Photos of bad DIY jobs

All the lighting loads (150+) were run back to banks of switches which are hidden in closets around the house. Each room then has 1-3 Leviton DHC controllers (like pictured in the last photo by the Elk keypad) that control the switches via X10.

This is what they came up with to reduce the number of switches required in each room (wall clutter). Not entirely that unusual, but lots if things I would have done differently if I'd been involved with the project earlier.

Cheers,
Paul
 
Well, I don't think that install "looks" bad. There might be some underlying set up issues, but it looks nice.

But who in their right mind needs to control 24 lighting scenes at one location? How would you ever remember what all of them do? I guess that is one of those "I'd do things differently" items. :)
 
Here's a bad pro install that was dropped into my lap :D

It's a large house, 7 bedroom, and all the video, phone, data, and camera equipment was put in one 42" can. The new owner wanted some additional work done, so I'm going to add another 42" enclosure and redistribute some of the stuff. Will post what hopes to be a much improved setup when I'm done.

--Jamie
 
Ive seen people get fired for leaving a finished product like that o_O. Someone should, for sure.
 
Yea, I would think so too. To be fair, I don't know how much the home owner as tinkered with it. I don't think they could of messed up a great install and had it look like it does now, but they could of contrubuted to the mess :D
 
sic0048 said:
Well, I don't think that install "looks" bad. There might be some underlying set up issues, but it looks nice.

But who in their right mind needs to control 24 lighting scenes at one location? How would you ever remember what all of them do? I guess that is one of those "I'd do things differently" items. ;)
Hi Brian,

You're right, the installation isn't terrible to look at, but in my opinion isn't fitting for a $5M house. Also some big underlying issues with how things like glass break sensors, etc. were wired. The way they were connected ALL of them would have had to go off to trigger an alarm. Most everything that was complete on the security system was done incorrectly or not well thought out.

All motion sensors only wired to two zones (upstairs & downstairs), same with glass break, no provision for speakers or sirens, etc. Not such a bad thing for a basic security system, but the homeowners were really looking towards full automation.

The high-voltage work this guy did is all top notch, it just seems he misrepresented his experience with the security & automation systems. He did have enough vision to run conduit between floors and out to the garage & cabana so it's been possible to pull additional wiring to most locations needed!

Will be back there again this week to finish things up and will try to remember to bring the camera for some "after" shots.

Cheers,
Paul

PS. Those aren't scene controllers... they're 4 device on/off switches. They do have a few scene controllers but they'll kind of worthless since each scene controller can only address a single house code. We're using some of the regular 4 device controllers that they have a lot of of trigger automation events in the Elk to provide whole-house scene lighting.

So far the X-10 based Leviton DHC lighting is working quite reliably in this large home, but since they're not living there yet, there's not anything plugged in anywhere to cause interference/noise yet.
 
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