Neat-O: Wiring Vomiting Out of Cabinets

It pays to know some of the big installers in town. A Dallas-based company earning multi-million-dollar revenues each year turned down this relatively simple $4,400 clean-up gig, recommending a smaller integrator more likely to take the job.

Custom Media Inc. was more than willing to take on the project. And it's paid off threefold.

This labor-intensive rewiring of whole-house systems was "a big risk" business-wise, says Custom Media owner Aaron Cantrell.

"There are so many liabilities with a panel like that," Cantrell explains. "If there's something wacky, say, in the walls that you don't know about, you can get in big trouble. That's why I never quote over the phone."

When Cantrell did get out to the job, he found "wiring just vomiting out of the cabinet."

There were splitters and DB attenuators with knobs, "stuff made in 1973, before I was even born," Cantrell says. There were "outs going out and ins going in. "We probably had to take 90 percent of the junk out of there. There was [wiring] he wasn't using at all."

Cantrell told the homeowner he wanted to focus on the TVs and phones. "I didn't want to mess with the security," he says. "It's concentrated in its own little panel now. It wasn't as messed up as the rest of the stuff."

Cantrell and his best tech started by creating a diagram that fully documented everything. "Every little wire, every little splitter and what it was hooked to," he says. "We literally took every wire apart and gave it its own serial number on the diagram."

The initial documentation process took two full days, while the job took one week to complete.

"Then we started ripping things up," he says. At the end of the week, Custom Media had managed to relocate the panel and improve the system's functionality.

"Things had been staticy, not working properly. Once we got all the crap out of there, obviously, it cleaned up the signal quite a bit," Cantrell says.

The homeowner is pleased with Cantrell's Neat-O magic. After a year with his improved system, he has decided to move forward with some significant upgrades — and Custom Media will handle the project.

Congratulations to Aaron Contrell 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 senior writer Tom LeBlanc at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).