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Consumers

Ask Your Remodeler about Structured Wiring for Your Home

January 2004

There’s No Better Time to Upgrade

Styles change, tastes change and technologies change. It is unlikely that you would remodel your home based upon tastes, technologies and lifestyles popular twenty or more years ago. Remember shag carpets, the pink or blue bathrooms of the ’60s and ’70s and entertainment products without remote controls?

Structured wiring is appearing in new homes at an ever-increasing pace. In 1998, less than eight percent of the homes being built included it. Today, according to the National Association of Home Builders, approximately 42 percent of new homes offer structured wiring packages as standard or optional amenities, and structured wiring is among the top three requested amenities in remodeling projects.

It is a necessity for applications such as shared Internet access among multiple computers, in-home networks, video signal distribution to multiple rooms in the house and high-speed Internet access. Old-style, low-capacity wiring does not work well for these applications and many others.

A great time to install structured wiring in your home is while remodeling. For example, when you are putting on an addition, redoing a kitchen or bath, or adding a home office, why not upgrade your communications wiring in the process?

When your home is being remodeled, you expect the walls to be open and the dust to be flying. You expect a certain level of disruption to your normal routines. Remodeling a home is a significant investment to bring your home up to current standards. You’re almost certainly doing some power wiring. So, why not bring the communications wiring up to speed as well?

Rewiring during remodeling is driven by the following considerations:

Many remodeling jobs entail opening or adding walls, which is a perfect opportunity to not only bring the areas of the home being remodeled up to current wiring standards, but the rest of the home as well.
The tradespersons, tools and materials needed are already present on most remodeling projects. Tools include the standard “open-wall” tools used by installers every day as well as specialized tools that make fishing wires through existing walls fairly easy.
During a remodeling project that entails open walls, access is often available to key pathways needed to run wires to otherwise difficult-to-reach locations in a home.

Structured wiring can be used for applications that complement your lifestyle. It adds value to your home in terms of increased comfort, convenience, security and the overall livability of the home. Just as you try to maximize a home’s other amenities, installing a communications system is a good way to maximize a home’s value.

Getting Started

Getting started is easy! For more information, visit our Telecommunications section.