AV Installers taking the mick?
Discussion
Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: BirminghamThanks: Gave 3, Got 1Posts: 55 Installation help advice needed please
AdvertisementWant to Advertise?Good Morning,
I hope you guys can shed some light \ offer up some opions. I'll try to keep it brief
We want to mount 2 TV's on walls in 2 rooms. the walls are good solid brick as it's a victorian house.
Room 1 would need an extending mounting arm capable of going to 750mm (tilt - swivel) as its going in a corner, seen a suitable one for about £250. Some channeling would need to be done ( 1 for HDMI etc and 1 for power). The TV is 55" at 20Kg
Room 2 would only need a tilt mount and a single channel sorted, again going into solid wall but over a fireplace. it's a 37" unit.
we got a quote that was frankly, ridiculous. so I just wanted a sanity check.
should it really take 2 guys 2 days to do that lot? The cost for parts alone was, I'm not kidding, £900.
2 brackets and 2 x 5m HDMI = £900? do they come with Platinum cases and Gold sheaths?
Am I the only one confused, I won't put the total quote up, lets just say it's comfortably over what we paid the same company for under floor speaker cabling. speaker terminals and plates for 7 speakers....
I just want someone to say, 2 days? you're having a larf!!!
AdvertisementWant to Advertise?Good Morning,
I hope you guys can shed some light \ offer up some opions. I'll try to keep it brief
We want to mount 2 TV's on walls in 2 rooms. the walls are good solid brick as it's a victorian house.
Room 1 would need an extending mounting arm capable of going to 750mm (tilt - swivel) as its going in a corner, seen a suitable one for about £250. Some channeling would need to be done ( 1 for HDMI etc and 1 for power). The TV is 55" at 20Kg
Room 2 would only need a tilt mount and a single channel sorted, again going into solid wall but over a fireplace. it's a 37" unit.
we got a quote that was frankly, ridiculous. so I just wanted a sanity check.
should it really take 2 guys 2 days to do that lot? The cost for parts alone was, I'm not kidding, £900.
2 brackets and 2 x 5m HDMI = £900? do they come with Platinum cases and Gold sheaths?
Am I the only one confused, I won't put the total quote up, lets just say it's comfortably over what we paid the same company for under floor speaker cabling. speaker terminals and plates for 7 speakers....
I just want someone to say, 2 days? you're having a larf!!!
Without going into the argument about positioning a TV over a fireplace.
Your house is Victorian so the bricks will be softer than modern ones and the mortar will be lime based. Unless the walls have been replastered the plaster will be lime based as well. Many years of fires in the hearth will affect the brickwork as well. That is why some installers refuse to mount TVs over fireplaces
You need to use substantial anchor bolts rather than just wall plugs in an old house and channelling can uncover other problems.
Your AV quote probably includes effing expensive HDMI cables as well.
Your house is Victorian so the bricks will be softer than modern ones and the mortar will be lime based. Unless the walls have been replastered the plaster will be lime based as well. Many years of fires in the hearth will affect the brickwork as well. That is why some installers refuse to mount TVs over fireplaces
You need to use substantial anchor bolts rather than just wall plugs in an old house and channelling can uncover other problems.
Your AV quote probably includes effing expensive HDMI cables as well.
Hi Flossy,
Every days a school day
I didn't know that about the fire place. That's on the 2nd floor and hasn't been used for a fire for at least twenty years if not a lot longer.
The install guy after having a moment of what some alcohics refer to as clarity has magically dropped the original quote a monkey.
Can't think why......
Oh wait..
Every days a school day
I didn't know that about the fire place. That's on the 2nd floor and hasn't been used for a fire for at least twenty years if not a lot longer.The install guy after having a moment of what some alcohics refer to as clarity has magically dropped the original quote a monkey.
Can't think why......
Oh wait..
Erm, be careful with advice like that. There is plenty of difference between HDMI cables;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hdmi#Version_comparis...
We are just about to see the release of HDMI Version 2 and if you check the link above you'll see that from 1.0 to 2.0 maximum throughout has increased from 4.95Gbit/s to 18Gbit/s. That's colossal. There is also HDMI Standand , Standard with Ethernet, High speed and High speed with Ethernet.
What 'is' true is that if you take two cables of the same specification (say 1.4 high speed with Ethernet) then they will meet the same performance and any cost difference and argument for its being there should be ignored.
Buy a certified cable with confidence and buy the cable to meet your requirements.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hdmi#Version_comparis...
We are just about to see the release of HDMI Version 2 and if you check the link above you'll see that from 1.0 to 2.0 maximum throughout has increased from 4.95Gbit/s to 18Gbit/s. That's colossal. There is also HDMI Standand , Standard with Ethernet, High speed and High speed with Ethernet.
What 'is' true is that if you take two cables of the same specification (say 1.4 high speed with Ethernet) then they will meet the same performance and any cost difference and argument for its being there should be ignored.
Buy a certified cable with confidence and buy the cable to meet your requirements.
Yup,
I've sourced some HDMI cables that were 15% of what I've been quoted so it's looking like the most expensive part of this install is the TV mounts (£400) and the Wall Chaser (£175) and a new drill (£80) Brush plates (£20). All in
We're getting a sparkie and plasterer in anyway and those costs were never part of the original quote.
So, it's gone from 2k to 800 and some of my time. Plus its a great excuse to learn something new and purchase power tools
I've sourced some HDMI cables that were 15% of what I've been quoted so it's looking like the most expensive part of this install is the TV mounts (£400) and the Wall Chaser (£175) and a new drill (£80) Brush plates (£20). All in
We're getting a sparkie and plasterer in anyway and those costs were never part of the original quote.
So, it's gone from 2k to 800 and some of my time. Plus its a great excuse to learn something new and purchase power tools
T1berious said:
Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: BirminghamThanks: Gave 3, Got 1Posts: 55 Installation help advice needed please
AdvertisementWant to Advertise?Good Morning,
I hope you guys can shed some light \ offer up some opions. I'll try to keep it brief
We want to mount 2 TV's on walls in 2 rooms. the walls are good solid brick as it's a victorian house.
Room 1 would need an extending mounting arm capable of going to 750mm (tilt - swivel) as its going in a corner, seen a suitable one for about £250. Some channeling would need to be done ( 1 for HDMI etc and 1 for power). The TV is 55" at 20Kg
Room 2 would only need a tilt mount and a single channel sorted, again going into solid wall but over a fireplace. it's a 37" unit.
we got a quote that was frankly, ridiculous. so I just wanted a sanity check.
should it really take 2 guys 2 days to do that lot? The cost for parts alone was, I'm not kidding, £900.
2 brackets and 2 x 5m HDMI = £900? do they come with Platinum cases and Gold sheaths?
Am I the only one confused, I won't put the total quote up, lets just say it's comfortably over what we paid the same company for under floor speaker cabling. speaker terminals and plates for 7 speakers....
I just want someone to say, 2 days? you're having a larf!!!
Hideously expensice - don't pay it.AdvertisementWant to Advertise?Good Morning,
I hope you guys can shed some light \ offer up some opions. I'll try to keep it brief
We want to mount 2 TV's on walls in 2 rooms. the walls are good solid brick as it's a victorian house.
Room 1 would need an extending mounting arm capable of going to 750mm (tilt - swivel) as its going in a corner, seen a suitable one for about £250. Some channeling would need to be done ( 1 for HDMI etc and 1 for power). The TV is 55" at 20Kg
Room 2 would only need a tilt mount and a single channel sorted, again going into solid wall but over a fireplace. it's a 37" unit.
we got a quote that was frankly, ridiculous. so I just wanted a sanity check.
should it really take 2 guys 2 days to do that lot? The cost for parts alone was, I'm not kidding, £900.
2 brackets and 2 x 5m HDMI = £900? do they come with Platinum cases and Gold sheaths?
Am I the only one confused, I won't put the total quote up, lets just say it's comfortably over what we paid the same company for under floor speaker cabling. speaker terminals and plates for 7 speakers....
I just want someone to say, 2 days? you're having a larf!!!
I have a Victorian house. I installed my last TV myself in about 2 hours on a swivel/tilt mount. I simply used proper coachbolts as a concession to possibly softer bricks. That heavy, 42 inch early LCD TV has been up, rock solid, for 6 years, frequently with the stand extended out and it hanging in space and being watched while I faff about in the kitchen.
This year I installed a new TV (55 inch Panasonic Plasma) on a chimney breast, above a fireplace, on a tilt only mount. Contrary to whatever various folk would have you believe, this wasn't like drilling into cheese, and my house has not fallen apart, and the TV has not spectacularly fallen to the floor, ripping the chimney breast out with it. Again, I used proper expanding coachbolts, and more of them than recommended. Below the TV is a soundbar. Below that is a working wood-burning stove (chimney is lined and insulated, of course). Everything works together just fine.
In both instances the mounts were less than £100. In fact, the mount for the Plasma was less than a tenner (see other thread on plasma mounts). The job time was around 2 hours each, on my own (just needed help getting the 55 up onto the stand as it's an unwieldy sod at 30kg). Cables are really not very expensive.
In fact, the only thing differing between your installs and mine is chasing the cable into the plaster and plastering over. And builder can do that in a couple of hours, for less than £100 per TV (that's what my builder quoted). I actually trunked the cables down instead in the end.
You will probably find that you have about an inch of plaster over the Victorian brick - chasing (channeling) your cables should be posible within this without even having to cut into the brickwork (which really is not that hard). Chasing into brick does not "uncover problems" as long as you test that there are no other cables etc runing over the surface of the brick and under the plaster (e.g. room electrics). Any builder will have a tester to ascertain this.
Yes, that quote is an utter, utter rip-off.
Edited by Harry Flashman on Monday 19th August 12:37
Gassing Station | Home Cinema & Hi-Fi | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff