Re: Any skilled residential installers in New River, AZ area?

["Just Looking" <nospam@xxxxxxxxxx>]

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:eb3a1698-f578-403f-9d52-920c1cadacd7@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

On Jan 21, 4:38 pm, "Just Looking" <nos...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > 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 layer 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.
>


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