Complaint Review: Sunlight Solutions - Niagra Falls New York

The point of this review is that A) Sunlight Sheds is offering substandard products.  Their advertising tells a VERY different story than the reality of what they sell.  B) Their customer service is slow to respond and not able or willing to take the return of a $2,500.00 product because it doesnt work as advertised.  I strongly suggest against doing business with this company. 

We sent the following email to [email protected] (per the directions on their website) and waited more than two weeks for a response:  
"
My husband and I bought a Mortgage Lifter hydroponic plug and play kit, the 4x8 one.  We ordered it on March 3, 2011 (sales person DH) and we first used it on August 1, 2011 just at 6 months ago.  We have had a lot of problems with it from the very first and we are not very happy with our purchase.  I am going to list the issues we've had with this kit and then ask you what kind of solutions that we can come up with that will be good for both of us.    
1.     Set up video did not work properly.  We could access some chapters and no  others.  None of the set up information was accessible.  We had to wing it. 
2.     Five of the 'sealed' PVC seams leaked - not the ones we sealed, the ones your factory sealed.  Took a LOT of work to get this thing watertight. Your pieces were cut crooked & many pieces were cut too short so they did not seal properly without a lot of finessing.  We had to order two bottles of Plastaid and slather several of the seams so that we could finally get this thing to hold water.  It was a real chore.  
3.     Holes drilled for insertion of air tubing are drilled too low and leak constantly.  This creates 'real' puddles to form on floor despite our siliconing the tubing into the hole.  There is something about that little hole with the tube running into it that defies sealant and just wicks water out on to the floor like crazy. I walked in AGAIN this morning to two more of them, despite my beautiful dollops of silicone, leaking like crazy and now there is over 2 or 3 litres of water on the floor AGAIN that I have to clean up.  It got under the sub floor this time and now I'll have to try and dry it out under there despite my whole tent being full of 3 feet tall flowers.  
4.     The yellow rings that were hand cut with holes to hold the 3" net cups in the 4" PVC pipe are VERY poorly cut.  The net cups regularly fall into the water with my hydroton pellets and plants in them.
5.     There is no way to drain this system (that we could think of) other than with an inline pump system. Seriously?  There isn't a drain anywhere on this thing?  I hope we're just totally missing something obvious because I can't imagine making a system this large and complicated with no way to get the water back out of it once it's full.    
6.     There is no way to easily clean this system at all since you cant get your hands in the tubes that curve and snake around.  
7.     The amount of hot air being pushed by the air pump causes the water to become overly hot (89 degrees was my highest measure.  It's usually around 80 even though my room is kept at 75.)
8.     The actual tent was MUCH larger than advertised and BARELY fits in our space.  The zipper is TERRIBLE on this tent.  Not only does it get stuck and 'eat' the fabric on either side of it if you don't slowly guide it along with your fingers, but the cheap plastic teeth have fallen clean off the zipper (4 or 5 in a row) at the bottom of the door and now I can't zip it all the way shut.  I'm a 33 year old woman, not some idiot kid roughing this tent up.  We paid a lot of money for this thing and we're taking as good of care of it as we possibly can.  I'm GENTLE with it because I want it to last me years, instead it's only lasted me a few months despite my best efforts.   
9.     The reservoir is too small and the pump runs dry if not refilled within 12 hours. The jaggy, hand-cut lid has cracked, too.  
10.  The reservoir has no good snug fit against the exit pipe from the PVC system. When power is lost or the pump runs dry, the less forceful flow of water stops 'waterfalling' into the reservoir and dribbles/leaks down the exit pipe and drains water all over the floor of the tent. 
11.  The single row of HID lights causes the plants on the edges and in the middle two spots between the three lights to be DRAMATICALLY smaller than the other plants, even with moving the lights around twice a day to try and counteract that effect.  Also, the 'shades' won't even stay on the lights, they're all weirdly too big and won't sit straight or be useful in directing light downwards.  Not good.   

So.  These are our complaints and our experience in working with your products.  Does it work?  ......yes-ish.  It pretty much holds water but I clean up leaks daily and we dont need any help with growing mold in this already humid climate.  Does the tent keep the light out?  Mmmmmm it used to.  Now that the zipper is broken it doesnt.  Do the lights work?  Well, its pretty much lit well enough to grow plants, but I've had to add supplemental lighting and with twice a day lighting adjustments we can get things to grow pretty-well-good-enough.  Does it grow plants?  The plants do grow, but they constantly fall over and fall into the PVC tubes because the net cups are too small and the holes they sit in are poorly cut.  Can it be cleaned or drained at all?  Well, we can drain and clean it, but we had to invest in a complete pump and drain system and my hands get cut to sh*t trying to get in and clean those nooks and crannies.  It takes
HOURS every week just to maintain this thing on a basic level and it still looks hobbled together and VERY poorly designed.   It looks like y'all had a pretty good idea for this system that, perhaps, wasn't very well
researched or, perhaps, it wasn't tested before it was sold.  Either way, we are NOT happy with this product and we would like to discuss our options at this point.  

We would like A) our money back.B) a replacement system.  We are willing to ship this thing back to you if
that is what needs to happen.  Well send photos if you prefer them.  Were willing to discuss this by phone.  Whatever happens, in advance, we do appreciate your time and assistance. 

More than two weeks passed with no response, during that time I sent 3 more emails.  I finally received a call from Chris in their Customer Service Dept. He had my email in front of him.  He addressed a few points I made suggesting some lame work-around ideas and at one point he did offer to send me some new net cups.  I told him we were VERY unhappy with the purchase and wanted our money back or a replacement system because this one wasnt working.  He told me that they dont offer that PVC system any more because too many people were having problems with it and it cost too much to replace it.  He said they have since moved to a bucket system.  I asked what could be done since this thing was so unsatisfactory.  He said something like Well, you got the leaks fixed, right? and told me they couldnt really do anything since Id bought it more than 6 months ago and Ive been using it and it DOES work. and some other mumbly things to that effect.  He told me they werent going to give me my money back or offer any
further solutions but hed be happy to send me some net cups to replace the cheap ones that fall into the unevenly sized holes they cut to hold them.  I declined and thanked him for his time.  I told him I wouldnt be doing business with them anymore. 
   
Last night our power went off for a few minutes.  The system dumped about 4  gallons of water on the floor when the pump went off since there is no seal between the reservoir and the drain tube. This morning I went in to check on my beautiful flowers and there was about 2 or 3 gallons of water on the floor AGAIN.  As I cleaned it up and inspected the situation, it seemed that the system has somehow shifted under the weight of operation and the vertical pipe on the front right was now about 1/16 too short and the water had been bubbling over the rim all night.  I mopped up the water and dried everything off.  I found that the net cup was also pushing against the air-line tubing again.  The silicone seal had been broken by the air tubing getting smashed (again) and it was pouring water out the front of it.  Now I have to drain it down and re-silicone that hole AGAIN.   I also have to find out where else its leaking.  Jeez.  Who knows I wouldnt be surprised if I came in and the whole thing fell in half or something. 

The real bummer is that I cant afford another system now.  I bought this system, believing that it would be good and functional as they advertised.  I ended up with a lemon. I suppose we all  win some and lose some.  Its not the end of the world, but it certainly is disappointing.  Before I bought from Sunlight Solutions at www.sunlightsheds.com I just couldnt find any reviews about this product anywhere.  Now I know and Im writing my own review.