So I am bidding on this job and then the customer says, Don't worry you will do the TVs and surround, but I already have a General Contractor with his licensed electrician and they are doing all the High/Low voltage in the house.

"No problem" - so I make a list of what I want and where. First of all in my experience most of these electricians are either lazy as hell or they have absolutely no clue about AV. the guy leaves in TV locations regular 120V Outlets and COAX/Phone/Data in the wall at the TV height. No outlet inside the
cabinet below the TV. Is it difficult to understand that most of the times there is a receiver below that needs the coax and data and there is only hdmi or media cables that goes up to the TV?

but the saga does not end there. In one of the bedrooms the Data is not working and all the Receiver boxes are fed with a Cat-5 RJ45 that comes from a Motorola fiber box that transfer video over LAN, so the box does not work. after hours testing here and there i decide to pull the cable out of the wall and i find this : data and phone cables spliced and put together with electrical tape. ( and loosen )

What's wrong with the world?

Yes, if you made a list for them instead of just letting them wire their way.

To elaborate on what's wrong with the world, 5 years ago I would have walked away from a project like that but now I would have probably stayed on too.

Perfect. Bring the customer over to that splice and show them. Tell them the entire house is wired like that and needs to be rewired by someone who actually knows what they are doing, and submit your proposal.

Not only the customer, show the general contractor who had "his guy" and start getting all their low voltage work.

This was my initial thought too.

I've seen as many hack AV guys as you guys have seen hack electricians. I'm a big fan of a quick jobsite meeting with the EC and the AV guy, then an email detailing what you expect from each other.

FWIW I have been both the EC & AV guy working with other EC & AV guys. A little professionalism/teamwork goes a long way

So whats the story there? Cable to short so just tape-splice a piece on? Looks like plenty for a keystone jack. Maybe its plenty because i actually know what to do with Cat5?

This is what you need to do...

"You wont be able to have feature X because the wiring wasn't done properly. You will need to contact the electrician and get this resolved. I would suggest you have him test & certify the cables he pulled. My guess is that there are other areas in the house like this. Once the electrician has resolved the issue please call to reschedule my installation. Thanks."

Then hand him a bill. Then hand him a new bill when you go back out.

What will happen instead is that you will waste "hours of testing" then fix the problem and the customer will sit there in ignorance while passing out his "how to save money" story and that electricians business card to everyone he knows. On top of that.. the client will grow impatient with you for things taking longer than they should and he will be outraged when you hand him a bill for the additional hours of troubleshooting.

+ 1...Great advice!

As an electrician turned AV installer I am the first to admit there are some serious hacks in the electrical industry, as well as people who think proper low voltage installations are a joke and simple.

That being said, some of the worse work I have seen is on projects where we are handling the high voltage and lighting control (after having not won the bid for the AV install) where some 'integration pros' come in and completely kludge a system.

There are hacks on both sides of the fence, and there always will be.

I will add, that on jobs where we are working with another AV/integration company, I ask them for information on what they want for high voltage power, locations of outlets, etc, and they are generally very unhelpful and not knowledgeable (just the pre-wire monkeys anyways). Without having an understanding of exactly what they need before I even ask them, as many electricians with no AV experience are, I would have no idea 'the scope' of what they want.

Then they are the first ones to bitch and moan like children if an outlet is in a bracket, or in the way of a wall mounted rack, etc.

Thats a good point. Its not the electricians job to poke prod trick outlet locations out of the integrator. That stuff should be in a document before the first wiremunkey hits the job site.

The "make it up as we go" business plan is what leads to photos like the ones above.

but it seems that is the norm. i have prewired a few houses now where I was brought in right before the insulators started. i had 2 days to quote, design, collect payment, and have it prewired before the insulators started. a couple of times they were insulating as i was pulling wire. i was right behind them pulling it out so i could get my wiring ran. the GC finally pulled them out after we both said the builder was going to get extra bills from us both.

being rushed on jobs like this also causes the "make it up as we go"

Its the norm because we let it be. Obviously the economy makes it difficult to say no to any work but i have a 100% sure fire solution to never having to be rushed by any home owner or builder or electrician or cabinet guy or sheetrock guy... Say no thanks when they call you.

We have a large project that just broke ground. My boss looks at the blue prints and sees this ridiculous cubby for the control system. He calls the architect and tells him "that has to be changed and this is why". Done. Now they are changing it so that we have a control ROOM. We could have just went a long with it just happy to have the work but instead we found the problem and had it corrected.

You have to create processes for how you deal with things. An example on our end is putting in CD changers or media servers before the dust settles. You know you cant do that or they will fail prematurely yet CI's do it all the time. Why? Because they dont have a process or a real schedule for dealing with things. Another example is "how do we manage the wires at the rack?". This should be thought about before the project begins not at the end yet time after time you have CI's figuring it out on site.

Examples for the other trades is the "hurry up and get out here because________" fill in blank with why someone elses schedule requires you to work around them. You are no different than they are. Put in your contract that you get however many days after the electrician and plumber but before the sheetrock company for obvious reasons like wires getting damaged and lining your speakers and LV plates up with the electrical. Obviously NO CONTRACTOR ANYWHERE EVER can follow a schedule but your contract will give you the ability to say "you were supposed to give me 7 days notice not 1. I wont be able to get a crew out there until next week". That turns things around and makes them deal with their scheduling problem instead of you having to deal with their inability to manage a project.

Seriously.. have any of you ever in your whole lives seen or heard of a contractor who finished a house on time? I haven't. They are much better at finding other people to blame than they are at managing projects. The good news is that if you get organized and document everything and CC everyone with every email you will quickly destroy the games they play.

I stopped reading right there and glanced at the pic. The first problem is that you 'made a list' and assumed stuff would get done. It didn't get done. We all know there are many hacks both high and low voltage so assuming it would get done is a failing on your part. You can blame the GC and client all you wish but we all know this is a regular occurrence and has been as long as homes have been built with wiring and systems.

As much as it creates nice pics and fodder for posts about how everybody else is a hack to which we then get to hoot and holler, you had the opportunity to head this one off before it got fubar. Now it's fubar.

Next time it gets suggested that the electrician or anybody else is told to pull wire for you, don't merely make a list of what you want where. If you want the job done right tell the clients/GC that you want the job done right and will manage the subs as necessary but charge the time to do so. They will agree to it, or you will not be responsible for the outcome or performance of the wiring infrastructure which may influence performance of the final system. If it is fubar it costs you money and the client stress even if it isn't your fault.

Basically, offer to 'own' the job but you get the authority to call the shots and specs and charge some money lost when you didn't get to pull the wire.

And most importantly, the job doesn't get fubar and the electrician, GC, and most importantly, the client, all are happy with the outcome. You might be as well.

Guys, trust me it wasnt a big job. My "list" that you guys are blaming me for was just simple stuff like: move tv from wall a to wall b. Install 120v at this X written on the wall. The house was all prewired to a logic panel. All they needed to do is move! No new wires... I could Assume they could be so stupid.

And you are right, if it wasnt during these difficult times i would certainly say my way or the highway. No major $&#* happened. I used some keystone jacks, ran the cat5s, hdmis and everything is working. I will show the customer on my next visit. This is just another one to my book. I have several other stories of electricians and contractor hacks...

As BigPapa said, "Inspect what you expect".