yah those are all legit concerns...but never had anyone say it didn't sound good.
finding a leak in central vacuum is pretty simple, same troubleshooting techniques as alarm stuff..divide and conquer. I use a stethascope to listen in the walls...but I tell ya...I've done around 400 and have only had pipes get separated a couple of times, usually from AC guys crawling in the attic. So ya ask questions of the homeowner and go from there - and never had one I couldn't fix.
I did just recently have a housemaid sabotage the central vacuum...because she didn't like/understand it..so she kept breaking or losing parts to the electric head...and I think she intentionally ran over the vac hose with her car and crushed it.
On the audio stuff, yep...if it;s cheaper on the net I tell them to buy it and have it delivered and we install by the hour. No biggie. If there's a problem we'll go (by the hour) and disconnect it, but the buyer will have to deal with returning it themselves, when they get it back we'll go back out (by the hour) and hook it back up. Ain't much profit in the equipment, except for high end AV and Plasmas/DLPs though.
The only pain in the butt is keeping up with model changes and how the crap gets hooked up ( I HATE that part, so I leave it to my other guys to deal with that).
| > >My custom homes are going in at about 3100-6000 price range right now. | > >Custom specs are a tad lower. Then we got structured wiring, a/v, central | > >vac, intercom, and bada bing we're at 18K. | >
| > Different strokes, but I've never understood this. Why the hell would an | > alarm company want to install a central vacuum system? Yeah, you can make | > a couple bucks, but you could also make a couple bucks installing their | > lawn sprinklers, changing burned-out light bulbs, and so on. The very last | > service call I would ever want to see is a complaint that their vacuum | > cleaner isn't working. | >
| > - badenov | | That's part of the reason I don't do vacuums. ( service .... how the | hell would you ever be able to fix a bad tube connection?) But mostly, | I never wanted to deal with stocking, transporting and handling the | tubing and the accessories. Which, by the way, is somewhat the same | reason I don't supply the audio equipment for surround sound or whole | house audio either. | | ONE... it's too available on the Internet ... sometimes at a lower | price than I can buy it for and TWO, ....... If something goes wrong | with it or if they don't like the "sound" of it .... or their brother | in law got one from Radio Shack for half the price and it sounds better | ...... it's * their * problem. Last thing I want to be called back | for is because Opra's face looks pink. |