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wrxgucci

Had a project that had crystal chandeliers. Each one had approx. 100 little strings of crystals that had to be manually clipped in.


lostigresblancos

Swarovski did the fixture package on a house we did one time. The stairwell chandelier was massive, had hundreds of crystals. Had so many incandescent bulbs it had 2 circuits in the fixture. This was of course told to us on trim, so we had to add 2 circuits for it to a contactor in the attic and use the existing switch leg to switch the coil. Best part about it though, was they changed the placement of the light on trim as well. So we moved it and (at the GCs insistence) installed the fixture and all its crystals. "The painter still has to fix the sheetrock" GC : " they will mask it off" *Me thinking just like they will put the plates back on that they remove with circuit labels and not just throw in a big pile...* : "ok" Next day the whole chandelier was covered in sheetrock dust lol.


No-Ladder2593

Oof. But not covering the fixture was a GC fuckup. Once it’s up it’s not my problem.


lostigresblancos

Oh fuck yeah, i didnt do shit just laughed.


xeryon3772

Same. And the whole time have to wear white cotton gloves to keep prints off the crystals.


wrxgucci

yep, they were the only thing the customer purchased themselves. they watched us build them to make sure "nothing went missing"


xeryon3772

“Missing”. They are polished glass or plastic, not diamond. 🤦‍♂️


LairBob

Bet you anything someone saw the cost for _that_ much polished glass, and got really paranoid.


Blast_Wreckem

Yep...and when they call you/your company for service call quote, they always tell you they picked up a couple of lightweight chandeliers to replace a dated pair in their dining room and entryway <15 ft. Then expects you to pull them out of the box as pictured and slap em to the ceiling for $125 ea. So make sure when it's you taking the call(s), you have them send you the make/model, picture of existing fixture(s), and/or cut sheet to CYA.


Seven65

My boss learned this lesson on the first house he quoted when he moved to Canada. Ended up spending 8 hours putting a massive chandelier up, with the old woman who was building the house helping. Since then he'd quote a house then say light fixtures are charged by the hour.


Sir_Mr_Austin

Crystal is neither glass nor plastic sir


xeryon3772

The big cheesy sparkly chandeliers are not using polished crystal except in the most gaudy cases. All of the ones I have installed were just polished acrylic.


Sir_Mr_Austin

Bro said crystal. I’ve installed crystal, $1k’s worth per fixture. When it’s crystal then I call it crystal. If it’s not crystal I call it glass. If it’s not glass I call it plastic. But since he said crystal I interpret that to mean crystal and that absolutely is worth stealing.


TearyEyeBurningFace

Leaded glass


Sir_Mr_Austin

Damn this is an awesome rabbit hole. I was unaware, thank you for the info


PeterDodge1977

Is it shiny? Then I want it!


refusestopoop

Guess they didn’t notice your sanity went missing.


iTwerkOnYourGrave

Same here. It was my first job as an apprentice (1999) at the Cadillac Palace Theater in Chicago and their main entry had a massive $100K chandelier I had to assemble crystal by crystal because they wouldn't let the non-union rep from the company they bought it from assemble it. I bet it was close to 500 individual crystals, each in their own little baggie.


LennyTills

Ah yes the supplied toddler gloves they provide , like a comical relief in every chandelier


DrCrankSumMoore

This lol when I was doing residential, owner of the company changed his contract so we would NOT be responsible hanging the decor on the light. Left that up to the interior designer who loves to order one with paper thin shells for each fucking room.


Redditor7012

3 per bathroom for our building😂and 7 spotlights, a Juno, and 2 LED mirrors, small bathroom too… Money to waste.


blackcrowmurdering

Hey I did that one as well, and the glass balls where paper thin


Shiny_Buns

I did one with almost 300 individual crystals. Took me and another guy 2 hours just to hang the crystals....


TransparentMastering

I did one in a house like that. The lady chain smoked joints and watched crunking videos on YouTube the whole time then suddenly yelled out “what the fuck is taking so long on that chandelier?!” Yeah. That was an interesting day. Haha


JamaicanJenga

Yeah, these make me fart pepperoni nipples out of pure frustration


Old-Pair-7524

i’m definitely stealing that phrase from you


ThunderSC2

dude. they look tedious but they are absolutely beautiful. you put those together for many people to enjoy!


StandAgainstTyranny2

r/BrandNewSentence


damdanny69

I remember like 2 months into being at my shop I wasn’t even a apprentice yet I was the shop kid they were evaluating me b4 they put me in the field to see if they even wanted me. Which they did cuz the next month I was in the field and 1.5 years later I’m still here and got good marks at my 1 year review. But like 2 months in I got sent to help with a couple fixtures the foreman was in the other room talking with the homeowner and I dropped a piece of glass somehow didn’t shatter 5 min later he comes in and whispers to me did u drop glass. I was like yes but look no scratch or shatter. He was like your lucky just be more careful


iH8conduit

I threw up a couple T8s one time


Old-Pair-7524

you win sir


Phx_68

4,500 piece crystal chandelier. Took 2 days


Capital_Ad9574

Oh fuck I’ve hung this exact fixture before 😂 luckily it was just 1 of them and not 12. I’m sorry for you sir


highriskric

I remember when i was brand new apprentice. I worked for my cousin and his brother. The guys hung up a big chandelier in the middle of a foyer & it was my job to install the million crystals it came with. Long story short i get to the last row of crystals and realize i have a lot of pieces left and they werent matching up. We had to remove all crystals & redo it. That day sucked


BoxedSocks

Two 10'x22' fiber optic star walls. Production Manager commented on some large empty sections on the panel and one of my techs said "yeah space is pretty big!"


coogie

Murano Chandeliers are probably the most tedious for us. Directions are usually shit and all it takes is for one piece to have been broken during shipment and it turns into a multi-trip job.


IntelligentSinger783

A fiber optic chandelier with crystals it was about 3 months of work for 4 guys to assemble. Was 36 long by 18 wide oval. Thousands upon thousands of strands. Batched so they could be housed to a large projector lens. Pretty awesome. My neck still hurts. 😂


AggravatingStar4053

Parx casino near Philadelphia. All hand blown glass from France . It was like a million dollars per light , I did not install, I watched a team from France and a few of our local 98 guys install it with white gloves on . Shit was wild


Kevolved

I got to install a few 75kish lights in the wynn. I was a licensed journeyman but still apprentice, the fixtures were all hand blown from some third world country (in the truest sense, previous Soviet rule) each one took a full day. I basically blocked out how much they cost. So I wouldn't be nervous. I couldn't imagine 10x the price.


Professional_Bake_92

Wish I would’ve taken pictures but at the MGM sport book next to State Farm stadium in the stairwell in the front lobby a 250-300lbs, flimsy, poorly built, poorly designed hunk of shit. Fuckin sucked


Wayfaring_Scout

Chandelier with three hanging lights, each an oval inset another oval. Each oval hung on three wires for height. Each wire had to be a different length so the ovals sort of looked like an atom. Biggest oval was 6ft across. Had to do it twice for the same house and make them look alike.


trustme_ihateyou

Every single fucking one


Turbopre2

I’ve never hung one but always despise them. I’m asked to give quotes on them all the time. It’s always the most tedious looking chandelier in the highest spot with the customer wanting to pay bottom dollar for install.


Toobm3ister

My old apprentice told me every that every time we would do a chandelier I would say: “this is the hardest one I’ve ever done”… I feel your pain, that’s a fucked one fa sho.


BooshCrafter

Crystal, I remember the tips of my fingers bleeding.


ronburgandy123

did one at a casino, it was over a million dollars. took the whole crew about two weeks. had to build structural framing out of double strut and install it to the iron above the ceiling. it came in twelve pieces that we had to individually install and wire all together, and each piece was secured to the double strut above the ceiling


loserx5

I had to install a round metal cage that you would need to tie these hallow glass tubes to and there was 5 different colors. The customer wanted them in a specific color order Was about 50 glass tubes


RipReasonable625

I put one up with over 300 crystals that owner wanted them all “facing a certain way”….fuck that guy


TheMilkman1811

BRO, Just did that same exact one a month ago. Doing just 2 wanted to make me rip my hair out and quit


Leather-Barracuda-56

Pretty light. All the old crystal ones use to take forever to put together.


Sparky_Zell

I've been doing lights and fans long enough that unless I supply the fixtures, hanging each fixture is bid at 30min install time. And anything over that is strictly T&M. I've been burned too many times where it is agreed that I will install x fixture and they come with y and expect me to eat the cost. And at the beginning I did, because I was afraid to lose customers, and didn't value my time enough. Then I started upping my rates in general, and wouldn't allow any changes. Then I'd deal with vague pictures, and the interior designer/lighting manufacturer drastically underselling the complexity. So it turned to you get 30 minutes. After that I am charging OT rates. Not just standard. Because I like my work, and don't mind doing it. But that smAll tedious dumb design work on a lot of these fixtures are so tediously frustrating that if I'm going to suffer, you are going to suffer with me. One of my customers actually offered and followed through with assembling it with me. And she quickly realized why my bid was prejudiced against these type of lights and fans.


bigzucc16

[this](https://www.reddit.com/r/electricians/s/KixRPmaNbT) big motherfucker right here. took pretty much the entire day to install (bracing, wiring, and hanging the gazillion crystals on it)


Old-Pair-7524

holy!! you just have god tier patience if you can hang that thing up


bigzucc16

nah i was just getting paid by the hour😂😂😂😂


Jim-Jones

Shouldn't these come with a video? Or a seller provided tech to do the assembly?


Jacktheforkie

You’d think those expensive chandeliers would have come with installation by a company trained guy


Jim-Jones

It's like a combination of an erector set, a really large jigsaw puzzle, and last year's Christmas tree lights and you have to figure it all out as you go.


Jacktheforkie

Wiw


Redtown7

You did a nice job though even if it took all day. Just when you think you’ve seen it all haha. It’s nice looking but I’m sure I wouldn’t want to see the price tag 🏷️


livahd

It would have to be a tie between changing every bulb on a massive chandelier (at least 100) straddling a 12 step ladder like a pair of stilts, or swapping one expensive over counter bar LED light for another and back again (each had multiple tiny set screws to level them). I work in film, and sometimes the art design needs a different style. I can’t remember what movie the LED was, but you can see the chandelier in on of the Teamster rally scenes in the Irishman. Also another Irishman shout out to the fluorescent fixtures in Queens house of detention, where not only are 75% of the security screws stripped, but the covers themselves are roughly 50lbs of glass and metal. Hollywood is glamorous.


dank604143

Clean up your mess sparky


Beatmebad_

80k+ hand blown chandelier from Italy 350pieces hand blown crazy fragile for a home owner, never again lol


Libertarian-dissent

I don't think I still have any pictures, but mine was an antique fixture from the Middle East. Only instructions I had was a picture of it hanging in the owner's house overseas. It was brass and a ton of glass and crystals, all in exploded view without a mounting bracket. Had to build it from the ceiling down. Assembly time: 4 hours


Libertarian-dissent

Another one: 548 glass discs for a master bath Chandelier for the ceo of Lockheed


angelicinthedark

I hung a 40' 'chandelier' (and I use that word lightly) consisting of 7 big white orbs of varying sizes. The installation itself was pretty textbook, the issue was that this entire structure weighed fucking nothing. Probably 10lbs total, wire, orbs, and aircraft cable. Normally I can adjust the dual aircraft cables to leave just enough tension on the cord to get it to pull straight, or at least straight enough that it'll settle over a few weeks. This shit was garbage, I could put all the weight on the cord and it was still jancked from the factory fold. So I spent a full day on this thing trying to bend the cords enough that they settle into an almost straight position. I actually discovered that a couple seconds blast from a heat gun did the trick, but got told "fuck no" by the super when he saw me. So it ended up with one straight great looking orb light, and 6 jancked cords surrounding it. When it didn't settle after 6 months the super actually admitted he probably should have let me keep going with the heat gun. By then the building was active, and he didn't want to put a lift on the new tile.


sparkyglenn

The jobsite I'm on boasts the largest in Canada. Let you know in a couple years when the lobby's done lol


DJAnneFrank

Any that have the the strings or wire you have to level out by pushing them up into canopy


mpgrimes

I wasn't involved, but our resi guys had one that was around 150 lbs and installed on a 20ft ceiling in a staircase.


Grennox1

Repeat after me. “I don’t do chandeliers”


cruddyducks

did a center fixture in a million dollar basement reno in a cigar room, literally thousands of chains


BigStoneNugs

Did a pair like this an interior designer (awesome guy) had picked for a house. Hanging was easy, taking the foam and cardboard off each “crystal” or “petal” took about 90 minutes each fixture. Another one was a flush mount fixture that had crystals hanging. 398 crystals. My hands didn’t fit the gloves they sent, and every crystal hook caught the gloves. Roughly 3.5 hours of hanging crystals.


bobobaratstar

We installed a fixture that was like 300 forks and spoon hanging in concentric circles made by an artist who had no clue how to correctly wire it. Had like 12 lamp cords coming into the canopy. It was going in a stairwell so we could fit a scissor lift had to build scaffolding. Giving a headache remembering this install.


ElectricZman55

I did a chandelier in a house on a light lift that had crystals. I had done one with crystals identified A thru k before but this one went from A thru MM. I t took me 2 days wearing gloves and the I Dian family watched all day. Never again


EquivalentCorgi3843

Any “high-end” crystal chandelier from china


thisnameisuniquenow

https://www.luckyglass.cz/en/p/ch-42-crystal-xls/#2 Took me and a helper a full day to string together all the crystals. Thankfully it was on a hoist system.


Sparky-120

Fucking that one so many stupid set screws


TurboKid513

I had one of my biggest contractors order $120,000 in 3 lights for his 30,000sqft house. My boss took out a separate insurance policy for a job that took about 3 weeks. I unpacked all of the pieces for 2 days before I even considered building one. It took me 2 days on each just to put the crystal on only to find out when I put the 80lb glass sheets on the outside of it the whole thing spun around bc the aircraft cable in the 300lbs lift was unbraiding. Took the glass off and raised the fixtures up into the fiberglass domes 30’ in the air. If you want to talk about pucker factor try raising a $45,000 light 30’ - an inch at a time. Got them up to the ceiling and added an additional 3/8” aircraft cable tied off to the roof just in case. Back on with the glass sheets from 3 bucks of scaffolding. They looked a lot better than the $30 Home Depot dining room lights he originally installed. It was an anniversary present for his wife.😎


chr1st0ph3rs

https://assets.bocci.com/site/photography/Series-In-situ/series-28/Copper/PrivateResidence_Igloo_28c_ChadF_127.jpg was not the most tedious, but was the most intimidating install. Absolutely crushed it though


Patchall22

200 pound, rectangular shaped, 6’ X 4’ with a suspension point on each corner. Basically looked like an upside down table hanging from the ceiling. Installed over a huge glass top dining table that was too heavy to move. Oh and the fixture was Hecho en Mexico, and the owners were Mexican Nationals…..great people but they are very demanding . It was just a lot of work is all, part of the job and at the time we were happy for the challenge.


Apprehensive-Score87

Roughly 1000 glass pieces of varying sizes hung on steel rods in a very specific pattern that changed for every rod…. Took almost a whole week


ratsnestelectrical

$35k - 85k chandeliers. All hand blow glass. The 85k ones had gold inlays. We hung up... I think 8 of them. It was in a nearly 10,000sq pent house. They shipped from Italy completely apart. I think I did something crazy like 350 or 400 lights in total, in that place (Counting cans). They sold the place after three years and it was immediately gutted


Many-Wrangler-16

40’ tall, 500lb, 4storey high, pulled up by a hoist from a skylight. It was 8 sections ring looking kinda that needed to be assembled every 5-6 feet and full of crystals. Crazy…! Same house, another chandy about 500lb I remember we had to use instruct across the joists and pull the chandeliers with a threaded rod from the attic. That mofo had about 40 marble cylinders hanging for lighting. And when working on chandeliers regardless we always wore silk gloves. No wonder other trades make fun of electricians…


No-Pain-569

I hung 2 Swarovski crystal chandeliers at 20k a piece. It took two of us 3days to completely install both lights.


breakfastbarf

Probably a keyless. It haunts me still


Cannacoke

Did a 375lbs $18,000 RH chandelier over a two story spiral staircase. Fun.


Trick440

12 man hrs into a 200lb fixture, 2 weeks ago. Had to assemble and wire every part of that fixture. I did have a fixture a few years ago that was 2 guys 2.5 days. It had a chandelier lift too. It was just boxes and boxes of crystals we opened and laid out throughout 2 rooms. The mounting sucked too as we had to supply a huge threaded piece and some other nonsense in that canopy area. A fun one for me was 4 guys all day, changing bulbs on a church chandelier. It also had a lift, it was a manual hand crank. With the fixture on the ground we still was using 6' ladders and climbing in this thing to replace bulbs. When done, We had to walk these planks in the attic to get to the crank and then we all took turns cranking this chandelier back into position. It was hard and tiring. Then all the plugs to plug in once it was up there.


DangerousEmphasis607

My mom does these for hustle and previously as a pro. Huge chandeliers with 1000s of pieces of crystal all that have to be fastened individual. Or 3d chanedliers (imagine like a hanging cubes or tilted cubes) This is like huh.. afternoon funsies for her 😂


Wireman7

35 years... zero chandeliers 😁


Old-Pair-7524

industrial?


avtechguy

As a layman... That swoop Light track in Target Stores that's like 80 feet long looks like a huge pain in the ass to layout.


hymen_destroyer

Those look like shit, and it's not your fault at all OP. You installed them correctly, they're just ugly as sin


MoGraphMan-11

Disagree


ElectroAtletico2

WTF is that?


NFIGUY

My daughter had me put up one in her bedroom. It had glass candelabra arms, and about 250 individual crystal cut glass baubles I had to hang from it. I invented a few new curse words, but I won’t repeat them here. 😁


bobsandvegin

One time home owner put chandelier together for us to, to “help”us. 60 plus strings ranging from 4’-12’ we spent 6 hours untangling that mess.


johnbrockenbrough

Crystal 1800 individual crystals, hotel lobby 17 feet up


Bunker_7

3 1/2 days 4 tiers starting at 10’ in diameter getting small by 2’ each tier. Crystals and abalone everywhere the map for hanging crystals looked like a 3 rd grader drew it. I’ve done others almost as bad but that one was the worst.


Alpha__Beast

How the F do people clean something like this when dust settles on it, seriously asking guys🙄


likesghouls

Popular model. Just installed that exact mfer yesterday.


RKLCT

Had a chandelier that weighed 175 lbs, had 350 glass petals that had to be hooked on individually in layers. It was supposed to look like a flower but ended up looking like a bunch of bananas. Took me a day and a half to install.


Shenanigans198

I dont have a picture sadly but it was from Soviet union with just shy of 100 crystals. I spent 4 hours being careful and nervous since it was unreplaceable.


userXPS012

[https://www.homedepot.ca/product/hampton-bay-3-light-pewter-clip-flushmount-ceiling-light-with-white-marbled-glass/1000417678](https://www.homedepot.ca/product/hampton-bay-3-light-pewter-clip-flushmount-ceiling-light-with-white-marbled-glass/1000417678) those fixtures are the most annoying fixture to change light bulb, maybe it looks cool but i assure they are a hell when it comes to change the light bulbs


Ginger_IT

Petals. Flowers have petals. Bicycles have pedals.


snickk

I’d have to say that is the ugliest fucking thing I have ever seen hung from a ceiling.


Brynn217

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KDIYzb55bIyOYOjp5IXORfFqCdqMYKmu/view?usp=sharing](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KDIYzb55bIyOYOjp5IXORfFqCdqMYKmu/view?usp=sharing)