Why this exists
A commercial roof is warrantied twenty years. A car’s powertrain, five. A sign that costs as much as either one is usually warrantied for twelve months — and most sign companies will not put a number in writing at all.
We think that is backwards.
A well-built sign should last ten to fifteen years. If one fails in two, that is not bad luck. That is a low standard.
So we build to what a sign is actually capable of, and we back it accordingly. This document tells you exactly what that means. It is written to be read — not to be survived.
1. Three tiers
Everything we make or install carries one of three terms.
5The Richland 5Five years
3The Richland 3Three years
1The Richland 1One year
Parts and labor, for the whole term. There is no drop to parts-only in the later years, and no hourly charge for our time. That is the same in all three tiers. The only thing that changes between them is how long the coverage runs.
What decides the tier
Not the price of the job, and not how much we want the work. The tier is decided by what the thing is made of and where it lives.
Aluminum does not care about the sun. A printed face does. We are not going to pretend otherwise, and we are not going to sell you a five-year promise on a material that was never going to keep it.
Where your work falls
The Richland 5Five years
- Channel letters, illuminated or not — the entire letter: returns, faces, translucent film, finish and lighting
- Raceway-mounted letters, including the raceway
- Illuminated cabinet signs — the cabinet structure and the lighting system
- LED modules, power supplies, and the wiring and connections we install
- LED retrofits — the system we supplied and installed
- Dimensional letters in metal
- PVC and acrylic signage used indoors
- Our mounting and mechanical fastening on every sign we hang — including signs we did not build
The Richland 3Three years
- ACM panels and signs
- PVC and acrylic signage used outdoors
- Dimensional letters in PVC or acrylic used outdoors
- Foam and composite signage used indoors
The Richland 1One year
- Cut vinyl, printed vinyl, frosted vinyl, window perforated film, wall graphics, decals and labels
- Cabinet faces and panels, poly or acrylic — new or replacement
- Foam and composite signage used outdoors
- Sign service and repair — the work we performed and the parts we supplied
Outside the Richland Standard
Banners and temporary signage carry a 90-day warranty against manufacturing defect. Site surveys, design, permit support and removal are services and carry no product warranty.
One certificate per sign
Coverage is issued per sign, not per project. Each sign gets its own certificate, its own verification code, and its own coverage dates — which matters on a phased job, where the exterior sign may go up months before the interior one. Every certificate starts its clock on the day that sign was installed.
2. What is covered
Within the term that applies, we cover failure of the materials we provided and the workmanship we performed:
- Structure — cracked welds, separated seams, failed joints, corrosion through the material
- Finish — peeling, cracking, blistering, delamination, and fade beyond what the specified material is rated to do
- Electrical — failure of LED modules, power supplies, wiring and connections we installed
- Faces and panels — cracking, crazing, yellowing, separation, and fade beyond the rated life of the specified material
- Graphics — lifting, peeling, cracking, delamination and premature fade
- Mounting — loosening, shifting, fastener failure, anchor pull-out
Getting to your sign is our problem, not yours. Ladders, lifts and access equipment are covered, under the same access conditions that existed when we installed it.
If the site has changed since then so that reaching the sign now costs more — a structure built beneath it, a lot re-striped so a boom cannot set up, a new municipal closure requirement — that difference is yours. Everything else about getting up there is ours.
3. What is not covered
Things that happen to the sign
- Impact, collision, vandalism, theft or civil disturbance
- Storm, hail, flood, fire, lightning, earthquake, and wind above the load the sign was designed for
- Fault, surge or interruption in the electrical supply feeding the sign
- Neglect, misuse, improper cleaning, or pressure washing
Things that are not ours
- The surface the sign or graphic is attached to — the wall, glass, panel, pole or structure, including damage to that surface arising from removing a graphic
- Existing cabinets, faces, retainers, wiring and structures we did not supply. On a retrofit or a face replacement we cover what we put in, not what it went into
- Materials, products or artwork you supply — and our work applied to them. If you supply the panel, we cannot warranty the graphics we put on it. If you supply the acrylic, we cannot warranty the letters we cut from it. We are not able to stand behind the life of a material we did not choose
- Anything altered, relocated, repaired or serviced by anyone other than Iconic. Not to be difficult — once someone else has been inside it, we no longer know what is in it
Things that are not failures
- Normal fade and weathering within the specified material’s rated life
- Cosmetic variation within manufacturing tolerance
- Changes in local code, ordinance or landlord requirement
4. How the coverage works
When it starts. The date your sign was installed. Not the invoice date, and not the date you pay.
Transfer. Coverage stays with the sign. If you sell the business or the property, the coverage goes with it — the same way it would on a car or a roof. The new owner inherits whatever term is left. There is no form to file, no fee, and no notification requirement we will use as a reason to decline a claim. We would simply appreciate knowing who to call.
If an account goes past due. Coverage is suspended while an account is past due, and resumes when it is settled. The term continues to run during that period — it is paused coverage, not paused time.
Work we subcontract. Some fabrication is done by partners we select. Your coverage is identical either way. Who built it is our problem to manage, not yours to absorb.
Rush work. A rush timeline does not reduce your coverage.
5. Making a claim
Tell us within 30 days of noticing the problem. A small fault left running becomes a large one, and we want the chance to fix it while it is still small.
We will contact you within three business days to begin scheduling the repair. Some repairs need permits, police details, access equipment or parts on order. We will tell you the schedule as soon as we know it — we would rather give you a real date late than an optimistic one early.
6. Our obligation, and its limits
If a covered item fails, we will repair it, replace it, or reinstall it — whichever is appropriate — at no cost to you.
That is the extent of our obligation. We are not responsible for lost business, lost revenue, lost profit, or any other indirect or consequential loss arising from a sign failing, and our total liability for any covered item will not exceed what you originally paid for that item.
Except as stated in this document, we make no other warranties, express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
This limit is deliberate, and it is what lets us offer five years instead of one. A warranty that exposes us to a customer’s downstream losses is a warranty no sign company can afford to make long. We would rather cap what we owe and extend how long we owe it.
7. What we ask of you
Three things, none of them onerous:
- Keep your certificate. The number on it is how we find your sign.
- Let us do the work. If someone else services, alters or relocates the sign, we can no longer stand behind it.
- Tell us early. See section 5.
8. Definitions
Installation date — the day the sign was installed and made operational, as recorded on your Richland Certificate.
Rated life — the exterior durability period published by the manufacturer of a specified material. Fade within that period is normal performance. Fade meaningfully short of it is a defect, and it is covered.
Design load — the wind and snow loading the sign and its mounting were engineered to withstand, per the drawings for your project.
Access conditions at installation — the equipment, permissions and site arrangements required to reach the sign on the day we installed it.
9. Why “Richland”
The Shelby Electric Company of Shelby, Ohio built lamps to a standard rather than to a price. In an 1897 comparison against every competing lamp on the market, theirs was twenty percent more efficient and lasted thirty percent longer. They were not the cheapest lamp. They were the one still burning at the end of the test.
In 1901 one of their carbon-filament bulbs was donated to the fire department in Livermore, California. It is still burning — more than a hundred and twenty-five years later, recognised by Guinness World Records as the longest-burning light bulb in the world. It draws about four watts. It has never been replaced.
The best detail in the story: in 2013 the bulb went dark for a few hours, because the uninterruptible power supply installed to protect it had failed. The bulb outlived the equipment brought in to look after it.
The lamp works in Shelby sat in Richland County, Ohio, and later operated under the Richland name — first as the Richland Carbon Lamp Works. That is where our warranty gets its name.
Not because we made that bulb, and not because we are that old. Because that is the standard we are aiming at: build it past the point where the warranty ends.
