Plant Lighting Hydroponics.com REVIEW

daisy2687 said:

Funny how I never notice the date lol




Dunno about you but my store charges ridiculous prices. Only one in town though. Good if you need a quick replacement bulb or nutes but thats about it

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I have 2 local shops including plant lighting hyrdo which is setup in more of a wholesale business. Its huge place located in a business park setting.
Plant lighting's prices are the greatest but always seems to be mixed results in the customer service area of the business.
At the other local shop it is great but the prices are SKY HIGH! Unless I ask for a price break they usually charge double what PL charges!

I wish my local shop's prices were a bit lower.

Back to the point of the thread which is to offer reviews about PL. I have to go there asap to see if they can replace this 600w Lumatek ballast I bought from them. Issue is that I no longer have the invoice for this purchase. I've already been there before about this ballast on another issue. When I bought the ballast from them I noticed that the manufacturer's box looked way different than the ballast I already own. I just ignored my gut instinct to say something and kept going. A week later when I went to fire it up, I couldn't use it because the dam thing is for Sunlight Hoods NOT Hydrofarm like I needed! (I was under the impression that they only had Lumatek/Hydrofarm ballasts.)

So, the guy that is real cool and always helps out has no ideal where the ballast came from. Says they don't carry the lumatek ballasts for sunlight. (I'm thinking great,,,here we go.) Since I don't have an invoice and "they dont" carry this he is doing the best he can to get down to the bottom of the situation. They ended up just giving me a cord adapter and a refund on a fan speed controller that was broken. Took the adapter and went on my way.

Now here it is 3 weeks later and the ballast stopped striking when the timer kicks on. On top of having to plug and unplug the dam thing to strike it, it also started just turning off intermittently! Very Bad! Had to go to the local shop and grab a Quantum ballast since PL is not open on the weekends. Local shop ran up in me on the Quantum ballast!

I'm dreading having to go see them again on this issue. Since I called the rep at Lumatek before end of business on Friday he was more than willing to help. So, hopefully that will count for something. All they need to do is warranty the dam thing through Lumatek to give me another. (I'm thinking easier said than done!)

I luv them n I am glad they r in my back yard. I only spend with them .n they have cheap prices and good advice

So far things have been going well. I went in on Monday and got some attention on my issue. One of the guys that I often deal with is sending my ballast back to sunlight to get "looked" at. We will see how this turns out. One thing that bothers me is that they really don't believe that I got this dam thing from them. If I would have only tried to use it before I lost my invoice. I hate when this type of situation happens but very glad I'm getting help from them. If all goes well I will continue to spend most of my $$$ with them.

I read a few reviews and took a chance, I took some advice and asked it too all ship at once (to save UPS charging min 85$ for every seperate delivery) and asked all be stealth.
my order took an extra 2 days so all could be sent at the same time and save me alot of $, every 1 of the 9 boxs had a cardboard cutout taped over (eg:co2 gen boxs), others were boxed inside boxs(like the chiller) everything was done the way I asked and placed as miss-garden equipment.

oh did I mention how nice it was to buy a chiller for 369 and not 800-1000 here in Canada. Each chiller, co2, monitor was 400-700 less, 190 for a ballist not double. if you are going to order from the USA do it in 1 shipment, call once you have your tracking # and prepay the duty/customs, for a 3700$ order the ups part was cheap $416 taxs,duty,brokerage.

If your going to buy a little here a little there you will find it is not economical due to shipping and duty, but if your going to buy even 5 big items your saving alot.
And when I called when I forgot stuff I recieved answers on the spot the 1 call, a call back with in an hour the 2nd call when i had other questions. and 1 item was missed by them and it was on the road within a business day of my call.
I will use again, and I will continue to pass there name out when people ask me where to shop

IAm5toned said:

notice all the positive reviews come from brand new users with less than 10 posts totaled... lol

really creative guys... yeah, were so not fooled

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yes, first post. I had to register and reply to this post.
I have only made one previous order from these guys. It was just a fan and various ducting accessories. But, I got a call the day after I ordered and they got all up in my business about the shipping address since it wasn't the same as the billing address. I sent in images of my card to resolve this. I appreciate anti fraud measures because it is so rampant and damaging to businesses.
I got tracking and quick, discreet shipping for this single item. Even though I don't grow anything illegal, I still don't want people around me assuming I do.
They were just slightly cheaper than any other source that was reliable through various internet reviews.
Because of my positive experience with the customer service and this site in general, I recently placed a significantly larger order. I will update when/as I receive the items.

Edit: Oh yeah, forgot to mention. Regardless of stealthiness, I buy local. It is just good practice even if it costs more. You will pay the difference one way or another eventually! That's why I have done so few online transactions. This company was one of my three in this market, and it was a positive one.

I realize this thread is old (and has recently been revived) but I want to just share my experience with this site (and buying local) for anyone searching in the future.

I recently placed my second order from this site for a new setup. On my first order, I only spent around $300 on a 400w ballast for a CMH and a new wave t5 fixture + bulbs. In the order comments, I wrote "some kind of discretion for the ballast would be awesome".

Order was placed 2/9. 2/13 I received an email saying the ballast I wanted was backordered and that they'd receive it in 2-3 days but was offered a more expensive in-stock CAP ballast for the same price, I declined and waited. The order shipped on 2/15, and I was opening them by 2/17. The ballast was wrapped in panda film (which I ended up using as scrap to cut circles the size of my netpots, a plus if you ask me).

Overall I was happy. Shipping cost is on the expensive side if you ask me, but I've come to feel that way about all shipping since Amazon Prime has spoiled me. Also, their low prices make it even with most other sites (at least for some items). My dislike for their shipping costs is offset by their ability to get things in my hands quickly.

With that said, yesterday, for 4/20, I placed a medium-ish order (another magnetic ballast, 2 4x12 filters, 2 diaphragm pumps, another SS2 reflector, pumps, buckets, airstones, blue lab meters, nutes, etc.) and asked for discretion for the filters, ballast, and reflector. Order was out the same day, and will be here Tuesday this time. We'll see if they fulfilled my discretion request when it arrives.

On the buying local thing... I guess it depends where you're at. First time I bought anything, I bought "local". Store owner for whatever reason was a dick to me and seemed to not want me looking through their items, instead was pushy like a commission based salesperson. To make matters worse, after driving the 30 min to get there, most of the stuff I wanted was out of stock. On top of that, for 2 1/4" elbow barbs, he wanted $3.00. A month later I needed some extra netpots and drove back there and the store was gone. I was surprised/pissed at first but after re-thinking my last experience there, I wasn't. Online, I get exactly what I want and usually when I want it.

There shipping is to much,i calked them once and asked why it was so high,they assured me it was actual shipping cost...when the package arived it weight way less then what they told me over the phone and the actual shipping was it as well...there a joke.might have good prices but they make up in shipping..still looking for another source...30.00 to ship 4 t5 bulbs is a rip off

Ive also heard there owned by the Bush family,hence high shipping cost.

I used to drive up to their actual store and they had awesome prices and in the last year their inventory dwindled to nothing. Now the actual store location is closed and I heard they sold the website. I checked the website and it looks like they are up an running again. Has anyone tried them under the new owners? They still have killer prices hopefully they are better than the previous owners...

yeah this thread is like stepping into a time machine