Hey guys, its me again calling out to others in the trenches...Would love any input from pros in the field...

We frequently have situations where we prewire houses for contractors, as I am sure many of you do. We prewire pretty high end joints with fairly complete schemes-- not the typical no profit prewires in places like where I would live. What happens to us frequently is we have a guy who wants a big prewire, but since the house is for resale, doesnt want to install any speakers and wants no exposed wiring. Especially in the really high end beach front condos.

Currently we take measurements to the centers of the areas that we have to cut to install speakers later, but as one can imagine our lovely and talented installers may not necessarily convey the measurements to the file person who has to store them for later recall.

At any rate, what do you guys do to prepare for speakers that are going to be chosen by a later homeowner, but still deal with the "no exposed wire" issues

toner?

Well hide em and tone is always an option..looking more for an extemely simple organized efficient way to do it..something novel besides measurements and toners.

X-ray glasses???

I take pictures with measurements sharpied on index cards and stapled in place.
If you want an easier way, just make up some small pipe bombs with model rocket engine igniters crimped to the speaker leads. When ready to install hit the speaker wire at the headend with some current and it will blow a hole in the ceiling or wall. If youre lucky you wont even have to cut a hole.

pipe bomb, never thought of that. Great idea.

We take a digital camera and lop off shots of every distinguishing reference. Depending on the client, I will burn it to CD and ship it to them.

With the right angles the digital pics are generally all we need for reference.

Almost. We video our entire job fpr future reference. I just did a $25k retro to a job we did 5 years ago. Made fishing a snap. It was as if we had X-ray vision.

I also take digi pics...

me too

We use small magnets that look like lifesavers (Candy) We pass a small wire through then staple the wire between the beams . Then when the time comes to install the speakers we wave a compass or a magnetic nail finder over the rock.

Last year we wired a 24,000 Sq ft home in the Hamptons for a "future system" . We received a call from the home owner a few weeks back he said lets go ahead and install the multiroom system. It took us only a few hours to locate 30 pairs of speaker locations.

This message was edited by zinon on 08/19/05 22:50 ET.

I used to use pictures til I had a room with diagonal joists running in 2 directions.

Now I use both photos and magnets, the photos are nearly cost free(other than time to shoot) and I use the magnets from TruAudio, they are hi power alnico mags taped to cardboard strips and can be found from about 2' away. The strips get stapled to the joists so the magnet is exactly where you want the cutout center. The pictures get you in the vicinity and the mags are reusable with a small amount of work.

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Yeah, I get that alot. But tell 'em. "It's goin' to cost ya!"

I right dwon the location on the back side of the drywall, everytime i but the hole there it is right where i left it.

Ofcourse i measured so I could find the spot later on though.