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Neat-O: An Old-Fashioned Wiring Cleanup
The problem, says James, is that it's hard to know all that can be wrong with a home system without spending a good amount of time with it.
For example, this job turned out to be more involved than the homeowner had intended. "The bill ended up being about twice as much as the original estimate," James says, "even after we discounted as much as we could."
The job came to James as a referral. The owner of this large Mount Soledad home in La Jolla was the father of one of James' clients.
The homeowner complained that nothing in his home was working correctly. His systems were pretty extensive, too. They included a Russound CAV6.6 system with 11 zones of audio, a home theater, a Speco DVR system with several cameras, gate entry and a couple of universal remotes.
"There was nothing working right at all," James recalls. "Actually, most of the work was the home theater equipment shelves. It was a huge rat's nest of wires."
James says he's done about 15 to 20 rewire jobs like this one, but this was the worst. "Wires were just disconnected. I was not impressed by [the previous installer's] work."
James, along with Robyn Finchum — the company's San Diego manager — and technician Kevin Brown, took down every single wire, remade it and labeled it. "We had to take out all the speakers and check all their connections," James says.
"Everything was installed improperly," James explains. "There turned out to be a lot more problems than we expected."
As a result, the homeowner was footing quite a bill. "We did the job on a hourly basis," says James. "But we cut him a deal because he was not thrilled. He didn't know it was going to be that involved. This was definitely the worst-case scenario."
In the end, the homeowner was pleased, but James says it wasn't easy getting the client to feel that way. "He was a pretty particular customer," James recalls. "We kept coming back to more issues. We had to do a couple things for free just because."
However, notes James: "I actually like customers like that. At least they appreciate what you do."
Congratulations to Paul James for a Neat-O! installation. We’re looking for over-the-top projects. Cool, unique, tidy or meticulous, share your best work with our readers. E-mail your submissions, with high-resolution images, to managing editor Arlen Schweiger at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
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Article Topics
News · Neat-O! · Wire And Cable · Speco · Dvr · Home Theater · Neato · Neato · Russound · Universal Remote · Multiroom Audio · Geoff Oldmixon · Wave Connects ·About the Author
5 Comments (displayed in order by date/time)
We had to do a couple things for free just because.”
Why would you do this? You are fixing and then having to OWN the repair work by doing the job and then fix things and not get paid.
Did you start dating his daughter?
Whatever you do.. don’t start dating their daughter or you will be working for free ALL the time.
It was a tough decision to take the job. In our favor: 1) we were on-site at a job just two doors down, so getting there repeatably was no issue. 2) Besides doing work for his daughter (and no I didn’t start dating her), it turned out that I had done work for 3-4 of his other good friends, so they already had my trust. 3) Him and his wife were good people to work for. 4) It was a shame seeing all that good equipment not properly put to use.
AND… 5) Doing jobs like this is sometimes part of the “job”, this is how we learn, this is how we grow, this is how opportunities like free advertising in CEPro Neat-O sections come to play.
- Paul
Wave Connects
Oh, and as far as the “free” work…
We made sure not to get too deep into anything other than what we were there for.
However, we always try to under-promise and over-deliver. Because the bill footed was higher than expected, we just wanted to keep standards.
Clean up projects are hard. No matter how well you do the client is never as happy as if they would have hired you in the first place.
You have to do the job as T&M (time and material) so it almost always costs more than the first time around plus you have pesky things in the way like drywall! and cabinetry! that were not in the way of the previous ‘company’.
The cost for any hardware failure, repair or replacement or new products needed to complete the job go directly to the client. The cleanup invoice is often the same amount as the original projects invoice so the customer is paying twice.
The client is typically so turned off by the whole thing that they most likely will never have another home automation/ AV system installed. And they will tell everyone they know (your potential referrals) to stay away from it.
Bid shopping is the usual culprit. The cheapest is always the cheapest. Ask for pics of other installations. Ask for contact info from previous clients. Ask to see their other installations.
Time and again i hear about the in over his head installer who had great portfolio pics of all his plasma installations but not a single one of him doing a larger system. Dont let your CI use your home and bank account as a learning experience.