Builder has wiring limitations. Best way to sneak in & do it myself? - Page 3

i was pretty straight forward and called it exactly the way i see it.

you obviously take me for someone who cares what you or anyone else on this board thinks..... i could care less !!!!!!!


i just call it the way i see it.

Well if you actually could not care less you wouldn't bother to waste time responding to us all the time, rather than attending to your clients, now would you? LOL. You might want to be more easy-going and show some manners. Life might work better for you that way.

Sometimes the builder is not being a hard ass just because he can or he wants to be. Very often there are subs on the job (and in many areas these are union subs) that take a real narrow view to a non-pro or non-union entity "stealing" their work. I've had jobs that I've worked on ruined because we were a non-union company working on a union job site. Not saying that unions are evil (also not saying that only union guys are guilty of this) but there are more players in this besides just the builder and the homeowner.

Who hires these subs and puts them under contract? The builder?!

Its certainly a very dynamic issue for everyone. There is no way you will make everyone happy in these situations. The builder has whatever contracts with the sub - the subs want to cover anything and everything under the sun that has anything possible to do with their line of work, so they can maximize profit. At the end of the day, I feel that it is the home owner that should have the most end satisfaction, he's the customer. What happened to "the customer is always right"?

Whether it's the buyers property or home "at the moment", it will be in a few short months, and he's likely already signed a contract stating the purchase of the home whether closing is completed or not. If there were some issues where the home owner damaged other work while he ran his own wiring, then it should be up to him to cover those costs to have it repaired, but I dont think he should be stopped from pulling some copper he pays for, in his own home. This stuff could be (and should be) negotiated and written into the initial offer on the home, whether the buyer would accept this or not, is a different story. But, it's probably the best way to start off the topic, rather than confronting the builder at a later date, being shut down and not having a foot to stand on.

So, you do care....or, your command of english is pathetic.

I will also note, that the electricians who did my home used Cat5e for my phone lines (pretty standard now, rather than using 22/4). They used BLUE cable. After I noticed their BLUE, I ended up pulling GREY Cat5e for my networking purposes... they still terminated 2 or 3 of my cables with phone jacks, apparently not even noticing the difference in color. Goes to show how much they paid attention to what work was there's and what they didn't do.

After I removed the phone wall plates, and made my network connections, I offered to give the phone wall plates back to them - assuming they could use them on another home. They told me to toss them in the trash. Apparently, not too concerned about cutting costs, saving any money, or being GREEN. ::shrug::

I cannot agree to differ. The advice you are giving is just plain bad. The prospect of giving the advice to not run tubes is just completely asinine. When I said you were selling inexperience, I was not trying to be insulting, just serious and trying to help any person who might actually listen to this. Any person who had been in our industry for any longer than a couple of weeks would understand how indespensible conduit is. You really should refrain from giving such advice without truly understanding the nature of what you are saying.

When you say I have something to sell, that is true, however rough-in wiring is not a profit center, equipment and installation labor is where we make our profit. While many here on AVS can't understand why we need to make margin on equipment, let me assure you, or net profit is not really that big. Gross margin on equipment can look pretty good up front, but when you factor in all of our expenses from things like training, shipping of DOA equipment, insurance, vehicle expenses, and all of the other stuff it takes to properly run any kind of business, the net is not that great. Many of us who have chosen to become professional integrators have done so because we are enthusiasts first, business people second.

With regard to CEIED, he's not so great with either perceived professionalism or the english language, but let me assure you, the guy really knows what he is talking about.

I really don't mean to be an a-hole, but I cannot stand by and watch inaccurate advice be dispensed.

Good. I can't either which is why I am posting my opinion. So, we are on the same page.

these fora must drive you nuts then.

Pretty much, I was directed here by a colleague to check out another thread, and stumbled upon this one. I really need to check out and leave the blind to lead the blind.

I read 'em for the laughs.

I'm not sure why this so quickly devolved into name calling.

As an integrator I'll add my own 2 cents. First let's define conduit. There are different types of conduit and as they say assumption is the mother of all evil so let's make sure we are talking about the same thing, or at the least add some qualifications to the use of the term. There is rigid conduit (of different flavors) and flexible conduit (also of different flavors such as metal and plastic).

Generally speaking flexible plastic conduit can be run fairly quickly and is of reasonable cost. It's an excellent method of "future proofing". Running conduit also does not mean that conduit has to be run "everywhere" (though it can be when budget/time/size of project allows). As an example, if a house has an attic and a crawl space or unfinished basement, it's an excellent practice to run a 2" or 3" pipe from the main equipment location to the attic, and also to the crawl space or basement. Now you have a method to get a cable to almost every area of the house in the future if you can drop down a wall from the attic, or shoot up a wall from the basement (assuming you don't have horizontal firewalls).

Even better (in addition to the above practice) is to simply run a stub from the primary A/V location in each room to the basement or attic (if the room is on the second floor you run the stub to the attic, if it's on the first floor to the basement). In other words, let's assume you have a 3" pipe that runs from the basement to the attic and let's assume your equipment room is in the basement. And all the A/V locations on the second floor have a pipe that stubs up the wall to the attic. Now you can run cable from the basement equipment room by going up the 3" pipe to the attic, and then from drop right into any room on the second floor at any time via the short stubs you ran into the attic.

In a nutshell, I think it's hard to make a good argument against running some conduit .

If you think you may want to run cable in the future I also advice you to spend a couple of hours in the house pre-insulation taking pictures of the interior of every wall and ceiling. This can be unbelievably useful later on down the line if you need to run a cable, and know what the inside of every wall looks like. It can be additionally useful if you ever need to service the house for the unfortunate things that can sometimes crop up behind the walls, and you have pictures of what is back there.

Another reason to have conduit: just in case you forget something or someone damages a wire (say in drywalling). I just found one wire that was not run in my garage. Even though I caught it just in time (drywall starts Monday), I was not too worried because we had run conduit as Q mentions. If you can find a way to route it, conduit can be run very quickly. It took a couple of hours for half a dozen runs we have. We found ways to run them without drilling big holes everywhere.

Please don't! Many on AVS forum really do appreciate people like you posting. There are definitely others who seem to have nothing better to do than comment on anything and everything (most of which they have very little experience with). Its obvious with your posts that you know what you are talking about. I think its up to the readers to 'filter out the noise'. Please keep posting! By the way, after spending 100s of hours running new cables throughout my home, I would have KILLED to have conduit.

Very interesting discussion. Since the OP has sorted out his situation, but the discussion continues, I thought I'd poke in.

I'm in the preliminary stages of a remodel. Prelimary in that we are just talking about it.

My thinking was to run wire to wherever we might reasonably consider
needing it, and conduit to allow for easier future changes. I can't see the point in running wire to someplace I don't think I'll need it, on the other hand I do want a way to potentially add wire. (Our house was built in 1938, plaster over metal lathe - I am so thankful that at one point it had a kitchen in a different location, and when the kitchen was moved they left the drain pipes in place - they are now serving as LV conduit).

One issue about conduit is potential fire problems. Current code requires fire blocks. I assume this to to slow spread of fire from one floor to another. Might empty conduit be a problem with fire codes ? (yes I'll check before before I continue - like I said prelimary stages . . . For now I just stuff fibreglass into the end
of the pipe/conduit - better than what was there, i.e. nothing)

Wire is cheap, so is conduit, but installation is not. It comes down I think to flexibility - and in that case a conduit is better than a bunch of wires IMO

If anybody has suggestions on links to general remodeling I'd love to hear about them.

The company I dealt with absolutely refused, even if it meant losing the sale. This included not accepting me hiring an electrician to do it, even if I paid the developer extra just to allow the electrician on the premises.