Choosing Wiring Components

D

dutchyn

Active Member
I'm about to order product, about $5K worth, for our new house. But, infrastructure items
  • enclosures
  • phone modules
  • cat5/6 punchdown blocks
  • tv multiswitches
come from many different manufacturers
  • Leviton
  • OnQ/Legrand/GrayFox
  • Futuresmart
all of which seem to offer (essentially) the same features. I have two short-answer questions to help decide:
  1. Which brand did you use and why?
  2. What special benefits and difficulties did you encounter?
I imagine some reasons for buying a particular brand might be
  • it offers a killer feature you've just got to have
  • it's what the installer recommended (in this case, that's me)
  • (price) comparison shopping showed good value/convenience
Some benefits I would hope for are:
  • came with all the mounting widgets -- nothing extra to buy, no special mounting brackets
  • intalls easily and simple maintenance/extension
  • interoperates well
The difficulties might be the reverse of these advantages.
 
For structured wiring enclosures/modules I chose ONQ. They had many modules available and the mounting is far superior to the Leviton brand. My last house had Leviton and the modules were always coming loose, it drove me crazy.

A small tip here gained from experience, buy a much larger enclosure than you think you need. Later you'll be happy for the extra space.
 
I mixed and matched. I got what I needed, when I needed it, and tried to get a fair price.

No issues what so ever.
 
I've used OnQ and Leviton and prefer Leviton for a couple reasons. The mounting pattern is compatible with ChannelVision modules who I like for the RF modules. Leviton is also available at HomeDepot which is handy when you are missing that one module and you don't want to wait for mail order. I think the selection of items from both OnQ and Leviton is comparable, at lest in the telecom, RF, and network areas.

--Jamie
 
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