An award-winning landscape in Simi Valley, Calif., needed lighting to match so the residents called on Gambino Landscape Lighting Inc. to do the job. Over 140 LED fixtures were installed - all of them Gambino branded, copper and brass units, which were developed by owner Michael Gambino, who then financed the manufacturing of them, including the tooling expenses, and the ongoing warehousing costs, thus keeping exclusive rights to them. The system is powered by two high-output, 900-watt transformers with 11.5-15V taps, and controlled by computer, tablet or smartphone via a Pentair system platform.

The dolphins are lit by a "Palermo" in-grade uplight with a 3.5-watt LED with a 45-degree spread. The waterfalls and boulders behind the pool are lit by three "Napoli" directional downlights with 9-watt LEDs with 15-degree spreads mounted on top of the patio cover.

Each Robellini palm is illuminated by two "Palermo" integrated brass, in-grade uplights with 5.5-watt LEDs with 60-degree spreads.

 

"Veranda" 3.5-watt LEDs with 45-degree spreads downlight the patio. Another one with a 60-degree spread accents the fireplace.

Lighting the pool deck and steps are the "Tropicale" fixtures, which are downlights with a built-in fuel burning Tiki torch. The wall is illuminated with 3.5-watt, 60-degree, "Venezia" integrated brass floods.

When your stamp is on every part of a lighting project, including the light fixtures themselves, the end product had best shine.

And they do for Gambino Landscape Lighting Inc., which has been designing, installing and maintaining lighting systems in the Los Angeles area for 25 years. And for the last 12 years, they have been using lights developed by owner Michael Gambino, who works in the field with his three team members on each and every job, even the maintenance calls.

The House Specialty
The exclusively branded Gambino Lights are built with proprietary fixtures, transformers and LEDs that are, "superior to what is widely available to the general trades." Some come complete but Gambino and his crew assemble most.

The development of these lights came about due to what Gambino saw as a lack of tools that would be solely for professional use, which would help ensure that superb lighting designs and installations were not compromised by inferior equipment, sometimes purchased by customers.

After an unsuccessful attempt at getting a major player to create a product line that would only be sold to landscape lighting professionals, Gambino took the risky and costly step of financing all the tooling, manufacturing and warehousing expenses for such a line.

"The products are built rock solid and have an average of five pounds of brass and copper content weight per fixture," he relates.

And since he is responsible for the quality control and warranty of the lights, his company has exclusive use of them.

"My clients love the fact that they are getting not only me on their project," Gambino says, "but my product that comes with my brand name and my promise that their system is specifically designed and built to perform and last. And yes the products have been ETL tested and approved for their intended usage."

A Housewarming
These lights were the only one used on a recent LED lighting project in Simi Valley, Calif. at a residence that had an award-winning landscape, but the lighting system to did not match up.

"They were never happy with the lighting and over a few years it fell apart and needed replacement," Gambino says. "We recommended a high-performance, high-efficient LED system, which is what we designed and built for them."

The owners, busy and successful professionals, enjoy relaxing at home in the evenings and weekends, and also entertaining guests. They wanted their outdoors to entice those guests' eyes to look out the picture windows and invite them outside to experience the mild Southern California weather.

Besides designing and building a custom, low-voltage, LED landscape lighting setup, Gambino and crew were asked to improve the control system.

The existing control equipment was removed but the existing cable had to be abandoned in place because many tree roots had grown over them and to remove them would have been disruptive to the landscaping.

The dolphins are lit by a "Palermo" in-grade uplight with a 3.5-watt LED with a 45-degree spread. The waterfalls and boulders behind the pool are lit by three "Napoli" directional downlights with 9-watt LEDs with 15-degree spreads mounted on top of the patio cover.

Each Robellini palm is illuminated by two "Palermo" integrated brass, in-grade uplights with 5.5-watt LEDs with 60-degree spreads.

"Veranda" 3.5-watt LEDs with 45-degree spreads downlight the patio. Another one with a 60-degree spread accents the fireplace.

Lighting the pool deck and steps are the "Tropicale" fixtures, which are downlights with a built-in fuel burning Tiki torch. The wall is illuminated with 3.5-watt, 60-degree, "Venezia" integrated brass floods.

Previously there were six transformers on the ???(R)???AE?-acre property in locations that made it difficult to access the plug-in analog timers. The homeowners were frustrated with having to individually adjust each of them seasonally and after power outages.

Gambino's design reduced the transformer count to five, and customized them so that they can be managed by the existing Pentair pool control system, which itself can be managed by a smart phone, tablet or desktop/laptop.

Three dedicated zones of lighting were established. Zone one is perimeter lighting in both the front and backyards that operates from dusk to dawn to provide security for the property. Zone two is the balance of the front yard lighting and zone three is the balance of the backyard lighting. Because of this, multiple zones of dedicated wiring were required.

House Rules
As they do on all their projects, the team installed the wire inside of rigid PVC electrical pipe, buried four to six inches deep. The trenches were hand dug with spades, trenching shovels and hand trowels. Hammer drills were used to help mount transformers and to core through concrete foundations so that conduit and cable could be passed.

As the work proceeded, numerous obstacles were encountered. Multiple tree roots from established plants had to be carefully dug around and under. The property has a 20-foot-wide driveway and 15-foot-wide walkway to the front door that they had to get conduit and cable under.

The pool was in the middle of the backyard with a raised planter behind it and extensive concrete decking around it, which made it necessary to route most of the conduit and cable behind the pool and through the raised planter that is heavily planted. One of the transformers had to be mounted under a barbecue island, so installing it required being in a prone position.

The copper and brass LED fixtures included 22 Veranda patio downlights, 64 Toscano bullet uplights, 28 Palermo ingrade uplights, four Amalfi tree mounted hanging downlights, four Napoli tree mounted directional downlights, four Venezia wide flood uplights, 12 Bellagio bell-shaped pathlights, and five Tropicale downlights, which have built-in fuel burning Tikki torches. The entire system is powered by two Gambino high-output, Magnum 900-watt transformers with 11.5-15V taps.

The project took about 3 weeks to complete. All of the work was performed by Gambino and his three-person crew, and this capacity to handle each and every detail, along with the use of exclusive lights, produced results that clearly catch the eye.