Any skilled residential installers in New River, AZ area?

Exactly.

However, I think it would be pretty rare to find a Satillite TV installer that would know not to drill into and mount a CCTV camera on stucco. My guess is that they mount their dishes on it "all the time". Not because they know it will work ...... but..... by their reasoning ..... because it hasn't worked too few times, so it's acceptable.

If YOU don't know and THEY don't know the risks ..... and it works ..... you're both happy. If it doesn't work ..... YOU'RE the only one who's "unhappy" cuz the problem is not likely going to show up, for a long time afterwards.

When I see the poor quality workmanship on some takeover jobs I always wonder how a client could live with it. Wires stapled along window molding. Crooked keypads and door and window contacts. And then, of course, there's all the unprofessional workmanship that the client CAN'T see, behind the walls and in attics and basements. But, the client very, very rarely actually knows what is acceptable and what is not, so they just think that everyone would need to do this to their home and that they have to live with it as a sacrafice to have the security system installed. How is one to judge if they haven't been able to compare?

Now we're back to "free" systems and you get what you pay for.

I company I worked for bought out some little guy who, legend has it, didn't own anything longer than a four ft bit. Which is why every now and then I would do a service at a house with the keypads at three ft.

His 'monitoring' was having the panels call a pager he carried all the time.

The installation of most residential alarm or CCTV systems does require a certain skillset. I believe a lot of it has to do with having the desire to good job in the first place. If your motto is "don't give a shit, never did, never will" skill isn't the problem, attitude is. Knowing how to run a wire from point 'A to point 'B' without it showing is a skill to be sure. To be able to cut and caulk around a window frame requires not only the skill, but the tools, materials and the time to do it. If the salesman has not bid the job correctly, none of that is likely to happen. I think everyone in the industry knows that many segments of the residential market have been whored to a fare-thee-well. Even now companies with a tremendous amount of recurring monthly revenue derived from the residential market are struggling with their balance sheets, and others have already gone under with the collapse of the housing industry.

Migrating from residential to commercial installations happens almost naturally over time if you stay in the industry long enough. It isn't a matter of who is smarter or better from that standpoint. If you like to do a good job but can't make a living doing it then what's the point? It is almost counter intuitive that jobs bid in the hundreds or thousands of dollars get more scrutiny on the numbers than jobs in the hundreds of thousands or millions do. Commercial jobs require wiring knowledge too. Sloppy installations aren't the exclusive domain of the residential market. How many time have you seen a ceiling grid sagging under the weight of too many wires, many simply abandoned over time; going through walls and such with no thought of proper placement of fire pillows or fire stop caulk. Hell I seen holes sawed in fire walls that one could crawl through easily, put there for that very purpose by some ignorant wire pulling mule. The IT boys that aren't doing their work as a proper structured cabling vendor can and do create workplace wiring nightmares that rival anything one can find in the nastiest residential jobs out there.

I would say that in the end a commercial installer does know more about the products on offer from the industry as a whole than a residential installer simply because the commercial installer sees more variety of products and applications, in greater numbers, and in a wide variety of venues. Having or acquiring that knowledge doesn't necessarily mean in absolute terms one installer is smarter or better that the other, they're merely different in my opinion. In the end I think it would be far easier for a commercial installer to do a residential installation that it would be for a residential installer to do a commercial job. The residential installer might know off hand how to get a wire to the right spot, but would he know the right type of wire to run in the first place? Most commercial installations have a lot of CAD drawings and paperwork associated with them. Residential jobs are more of an ad hoc affair. If there is one thing I miss about doing almost exclusive residential and small commercial jobs is the luxury of not having to have a set of CAD drawings and the hassle of creating as built drawings when the work is completed. That said I don't think I could ever go back to the world of alarm systems that are nearly all the same, like fast food joint hamburgers, where instead of the hamburger it's three doors and a motion, indoor siren, keypad and a FOB. Use 2gig or SimonXT for that and you don't really need no stinkin' wires in the first place, with the likes of the SimonXT you don't even need wires for the CCTV camera, or access doors for that matter! If you're a residential alarm installer and all you've ever put in was one of these two types of panels, you probably never learned anything about running wires and most likely never will.

When was the last time you coughed up a good sized lung oyster that is mostly just a round ball of pink 'itchulation'? Well it has been too long!

"Jim" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@o14g2000vbo.googlegroups.com...

On Jan 21, 4:38 pm, "Just Looking" wrote:

So lets' see. Then I guess you also say that a Mack Truck mechanic is at the top of the food chain and an automobile mechanic is as the bottom. Or ..... an electrician who works on High tension transmission of power is a better electrician than an elevator Eletrician. A Baker at Entenmens better than the local bakery. A commercial alarm installer better than a residential installer ....... Uhyup Uhyup! I would imagin that you are a commercial installer ...... right?? People that work with bigger things are naturally more skilled than people who work on smaller things.

Yep, thanks for that. Jeeze, if it wasn't you metioning this and bringing it to my attention I would have guessed that my skills in installing residential alarm systems had nothing to do with me being in the trade for 42 years with almost exclusively by word of mouth referrals .... exclusively. Being written up a number of times in trade mags with unique installations. Even being called on by my competitors to help them get their equipment and installation working ......

Well I guess it's time for me to retire and just let the other half of my numb brain dissolve. Sigh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

I still think you're talking .... from your own perspective and experience that you have in the trade.

Years ago, I had to make a decision if I wanted to grow into a large corporation or not. I decided not. I had worked in sales, marketing and training for multimillion dollar companies and therefore I didn't want to grow MY business into a state that would require me to stop installing ..... putting me back into administration and management again. I had traded my 3 piece suit in, because I couldn't stand the phoney-ness of the people in big business. It's all glitz, smoke and mirrors and that's just not me. And ...... I had seen some of my peers do exactly that. Go from installing systems to wearing a suit and never doing what they loved to do that got them into the business in the first place.

Which, of course, from that point of me deciding to stay "small" ..... forward, I turned down all offers in the large commercial realm and I, being the sort that's got to know everything about every thing, I diversified and did more and more high end residential. You seem to indicate that residential is repetitive in your memory.

My experience is that every house is a new puzzle to figure out. Since I do so many different types of things, and I do mostly large homes, I get to "play with the rich peoples toys". I could understand your thinking residential installs are all the same if one is just doing the wireless "quickies". No thought or planning involved there. I have some projects that go on for years. As the technology changes they want all the latests gadgets. What's going on right now, is upgrade to

3D TV's even though the present TV is less than 3 years old. Touch screens are all the rage. IPod, Ipad, app's. One customer had a new swimming pool this year .... they need music at the pool and be able to tap into the music in their computer and remote control it from poolside. Problem is ..... their pool is 350feet away from the house, on the edge of the property, which borders on the bay.

CCTV cameras are viewed on 7" touch screens in the home (and remotely), along with RSS Feeds of news and stock reports. Door bell that rings Westminister chimes through the $20,000.00 whole house audio system and if no one picks up the phone to answer the door, it rings their cell phone while she's at the soccer game with the kids, or wherever. And so on. I install $30/$60,000.00 home theater systems and automated whole house controlled lighting. Cat 5e (and wireless network) wiring to all A/V locations and anyplace else required. Set up all networked items.

Of course the above is not typical of all jobs but most security systems that I do, have at least one other type of system going in along with it or I'll be called in later to do one or more of the other things. And ............ I do about 80 to 90% of the actuall installations ...... by myself. I do the research, planning, layout, pulling of wires ..... everything.

Your example of a residential installation is not something that I would even consider an alarm system in the first place. So in the words of Crocodile Dundee "That's not a knife. THIS is a knife"

Compared to a commercial installer, I would imagine that he's got people doing things for him because of the scope of the install. You speak of CAD's and paper work being provided. I would imagine there's a research and sales department and all the other necessary support services. I don't have anyone selling, researching, specifying, doing drawings, purchasing, installing, troubleshooting or billing my clients ..... I daresay that it certainly would be a big surprise to me if you knew of one commercial alarm installer that is capable of doing the type of system that I do, simply because he does he knows how to do commercial installs.

In past years, I've come accross a few residential systems that had been installed by "commercial" installers too. They usually don't have a clue about snaking wires and it doesn't seem as if the thought ever enters their mind to actually "hide" a contact on a door or window. I've seen them use the old twiisted pair wire, don't know how to aim a motion detector in a residential scenario and the motion detector is as big as a refrigerator. I guess the reasoning being .... that if it's good enough to work in a commercial job, it's REALLY got to do a good job in a residential job. Keypad mounted at the normal height even though the client is only 5' 2' and uses bifocals. Push button switches in the sill at the bottom of a double hung window. I can't remember all of them, but if it wasn't so sad, it would be funny from a residential installers point of view, to see a residential system that been installed by a commercial installer. As, I'm sure the reverse would be true also, under the opposite conditions.

So, I think it's just as always. A person doesn't know what they don't know and there's a tendancy by some people to think that due to the complication of their job that they must be better/have greater insight/ better talents ... etc, etc than someone in another aspect of the trade. To me ....... each just knows something different and each knows what they know to different degrees, which is usually dependent upon the individual.