Say you are doing a whole house system and you are brought in after the architectural plans are complete. You gather the system requirements, draft the device location plans, and then consider how to shoehorn the devices into the existing design for the house.

Here's my question: how hard do you fight for revisions to the home's design that you would ideally like to see for proper accommodation of your device plan?

For example, let's say you conclude that you need X amount of rack space, but the home's design affords you something shy of X. Part of you is thinking that you need X to do the job right, and perhaps part of you is thinking that if you're resourceful you can make it work.

Which way do you lean? How much do you make space allocation the battle that you need to win? What "best practices" are you prepared to work around for the sake of being an accommodating vendor and where do you draw the line so you know your systems will be reliable and maintainable?

I know there's no black and white answer here. I'm just looking for some insights to solidify my own thinking.

Rarely ever fight. Rarely even know of the job before walls are up. Make it work is the norm.

Fight the fight.
That's our job, to tell people the right way to do it.
If they elect not to, then they deal with the consequences you've explained.

Every time I've compromised without pressing (I can make that work...), I've regretted it later. Pain to work on, unreliable client equipment, usually something.

I have written about an equipment cabinet that was 'promised' for delivery in December of 2017, but it didn't show up (unpainted) until last April. Now, the homeowner wants to put his turntable inside and he seems to think that putting it on a sliding shelf will not be necessary, even though we agreed that I would supply and install a slide- I'm sure he's going to hate reaching in to use it. His wife called the cabinet guy and amazingly, it only took a few days to get the shelf. Two days later, the husband decided that the slide isn't needed. The turntable will barely fit inside (I had asked for specific inside dimensions, but the drawings were lost and they winged it). I had made it very clear that some equipment WILL NOT fit inside if the specified width wasn't availabl but, apparently, this cabinet guy is special (I refuse to call him a 'cabinetmaker' because of some comments he has made)..

The fight depends on the client and duration of the relationship, with the stipulation that its reliability will likely suffer and I'm not interested in being the punching bag.

Don't fight the fight. AV will always be the red-headed step child. Unless of course you educate those around you. Ask for a project review with the architect once it's complete. Gently show them what you could have done to improve the fuction and design. If they aren't into hearing the message, they will never care. If they are, you will be first on their list who to call for the next project. Play the game.

Install the turntable in the tight space with the dust cover closed and let the customer propose a solution.

Let me correct myself. We don’t fight or make a big stink. We try to work with what is available. Will request modifications if needed.

If you see something that should be done differently, you need to make the case from the start that people who don't install these things do not and cannot know what the space and other requirements are. Then, you should at least push back, even if your pressure doesn't end up in a brawl. You can include such things as... (some of these examples are from the past, but that doesn't mean the same kind of thing can't happen again) --

sometimes new equipment requires more space than what's needed now (might need to add a PC in the space, for instance);

completely unforeseen changes, apparently out of left field, might require drastic or impossible changes later (might need to remove the 50' Component cable you put in, then later remove the spiffy new HDMI cable you replaced it with and put in a different one, so you should have had conduit);

display advances might totally change the required display space or shape (such as when we went from 4:3 RPTVs to 16:9 TVs, which made ALL 4:3 spaces the wrong size);

the construction company runs, say, one RG6 to each TV when that is almost the completely wrong thing to do....

Don't ignore these past changes and how hard they were to accommodate. Stuff like this will happen again. Plus ça change, plus ça change pas: The more things change, the more things don't change. Realize that things that can't be planned for will happen and try not to get stuck with less than what you need now. It will only get worse.

Two projects come to mind. Both were 7 figures with a lot of equipment. The first was long island. A theater that was going to be shoved to one side of the 3rd floor. We took their blueprints and totally redesigned the 3rd floor taking 1/3 of the 3rd floor up for our theater. We also stole the 300 sqft "luggage room" for our control room. At the end the luggage went into a smaller closet and the theater is a fantastic crown jewel of the home instead of a mediocre media room.

The second time was when the builder and architect wanted the control room for security and av to go in the attic above the garage. The garage had a 20' ceiling with a fold down ladder. The ceiling was so high they had to custom make a ladder for it. They wanted us to install 4' tall racks in the 4.5' tall room in an attic in South Florida. They expected everyone to lay on their sides and install equipment for 3 months...and then for two weeks every year during system maintenance. After a meeting we ended up with a 2 story 1000 sqft control room.

You aren't doing them (and certainly not yourself) any favors by letting others make plans for your system. Think about the roofer having you tell them how to do the roof.


The thing about rack space is that you always have to have extra because 1U devices change to 5U devices and 5U devices become 3U and then the client wants outdoor speakers and subs and now you have half a rack of gear that needs rack space. Rack space in a large home is as important as storage or the size of the water heater.


I think you have to fight for what you need and you have to offer them real world examples of what happens when the minimum system requirements are not met.

See the before pic? The entire floor was gutted and rebuilt so the AV guy could have made his equipment room any size he wanted. He ended up with 2 5' slide out racks. When that got full he cut in a small rack on the side. Then he added conduit so he could use space on the other side of the room for phone and cable. By the time we got there the old AV guy had a stack of components sitting in the floor behind the rack.



We ended up uninstalling all of it and having carpenters rebuild the space so that we could get 4 8' racks installed. Heres a pic of me standing in one of the racks.

That's excellent! ^^^ :)

To answer the original question, I'd say that it's not worth the fight. You'll know when the people involved want a job to be done properly, or to 'just work'. I recently got to assist with some service on a yacht that was north of 500', and there were racks in the guest suites that you could tell were on sliding/articulating bases for service. But the woodwork was in the way - it was clearly installed AFTER the racks were in place, and there was no way to get them out for service. It was crazy, but that's when I realized that it happens at *every* level.

The job i mentioned above had sliding racks...that were installed backwards! Why? For the same reason you mentioned. The builder blocked them in when installing trim and doors.

One problem with sliding them out backwards was that the original tech brought his cables down the backs of the racks making it impossible to move them.

When the equipment barely fits the space allowed, it's almost a given that there isn't enough room or airflow for proper ventilation. Educating clients about the relationship between space/servicability and breathability of the space gives them the chance to save money on replacement equipment and premature system failure in the long term.

This is a great example. I’m very curious to know how you handled the cabling when redoing the racks. For example, it looks like that green speaker cabling was added. Does the old speaker cabling run to a patch panel, and the green cabling is just patching from that panel to the amps?

Green cable isnt from that job. Ended up in this pic by mistake. This project had white speaker cable that wasn't long enough to reach the amps. We extended every speaker cable with black speaker cable.

This fight has been going on since the beginning of time. Not just in our industry but in any of the electrical/mechanical trades. In commercial spaces it's a fight for every available square inch of revenue creating space. In residential it's ... for the shoe collection, the luggage, the ... whatever.

I wired an entire x-ray clinic in the early 1980s and when I was staking out to trench for our multiple 4" conduit runs before the slab was poured I noticed that the water meter, a sump pump, and my 1200 Amp 3-phase service CT cabinet and disconnects would all end up on top of each other. Had to call the architect and the general contractor to an on site meeting to make alterations to the plans.