Assistance with UL/NRTL question

[nik christensen]

I work for a glassblowing studio that is being contracted through an architecture firm to make a custom chandelier for a private residence that is undergoing a complete rehab. We came up with a design that uses certified components but involved us fabricating the canopy (a standard nesting pie pan sorta thing that's bolted to the ceiling) and blowing the glass ourselves. However, there is a general contractor for the job and he's claiming that nothing will be allowed in that is not completely UL Listed or otherwise certified by some other third party (I suppose any other nationally recognized testing laboratory would do fine). We are more of a teaching facility than a production studio and don't do much of this work, so I am wondering if anyone more familiar with doing custom lighting can fill me in on the best way to solve this problem.

I understand the pains and big money in getting something UL listed and really, all I am looking for is certification of this single fixture so it doesn't really make sense to go that route but are there companies that come out for single jobs? Are there glassblowers/metal workers that I could pay some nominal amount to either just put their name on the project or to fabricate this for us so we could get certification through them? Is it actually a legitimate (legal) demand for the general contractor to require every single piece of the light be certified for residential lighting if it's being installed by a qualified electrician?
Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[Dennis Alwon]

Unfortunately you do need to certify the fixture and the process is expensive. There are many labs out there that can certify(test) the fixture but it will cost about $2,000-- at least that was my understanding.

 

[DTLight]

It might be cheaper to work through an existing custom light fixture manufacturer. A quick Google search for "custom light fixtures ul listing" turned up Labspec, who apparently makes custom listed fixtures.