High Wiring: Top 30 Structured Wiring Dealers

Residential construction reached an all-time high last year, with single-family starts exceeding 1.6 million for the first time.

Even remodeling saw record growth in 2004, up 12.3 percent from 2003. Americans spent $198.6 billion on remodeling projects last year, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, up from $176.9 billion the previous year.

Thus, even if the penetration rate of structured wiring stayed flat from 2003 to 2004, we'd still see a significant increase in the technology. But the Consumer Electronics Association says almost 59 percent of new homes in 2004 were built with structured wiring, up from 42 percent in the previous year. If that's true, some 944,000 homes last year were prewired -- whatever that means.

Few in the industry believe that to be the case, but the outlook nevertheless looks good.

Manufacturers interviewed privately estimate that total 2004 installations ranged anywhere from a low of 400,000 (an estimate from one of the more "purist" manufacturers) to more than 900,000, with most guesses hovering around the 550,000 to 650,000 range for the year. z All of the manufacturers interviewed expect anywhere from excellent (25 percent) to phenomenal (100 percent) growth this year (2005) vs. last.

State of the Top 30

Given these overall statistics, how did our Top 30 Structured Wiring Dealers fare? Unfortunately, we're not exactly sure. This is only the third year CE Pro has compiled a list of the highest-volume installers, and we have tweaked the metrics every year to improve their accuracy and relevance; therefore, we cannot effectively compare this crop of installations to last year's.

This year we included installations in multidwelling units (MDU). In 2003, we discounted MDU installations by half; in 2004, we excluded them altogether; this year, we counted them just like any other single-family installation.

For the first time, we specified that MDU installations must comprise completely independent, stand-alone systems, with no shared hub or subsystems. We reasoned that we should count such abodes because they share similar characteristics as small homes (or modest installations), at least as far as the integrator is concerned.

Anecdotally, at least, business seems to be good for the highest-volume installers on our list. For custom retailer Ultimate Electronics, structured wiring installations grew by roughly 70 percent from 2003 to 2004 (the company's woes began in 2005). Security giant Ranger American saw structured wiring installations grow from 7,500 in 2003 to almost 13,000 in 2004.

What we call "traditional integrators" saw some nice growth spurts, but not nearly on the scale of the national mass-marketers. Do the disparate growth patterns suggest that mass marketers are stealing business away from the smaller guys? Probably not. It's just as likely that the significant overall growth in structured wiring installations has been driven by the marketing resources of the security and retail giants.

The Ins and Outs

It's always a tough task to locate all of the worthy dealers for the Top 30 list and the other lists we compile. And, even if we find them, they don't always care to participate. This year, Brink's bailed out of the contest. The mass-market security provider claimed 8,000 structured wiring installations in 2003. But we do welcome its rival Guardian Protection, which opted in for the first time. Guardian installed almost 12,000 structured wiring systems last year.

We're thrilled that Ultimate Electronics stayed on board, despite the retailer's leaving NASDAQ and grappling with a major restructuring. We can't say the same of Digital Interiors, which was divested by Home Director (formerly listed on the OTCBB) to avert, unsuccessfully, a complete shutdown of the structured wiring manufacturer. Digital Interiors, whose seven offices installed 3,000 structured wiring systems in 2003, was acquired by 180Connect, who did not want to participate in this year's listing.

Still other integrators appear on our list for the first time because they realize it's not such a threat to be recognized for the significant players they are. "I have chosen not to participate in the past because I really didn't want all my competitors to know how we were doing," says Maggie George of iWired, Scottsdale, Ariz., echoing a common sentiment among nonparticipants. "I am not sure it is that relevant anymore. Many of them [competitors] have folded."

In any case, we feel very good about our research methods for this, our third year of the CE Pro Top 30. We are, of course, always open to suggestions (contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).