Why ECs shouldn't do voice and data wiring.

[hbiss]

Ok, maybe we have some sharp guys here who actually know what they are doing but I have said it before, most ECs have no clue. They only do voice and data because they have a "foot in the door" and see it as an easy way to make a few extra bucks. Believe me, this happens all the time.

The following story was related to me by a good friend and fellow telephone interconnect company owner. He is spitting mad because the incompetance of the EC on this job cost him a long time customer and made his company look bad.

If I were the homeowner I would be in touch with my attorney and sue the butt off of the EC and that stupid GC. Make them do whatever is necessary to rewire and do the job properly. Maybe when it hits them in the wallet big time they will learn to mind their business.

Here's the story:

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An existing customer near my office calls and asks if we will move the system we sold them to their new house in Richmond, Va. That's about 2 hours away, but since we have quite a few other customers in that area, we agree to do it. While we are at it, they want us to add three more phones and a wireless keyset, so we'll be making a little bit of money to cover the distance.

The customer has just purchased a brand-new 6,000 square foot custom home in the suburbs of Richmond. Nice place for sure. They assure us that the builder had cabling for voice and data installed in every room and that it was done properly. It sure should be at the rates they charged for it. The total cost from the EC was about three times what we would have charged.

So we get there bright and early this morning. First bad sign: The customer is standing in the kitchen talking on a standard single-line set. He yells upstairs to his wife to pick up the phone. OK, can you tell where I am going with this?

You guessed it. ONE CAT5e cable looped between twenty total locations for voice. TWO CAT5e's were looped to the same locations for data, one for the first floor outlets and one for the second. Both were left hanging outside by the NID and Verizon kindly hooked both of them up for them to the dial tone. Even "Bocephus" the Verizon technician left his card inside the NID and wrote "wiring doesn't look right" on the back!

In the unfinished area of the basement, we could see the wiring and how it was fastened; using a T-50 staple gun that's normally used for attaching fabric or insulation. For a good part of the way, the cables were run through the same joist holes containing the 240 volt, 50 amp cable for the range.

We pull open some of the jacks (the cheap oriental screw-terminal ones) and find that they had devised their own color code (orange/white=red, green/white=green, etc.) and in some places, there were as many as four cables branching out from a single point. Oh, and one of them went to the door box location.

We explain to the customer that this wiring cannot be used for the phone system or for their data. Not knowing what the hell he's talking about, he immediately bursts into a rage, implying that we are just trying to rip him off to cover for our travel time. We try to explain the electrical reasoning, but he doesn't want to hear it.

He calls the custom builder, who happens to be working on another house up the street. "Homer" comes over with a dazed look on his face, not understanding what we are talking about. He grabs the line cord from one of the phones and says "look, the phone only uses four wires and we installed eight, what's the problem?" He then proceeds to explain that he's been building houses for twenty years, has used the same electrician and has never had a complaint. He then takes the homeowner into another room to have a private conversation with him. Of course, in a completely empty house with hardwood floors and high ceilings, we could hear every word they said to each other. Homer convinces the customer that we don't know what we are talking about and that maybe he should hire the sparky who wired the house to install the system.

The customer sends us away, refusing to pay a dime for our time. Two men wasted over half a day and a tank of gas to go there for absolutely nothing. Knowing how he treated us, I seriously doubt that he'll call us back when he finds out that we were right and Homer was wrong.

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-Hal