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Shoutout to the old guy at the supply house who said 'A good installer can make a cheap panel work, but a bad one will make a gold-plated panel fail'
He told me that 6 months ago when I was picking up a basic Vista panel, and it stuck with me because I've seen so many fancy systems with sloppy wiring since then, so what's the worst install flaw you've ever had to fix?
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robertb302mo ago
Man, that quote is so true. I walked into a house last year where they used speaker wire for all the sensor loops. Not even twisted pair, just cheap lamp cord stuff. Every window was a false alarm waiting to happen. Another time, found a power supply just dangling in an attic, not even screwed to a joist, wire nuts barely hanging on. It's always the basics, like not using a drill and just yanking cable through a stud hole until the insulation shreds.
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harper_smith2mo ago
Seeing stuff like that makes me wonder how some people get hired. My cousin had a system installed where they ran the keypad wire right next to the main power line coming into the house. The whole thing would freak out every time the AC kicked on. Took another guy a full day to re-run everything properly.
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nora_chen4d ago
True, but isn't that just how the industry works? The low bid gets the job, and the low bid usually cuts every corner they can. I've seen way more hack jobs from the cheap guys who promise the world for half the price. Maybe your cousin went with a too-good-to-be-true deal. And honestly, sometimes the homeowner picks the wrong spot for the panel or runs the AC wire after the fact, and the installer just works with what they're given. Not saying it's right, but it's not always the worker being totally clueless. The industry has two sides, and the cheap side usually wins.
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