Step Seven:  Hook it all together!

IMG_5906Now that we’ve discussed all the different parts necessary to totally integrate a home, let’s see what it takes to put it all together and make it tick!  First, we need a place to hold all the equipment and in many cases we use a rack like the one pictured below.  Racks come in all sorts of shapes and sizes; some look very industrial and others integrate into a nicely designed room as a piece of furniture that hides the gear!  We proudly use Middle Atlantic racks because not only are they Made in the USA, but they also offer an amazing variety of designs for any home or business!

This rack is going to hold the networking gear, main controller, audio switcher, video switcher, surround sound receiver and all the wires for security cameras, touch panels, keypads, fireplace control and even operating your garage door openers!  We take great pride in wiring racks in our office well ahead of the installation date.  Not only can we connect everything neatly, but we can label the wiring and test functionality so it’s all ready to run when we arrive at the job site!  Here’s an example of how we started wiring the electricity, networking and audio cables with everything labeled so we know where things go!

 

To us, details really matter.  Electricity cables run down one side, while audio, video and network go down the other side.  We do this to keep the rack more clean looking and to decrease the chances of interference between different types of wires and signals.  With a system tested and functioning at our office, we know that once it’s in your home and connected it will most likely “just work”.  It allows us to be more efficient with our installation and decreases the amount of time we spend in your home.