TV Cabling (not rocket science) - a sticky for new builders?
Discussion
God I've read some good advice and some bad over the years on here.
But f
king hell this will make any cable/tv/sat installers weep.
A few weeks ago we turned up to install SKY and such in a new build. You know, piped all around the house, magic eyes into every room, DTV feed down to all their new Smart TVs, Ethernet the whole lot.
The owner told us he'd specced putting in dual coax and dual CAT5 into all rooms. A1 - not a bother we said and quoted him for a SKY box hidden under the stairs and DTV to every room with Ethernet running to every room too.
Can you guess the chaos when we arrived and only found a couple of cables under the stairs?
After a few hours of pulling out our hair, taking off all the wall plates, toning every cable we could find, we rapidly discovered it had all been wired in a ring (aka like mains electricity).
Imagine the owner's disappointment when we said we're not touching any of this. Go back and ask your first fix electrician about his competency liability.
The place was a dolls house or as I call them 'Chicken Proof' i.e. Impeccable.
No way were we going to spend a few days trying to pull new cables through.
Did we get paid for our time there dicking around with someone else's fk up?
If you're doing a rewire or a new build please get someone in who knows what they are doing. If they don't mention 'star topology' and insist on running every SINGLE cable back to a central point, fire them and get someone else.
(In another build where we were consulted we had no problem - 8 cables laid out to the dish, an HDMI run to every major TV point plus 2 coax and 2 CAT5 - what a boring day that was
)
But f
king hell this will make any cable/tv/sat installers weep.A few weeks ago we turned up to install SKY and such in a new build. You know, piped all around the house, magic eyes into every room, DTV feed down to all their new Smart TVs, Ethernet the whole lot.
The owner told us he'd specced putting in dual coax and dual CAT5 into all rooms. A1 - not a bother we said and quoted him for a SKY box hidden under the stairs and DTV to every room with Ethernet running to every room too.
Can you guess the chaos when we arrived and only found a couple of cables under the stairs?
After a few hours of pulling out our hair, taking off all the wall plates, toning every cable we could find, we rapidly discovered it had all been wired in a ring (aka like mains electricity).
Imagine the owner's disappointment when we said we're not touching any of this. Go back and ask your first fix electrician about his competency liability.
The place was a dolls house or as I call them 'Chicken Proof' i.e. Impeccable.
No way were we going to spend a few days trying to pull new cables through.
Did we get paid for our time there dicking around with someone else's f
k up?If you're doing a rewire or a new build please get someone in who knows what they are doing. If they don't mention 'star topology' and insist on running every SINGLE cable back to a central point, fire them and get someone else.
(In another build where we were consulted we had no problem - 8 cables laid out to the dish, an HDMI run to every major TV point plus 2 coax and 2 CAT5 - what a boring day that was
)When you read the number of threads about system design and wiring it's no surprise... God think what we don't see! The number of people who try and save money avoiding a Proffesional and instead employ a two bit electrician because their price is so good...
I've seen Million£ builds go tits up because the owner decided that his money was too precious and dangling it in front of everyone rather than paying them was a good idea... I have zero sympathy. Do it right, do it once.
I've seen Million£ builds go tits up because the owner decided that his money was too precious and dangling it in front of everyone rather than paying them was a good idea... I have zero sympathy. Do it right, do it once.
ASK1974 said:
When you read the number of threads about system design and wiring it's no surprise... God think what we don't see! The number of people who try and save money avoiding a Proffesional and instead employ a two bit electrician because their price is so good...
I've seen Million£ builds go tits up because the owner decided that his money was too precious and dangling it in front of everyone rather than paying them was a good idea... I have zero sympathy. Do it right, do it once.
Yep agree with that. As for your comment about electricians, some of us know what were doing and have an interest in the AV game. At the end of the day its just a cable and not a magic conduit for picture and sound the can only be installed by the AV gods.I've seen Million£ builds go tits up because the owner decided that his money was too precious and dangling it in front of everyone rather than paying them was a good idea... I have zero sympathy. Do it right, do it once.
I have installed systems where the rack alone was worth 75K and never had a problem. Some of the holes I've seen so called AV experts do to route a cable into position is criminal. Working in London most of my time i have come up against some "up their own arse" AV boys that have been employed by the customer only to find that they call on my expertise to either plans route or actually fish cable for them as they haven't a clue.
At the other end of the scale I've also been to projects as the AV installer and our eastern european friends have run cat 5/6 and don't know how to terminate them. Only on tuesday was i at such a place. When i said to the polak just terminate the cable and pull through to this position he looked with a blank expression and said "don't know how to do".
I have also seen the cat 5 ring main as well. Absolute classic....... thank god for wireless because without it the house would have to be ripped apart.
That's made my day! Didn't realise it was possible for somebody that has presumably passed a C&G 2391 to be that thick (well, I did, but still). It's when you discover the actual ring mains are wired in Coax that you need to worry!ASK1974 said:
When you read the number of threads about system design and wiring it's no surprise... God think what we don't see! The number of people who try and save money avoiding a Proffesional and instead employ a two bit electrician because their price is so good...
I've seen Million£ builds go tits up because the owner decided that his money was too precious and dangling it in front of everyone rather than paying them was a good idea... I have zero sympathy. Do it right, do it once.
As we say 'Buy cheap, pay twice'.I've seen Million£ builds go tits up because the owner decided that his money was too precious and dangling it in front of everyone rather than paying them was a good idea... I have zero sympathy. Do it right, do it once.
Many times I have heard about a client through a contact who is 'an IT expert' so wants to design & install his own system. I've seen very few where there hasn't been an enormous f
k up or omission!
drop me a text when you can pop over.Chris - I replied to your PM but the email bounced
[quote]
The mail system
<ph@htcuk.net>: host mail.htcuk.net[91.151.215.1] said: 550 5.7.1
<ph@htcuk.net>... Relaying denied. Proper authentication required. (in
reply to RCPT TO command)
[/quote]
Don't know if that's a problem my end or your end.
But Thursday evening is good for me.
[quote]
The mail system
<ph@htcuk.net>: host mail.htcuk.net[91.151.215.1] said: 550 5.7.1
<ph@htcuk.net>... Relaying denied. Proper authentication required. (in
reply to RCPT TO command)
[/quote]
Don't know if that's a problem my end or your end.
But Thursday evening is good for me.
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