also curious about the rest of you guys- what do you bring and how do you lug it around? how much time do you give yourself to setup, bid and load back up a demo? I am taking about 35-45 minutes to setup, 15-20 to write out and bid, and 20-25 minutes to load up and go home. all by myself. some demo's take longer if the customer wants me to move around lights, but a single demo typically takes me from 7:30 pm leave house time to around 9:30-10:30 get back home time at this time of year. February is much easier as you can get there at 4:30 pm and be back home by 6:30 pm. let me know if my experience is normal, or what you guys are doing different.
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All my pars have lasted well over a year...i have some over a year and a half old.I'd have to agree with the rest of the folks about the victim thing. I refer to my clients as blessed, as anyone else would have done a worse job no matter the cost. If you're so confident about what you say, then change your screen name to your real name and business, then speak as you wish. When folks google me, they can read all my posts. I'm proud of them.
I'm also pretty sure a 20 watt 60 degree ushio in 10 different fixtures gives pretty much the same effect, given the glare shield difference. some fixtures may put it deeper in the fixture, but for the most part, you can't se the difference in the demo. I use brass fittings because they can get scratched up and still look good to the consumer. I'd never use pars in demo's becasue I don't install pars. I've tried a dozen different par bulbs, and they just don't last a year no matter the hour rating or what voltage I feed them.
2-3 hours for a setup? I need work, and man, are those demo's beautiful, but I don't see myself going that far. I felt pretty good setting up 20-25 fixtures.
that just seems unprofessionalSomething else I thought about doing. Call it a drive-by demo. or just a dumb idea.
If I had a 10gauge line ran from the battery of my truck to a multi-plug in the bed area. take 4 maybe 6 spooled extention cords run them from the truck be to the front area of a house. Hit the house in a few places do a couple of trees. How fast could you do that?
When youre down unplug the lights, roll the cords back in and move on down the road. Thats after you sign a contract of course.
I need to figure out how many lights I can run off the truck. The lights will do fine on DC for a demo purpose.
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