Any skilled residential installers in New River, AZ area?

Need to talk with you if you're in the area north of Phoenix.

Outdoor wired, four camera system.

Reply to
Robert Macy
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Upon rereading the Subject line, decided the Subject line I wrote sounds RUDE!

Thus, changed to [I hope] better Subject line.

...I still need to reach a skilled installer in my area.

Reply to
Robert Macy

I didn't read anything into it, and would have responded, but there are others who are closer than me. I'ld be glad to help you myself, but the road trip charges would be killer. Fuel just isn't cheap these days.

Reply to
Bob La Londe

Oh come on Bob. You must have a solar powered vehicle tucked away somewhere on a shelf in that warehouse of yours. Or at least you must have most of the parts and tools to make one. Get some solar panels .... attach them to that motor you were working on and with all that sunlight down there you could be over to the job in a....... umm ... maybe a week or so.

Reply to
Jim

I know what you mean, I get 10 mpg and that costs a lot to go anywhere!

My two fold problem:

  1. how to mount to stucco surface and AVOID any water intrusion.
  2. exactly where to mount the cameras so the holes for the cables can easily get into the attic without hitting structures that can't be penetrated except with a magnesium torch.

For a single person installation, it would help to have a wireless monitor to be able to adjust each camera while viewing results! Can you recommend a vendor for such an item?

Reply to
Robert Macy

For network/internet ready installation I use my cell phone. No kidding.

Mounting to "stucco" is a no/no. Stucco has zero structural strength. If the stucco is over sheeting you may be able to get a bite in the sheeting, but usually its OSB, and OSB is notoriously bad at holding screws. You best best is to locate studs behind and set your cameras there. You can usually get atleast two screws in the stud. Seal with painters caulk in the hole and under the camera mount. Since you say stucco I assume wood frame construction, but I do see a fair amount of stucco over brick construction as well. In that case its is a little easier. You can set lag anchors or even plastic anchors, but you do have to set them back in the brick.

As to wire routing, that is really going to depend on the specific application. If there is a large eve you may find yourself mounting on the eve face, and then drilling a hole in the eve face and the wall header to slide a piece of conduit through. It is convenient to locate this right next to trusses so you can screw conduit clamps to the truss to hold it in place.

There are lots of little tricks. Most people won't pay for the time to do them, but you can often look at a job from the perspective of how you would install it, and then work backwards to what you want it to do to find good compromises.

Reply to
Bob La Londe

Nope.

Probablly.

Well, I do have a stack of 60 watt panels and a couple 30 watt panels I use for model homes when the power company hasn't brought power into the development yet. How much horsepower do you think I can develop with with

420 watts?

My math says that would be about 0.563229278 horsepower. Subtract the loss for an inverter to convert to 230V and another inverter to convert from single phase to 3 phase, and I expect I could walk there and back two or three times in the time that motor would take to get me there. LOL.

Maybe a small DC motor might work better. LOL.

Reply to
Bob La Londe

cell phone? great idea. don't have one, threw it away, philosophically..

This home is single floor, wood construction. I've never seen eaves like this before. The tile roof has NO gables, completely hipped [if correct phrase]. The roof slopes down at some angle and extends passed the outside walls maybe 1 foot. There is no facia, so to speak. Intead, from the wall up to the underside of tile is a filet, a sloped section of wall, at the mirror angle of the roof. All, with NO guttering. The rain simply drips off the tile or cascades out several feet in heavy rains. Looks neat from the distance.

From inside the home there are three attic accesses. Once through any access, the attic is completely open to view from one end of home to the other. I have only been able to get up there once, but with the new ladder, I'm hoping to be able to go anywwhere in the space. From that inside vantage point, I hope it's obvious where to place the camera mount down that slope.

Are you familiar with this roof style? Any insight in what is in there would help.

Reply to
Robert Macy

Email me a picture or two.

alarm(underscore)wizard(at)hotmail(dot)com

Reply to
Bob La Londe

Well, let's see ..... if you get the right gear ratio ........

Reply to
Jim

will do.

Reply to
Robert Macy

Skilled and residential in the same breath? And for all of FOUR cameras? Be like the old Paladin Western "Have Siamese coax cable, staple gun, ladder, will travel" Most any certified brain donor will do. Find where the Direct TV and Dish network installation contractors drink beer. Sounds like the last thing you'd need or you'd even recognize would be skilled residential installer.

Reply to
Just Looking

Not sure why you think I would not "...even recognize..." a skilled installer, though.

Contact satellite installers. Good idea! I tried getting in contact with our Direct TV installer through their buffering offices to ask him if he knew anybody, but he never called. I guess I was too strict on his installation and am labeled 'problem', but thanks for the suggestion, just remembered I do have contact info for our phone technician. He knows how to install so the connections are reliable and the weather won't intrude. I especially want to preserve the exterior surfaces, avoid all those tiny little water collecting staple holes!

I learned the hard way that stapling along a wire, knowing how to make connections, understanding electronical/electronics does NOT an installer make. The lesson was learned at a time when I was an arrogant Engineer. Having graduated from Stanford I always thought I knew best and ignored advice from the 'uneducated', yet very experienced, field practitioners - after all, I was educated and I should know best. I paid the price for that arrogance, for ignoring a lot of that good advice, shortly after installing my first [personal] alarm system. It only took a year after installing, but I learned just how much I should have listened to experience.

Reply to
Robert Macy

Your post doesn't seem to present any evidence of knowledge about residential installations nor regard for what the OP actually knows or doesn't know. It's quite possible that he has the ability to judge his skills, want's a really neat job, and has decided that he's willing to pay for that level of expertise.

Hell, I do that myself. I can paint and spackel but I hire someone else to do it because I can tell them how good I want it which is likely ( and had damn well BETTER be) ..... better than I can do it. Besides .... when I paint and spackel.... I'll see my mistakes for the next 10 years. I wonder if that says I'm much more forgiving of other peoples mistakes than my own .....? ? Nah..... I'd bust the painters balls too, if he didn't do it right.

By the way, you never staple coax and siamese cable is all that much more a no-no.

From your post ..... do you primarily do business installs? I could understand that your above approach would be more acceptable to some people on commercial work.

Reply to
Jim

Well ...... maybe you wouldn't before you were introduced.

But I think his meaning is that just because someone says they're a (good) installer doesn't mean that they are. You really don't know until you see their work. Referrals are important. VERY important. There are lots of people who are slow and out of work, so you can either come in contact with someone who can't do the job but says they can, or you could luck out and get a top notch installer for less outlay. Without at least a referral it's a crap shoot.

Just a note. I've got to say ...... I've seen more botched and sloppy satillite and cable TV work, than good work. Just like any of the "Free" marketeers in any trade, their goal is In .... Out. Do as many installation in a day to get that golden egg ..... recurring revenue. Ya gotta piture Mista? OK ..... see ya. Most of them are subcontractors and are not usually responsible for their work. If there's a problem, the trouble shooting crew comes out. The installers install. The trouble shooters pick up the trash.

I know you've heard it before but it always tickles me when I hear it again.

"Sex monthes ago I cudn't evan spel injunear. Now are are one. "

Reply to
Jim

Well, there's your problem. You paint and spackel...

I think it's better to spackel THEN paint...

:)

Reply to
JoeRaisin

DAMN!!!!!!!! Is THAT what I've doing wrong all this time?

All the walls always had these white patches on them and it looks TERRIBLE!

Reply to
Jim

A skilled > Skilled and residential in the same breath? And for all of FOUR cameras?

Not sure why you think I would not "...even recognize..." a skilled installer, though.

A skilled installer would generally migrate to a higher paid position. I always think of residential installers in the alarm trade as being at the lower end of the skill spectrum. Even companies like ADT manage their sales and installations staff in a tiered fashion of compensation where residential is at the bottom of the food chain. When I think of a skilled CCTV installer I think of one that could not only install but configure many types of CCTV systems; like ones with hosted video recording and a different CIF and frame rate not only for each camera, but each storage "bucket". The installer could calculate the necessary retention time for a NAS or SAN and configure same into an network. The installer would recognize and be able to configure a level 2 or 3 switch or carve out his own VLAN. The installer would be able to set up analytics on each camera or encoder or separate analytics server, including all inputs, outputs for any metadata, not to mention linking the video to the access control system or POS system. What you seem to be looking for is not a skilled installer and probably would not have need of one if your market target is 4 residential cameras.

Contact satellite installers. Good idea! I tried getting in contact with our Direct TV installer through their buffering offices to ask him if he knew anybody, but he never called. I guess I was too strict on his installation and am labeled 'problem', but thanks for the suggestion, just remembered I do have contact info for our phone technician. He knows how to install so the connections are reliable and the weather won't intrude. I especially want to preserve the exterior surfaces, avoid all those tiny little water collecting staple holes!

I learned the hard way that stapling along a wire, knowing how to make connections, understanding electronical/electronics does NOT an installer make. The lesson was learned at a time when I was an arrogant Engineer. Having graduated from Stanford I always thought I knew best and ignored advice from the 'uneducated', yet very experienced, field practitioners - after all, I was educated and I should know best. I paid the price for that arrogance, for ignoring a lot of that good advice, shortly after installing my first [personal] alarm system. It only took a year after installing, but I learned just how much I should have listened to experience.

Reply to
Just Looking

Ya know, that's one of the thing about this industry that sort of ticks me off.

There's more to skill than being able to program

When it comes to running/fishing wire, at least, IMHO residential requires much more skill... well... for those that aren't hacks. Problem is, the guys that prove they give a shit end up doing commercial and the new guys are on the resi jobs stapling the keypad wire down the wall and drilling straight down through the baseboard.

I know guys who can make a dvr or card access panel dance a friggin rumba while integrating everything with the fire and BA - but they couldn't run a wire between their elbow and their shoulder without it looking like holy crap.

Too much of the resi market is slapping up wireless with double sided tape and pluggin the Lynx into the phone jack so they can get out of there and go screw up someone else's drywall.

Where I am now, we haven't done any resi (tho that may change) but the last place had the policy that if it looked like a fish was gonna take more than ten or twenty minutes, go wireless.

At the satellite place, they didn't want us to fish anything.

That just takes a lot of the fun and challenge out of the job - I know, my way takes a lot of the money out of it. But if I had been anything other than an abject failure at drumming up work, that's how I would have done it.

To me - nothing better than a clean install - and that, imho, takes skill.

Reply to
JoeRaisin

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

Reply to
Jim

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