Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Guardian meeting

So we did the Guardian thing last year when we were trying to build before.  We got a lady that had no idea how to use the equipment she was trying to sell.  How are you going to try to upgrade me to any system, let alone a premium system, if you can't even figure out how to turn on the speakers!!?? 
So they offer:
Security
Home theater/pre-wire
Central Vac
and they install cable and phone line/s

The quick answer is we chose to run cable in all the bedrooms and Family room, and put the phone line in the "office".

No Security -  The whole "we give equipment for free, but you have to pay for monitoring" is crap.  EVERY security company offers the same thing.  No thanks.

Home theater - Maybe if I had wanted to spend the money, I would have gotten some Home Theater bling.  BUT, I am not finishing basement and can easily add in-wall speakers down the road.  Instead, I am installing (pre-drywall) a blue outlet box with a pvc pipe running to the basement on the tv wall and behind the couch wall.  SOOOOO, I can easily run my Bose (proprietary) speaker wires my self.  I am not doing the tv over the fireplace, but if I was....I would install PVC pipe myself and pull the wires after move in.  Guardian wanted $500 to pre-wire the fireplace for a tv!!!!  no thanks.

Central Vac -  a quick visit to Kirkwood Sweepers proved I can get a better system installed down the road for cheaper.

Now if I wanted to lump this stuff into a 30 year mortgage, it could make sense.  But it just wasn't worth it to me.  

So, we were able to skip this process this time.  We just told our Sales Rep where we wanted cable and phone.  Done and done.

2 comments:

  1. My husband wanted to do some things himself as well but they told him he wasn't allowed. They told us if something went wrong, Ryan homes is liable since it's officially their house until we settle.
    How did you get around this?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Talking to your PM and asking what you can do goes a long way. PM's worry about passing code. A couple blue outlet boxes and PVC pipe punched into the basement won't hurt anything structurally or cause issue with code. I have talked to a few others who have done similar things. As long as you are not running any wires, just putting in some PVC pipe...no one should care.

    ReplyDelete