Happy New Year! New House in the future?
Happy new year to all! I hope the holidays were well for you.
The new year is a time for new ideas and new things. Many people decide to build a new house this time of the year, so I have a few suggestions to give.
First of all, have an idea of what technology you would enjoy in your new home. Wiring is one of the least expensive parts of building a new home. Even if you don’t plan on having speakers everywhere right now, but maybe only in 4 or 6 rooms, you should have the potential rooms prewired. It is much less expensive to do it with all the walls open than to cut open the walls after you have wallpaper up, or a custom painted wall.
Make sure you can bring in your own integrator from the start. It makes sure you get what YOU want in your new home. Many times the builder says, “it’s ok, my electrician can do all that for you.” Most of the time, that is not the electricians expertise, and things are not done correctly.
A perfect example of this is from Julie Jacobson, the editor at large for CEPro, an industry trade magazine. Julie tells the story of her brother, who was building a new house. This is an excerpt from her “Industry Insider” from the July 2006 issue.
“Andy, I beseeched during the homebuilding process, let me find you a good low voltage company. Let me talk to some vendors and get their recommendations. Too late, he told me. The builder had already convinced him to use the job’s electrical contractor.” A list of just some of the errors were: “the company ran only one pair of speaker cables to each stereo zone. Only the right or left side of the music would play.” Photos of the structured wiring cabinet looked like a spilt plate of spaghetti. Of course, the builder had to cut open the walls after completion to correct the speaker issues.
We are the experts at low voltage integration. We do our job professionally. But you would not want us to be your plumber or the HVAC guy. That’s not our expertise.
Thanks again to Julie Jacobson of CEPro for allowing me to quote from her column.
Greg Calvimontes
Pgh Custom Home Theater
