Guardian Home Technologies (pre-wire) (new home, buyer, theater)

[iikingli]

Hello all,

I have seen a thread in here regarding Guardian Home Technologies { http://www.city-data.com/forum/charl...hnologies.html ) however that thread seemed to be only about the Home Security which im not concerned with, Has anyone had them do any of there other pre-wiring, I have a meeting with them this Thursday and I wanted to know what to expect, I have all my own speakers and dont want to purchase theres; the only thing i want is wiring and receptacles, I was looking at getting the Structured wiring and Home Audio/video wiring packages, does anyone know what i should be expecting, how shocked i should be.

Thanks ahead of time.

[Tober138]

Guardian did the pre-wiring in our home when it was built last year. We had them do the surround system in the media room (they did provide the speakers as well). And we also had them do a pre-wire in the living room for our stereo system (no speakers, they just put an input where we wanted on the one wall, and then the receptacles for the outputs on the opposite walls where we plugged in the speakers). They only put solid caps / covers over the receptacles - for the speakers we installed, the pre-wire was there, but I still had to go to Lowes and get the connectors to attach to the wires.

Overall no real issues. The stereo input was initially placed on the wrong wall, but they were great about correcting that when it was noted.

Whatever you have them put in, they are going to walk around with a can of spray paint to mark off what should go where, per your instructions. If its a new home, I'm assuming they're doing your phone and cable jacks too? If that's the case, again, they'll ask where you want them put and they'll mark it off. So if you're not sure where you want those jacks, you might want to think a bit about that before your meeting.

[iikingli]

Was there cost astronomical

[Tober138]

Originally Posted by iikingli

Was there cost astronomical

For just the pre-wires, not at all, I want to say it was under $100 per pre-wire and phone jack (we had additional phone jacks installed above and beyond what was included in the purchase price of the house).

The surround system was a bit of $, but that also included some high-end speakers as well; we bought that as a package, so I don't know what the cost would be for them just to run the pre-wires.

[Comfort Food]

I had a company quote me a total of 2500 to do the following:

In each room (4 bedrooms, bonus room, family room, kitchen, garage, and outside) install an outlet with two Cat 5 network connections, one cable line, and one phone line

Wire two rooms for surround sound, and two for speakers (speakers not included)

Install a powered box where all this stuff comes together, including TV/cable/satellite, phone, etc.

I highly recommend wiring the whole house for future expansion and resale.

[iikingli]

i was looking to spend about 4K,so in your case that sounds great, i want the stuctured Wiring, and to have HDMI hookups if possible, surround with out the speakers included so that all sounds great

[Tober138]

Originally Posted by Comfort Food

I had a company quote me a total of 2500 to do the following:

In each room (4 bedrooms, bonus room, family room, kitchen, garage, and outside) install an outlet with two Cat 5 network connections, one cable line, and one phone line

Wire two rooms for surround sound, and two for speakers (speakers not included)

Install a powered box where all this stuff comes together, including TV/cable/satellite, phone, etc.

I highly recommend wiring the whole house for future expansion and resale.

If the OP's house is a new one, then yes, Guardian runs everything to a central, powered box (which is also good if you want to add additional wiring of any kind at a later date).

I don't know if wiring every room in the house will make a huge difference in resale (we didn't run a network because we chose to run our home office networks wirelessly) but it is a good idea to at least think about where others may want hookups even if its one you won't use yourself. For example, since we did the media room, we do not have a TV in our living room (but we made sure to have a cable jack installed in that room in case a future buyer would want a TV there).

[Comfort Food]

Originally Posted by iikingli

i was looking to spend about 4K,so in your case that sounds great, i want the stuctured Wiring, and to have HDMI hookups if possible, surround with out the speakers included so that all sounds great

The company I got the quote from is Home Specialties, and the fellow I spoke with is named Ricky.

BTW, for the home theater rooms they run component cables and HDMI, and composite from a head unit to each HT room (in addition to wiring for speakers). The HDMI wiring is actually conducted through Cat 5 cable with adapters at each end.

[iikingli]

Those of you who dealt with Guardian does 4-5K sound like enough to get some good wiring done with a few extras

[Tober138]

Originally Posted by iikingli

Those of you who dealt with Guardian does 4-5K sound like enough to get some good wiring done with a few extras

If $4k-$5k is your budget, I think you'll probably come in under that, based on what we paid them for our wiring that they did and based on what you said you wanted in your original post.

You didn't mention if your home was new construction or already existing - I would think it will cost more if your house is already built and they are replacing wires or fishing wires around walls.