TL;DR. Permanent lighting is wired to your house, so the install is electrical work and the installer decides whether it still looks right in year five. Three kinds of company sell it in Alberta: authorized dealers who install their own product, licensed electrical contractors who install it, and seasonal-lighting companies that added it to a service menu. None of those is automatically wrong. What matters is who holds the electrical licence, whether the crew is in-house or subcontracted, which dealer registers your manufacturer warranty inside the 30-day window, and whether you get an itemized written price before anyone is on your roof. The seven questions below get you those answers in one phone call.
Search “permanent lighting Edmonton” and you will find more than a dozen companies, most of them saying the same four things: colour-matched track, sixteen million colours, app control, lifetime LEDs. All of that is true of the product, not the company. The product is the same on every quote you get. What differs is who drills the holes, who is on the electrical permit, whose warranty covers what, and who answers the phone in year five. This is how to tell those apart.
The three kinds of company selling it
| Type | What they are good at | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Authorized dealer who installs | Product knowledge, supply, warranty registration handled in-house | Whether the electrical is done by their own licensed crew or subcontracted, and whether installation labour is their core trade |
| Licensed electrical contractor | The wiring, the penetrations, the receptacle, code compliance, a real installation warranty | Which dealer supplies the product and registers your manufacturer warranty, and that they say so plainly |
| Seasonal / holiday lighting company | Speed, roof access, volume in November | Who does the electrical portion, and what happens to your warranty if they are not operating in March |
We are the second kind, and we will say the trade-off out loud: an authorized dealer knows the product line better than anyone, and if their installation crew is licensed and in-house that is a strong option. What we would not accept on our own house is a quote where nobody can tell you which licensed electrician is responsible for the work.
Why it is electrical work, not decorating
A permanent system ends at a power supply that lands on a receptacle, with low-voltage runs to the track and at least one penetration through the building envelope. That means holes in your soffit or fascia, cable routed inside a wall or a soffit cavity, and a load on a circuit. Done properly that is invisible forever. Done badly it is a caulked hole that opens in a Chinook, a cable stapled across the ground where a mower finds it, a power supply in the sprinkler’s path, or a receptacle without an in-use cover that trips every time it rains.
Almost every year-three complaint about permanent lighting traces back to one of those, not to a failed LED. The diodes are rated at 50,000 hours and they are the most reliable part of the system; the Alberta winter guide goes through what actually fails and why. The installation is the variable.
The seven questions that vet any Alberta installer
Ask these of everyone you call, including us. A company that installs properly can answer all seven without checking.
1. Are you the licensed electrical contractor, or is the electrical subcontracted?
There is nothing wrong with a subcontracted electrician, but you want to know that it is happening and who it is, because that is the company you will need in year three. If the answer is vague, that is the answer.
2. Who is the Master Electrician of record, and does your crew work for you?
In-house crews are accountable to the company that sold you the job. Rotating subcontractors and seasonal casuals are not, and neither is a one-person operation that took on more Novembers than it can staff.
3. Which authorized dealer supplies the product, and who registers my manufacturer warranty?
Gemstone requires warranty registration through an authorized dealer within 30 days of installation. If the company is not a dealer, ask which one they buy through and who files the registration. An installer who cannot name the dealer is buying somewhere you should ask about.
4. What exactly does your own warranty cover, and for how long?
Separate the two. The manufacturer covers the product: a lifetime warranty on the LED lights, ten years on the track, controller and power components. The installer covers the workmanship. Ask for the workmanship term in writing and ask what happens if a penetration leaks in year two.
5. Is your pricing published, or consultation-only?
This one is a proxy for everything else. A company with a defensible price can publish it. Ours is on the site: $28 to $32 per linear foot of lit roofline, installed, plus a $500 controller, plus travel and GST, with the arithmetic and four worked examples in the cost guide. If a company will not give you a per-foot rate before a home visit, you are being sold to, not quoted.
6. Will I get an itemized written quote before anyone comes out?
Footage, controller, travel and tax as separate lines. Itemized quotes are comparable; a single number is not, and a single number with a deposit attached is worse. Ask whether the quote requires a site visit first, and whether it costs anything.
7. Is it genuine product, and what is the actual specification?
Ask for lumens per light, spacing, the IP rating and the rated life. The real answers for this system are 46 lumens, 9 inches apart, IP67 and 50,000 hours, with more than 30 track finishes matched against over 150 soffit and fascia colours. Vagueness here usually means a generic strip product with a Gemstone-shaped sales pitch.
Red flags that are worth walking away from
- A deposit before you see a written price. Nobody needs your money to draw a layout.
- A discount that expires this week. Permanent lighting is a five-figure-adjacent purchase on a house you will own for years; urgency is a sales tactic, not a price.
- “Lifetime warranty” with no named party. Lifetime on what, from whom, registered how? The LED warranty comes from Gemstone through its dealer, and that is checkable.
- No electrical licence named anywhere. Ask for the contractor licence and the Master Electrician. Ask, and a legitimate contractor gives you both without hesitation.
- A per-foot price far below the market. Nobody installs a genuine system with a licensed electrician at half the going rate. Something is being substituted, usually the product or the electrician.
What good looks like, start to finish
- You send three photos of the front of the house. No site visit needed to price it.
- You get a layout drawn on your actual rooflines and a written, itemized quote: footage, controller, travel, GST. Free, no deposit, no obligation.
- If you accept, a date is confirmed. Most homes are a single day once the system is on site.
- Licensed electricians install it: sealed penetrations, buried ground runs, a checked receptacle with a proper cover, the controller mounted indoors and the app set up on your phone before the crew leaves.
- The dealer registers your manufacturer warranty inside 30 days, and you have one number to call for anything afterwards.
Our answers, in one place
| Question | Stellar Upgrades |
|---|---|
| Licensed electrical contractor? | Yes, with a Red Seal Master Electrician supervising every install |
| In-house crew or subcontracted? | Employees. The same licensed electrical contractor behind 550+ solar, battery and EV projects across Alberta since 2018 |
| Gemstone dealer? | No. Central Alberta Lighting in Red Deer is an authorized dealer; they supply the system and register your warranty |
| Workmanship warranty | 12 months on the installation, in writing with the quote |
| Product warranty | Gemstone: lifetime on the LED lights, 10 years on track, controller and power components |
| Published price? | Yes. $28–$32 per linear foot installed, $500 controller, plus travel and GST |
| Quote process | Three photos, a drawn layout, an itemized written price. No site visit, no deposit, no obligation |
If another company answers those seven better than we do, hire them. The point of publishing the list is that permanent lighting lasts twenty years, and the difference between a good install and a cheap one does not show up until long after the invoice is paid.
