Here’s what nobody warns you about when installing a smart home system – it’s not the technology that’ll drive you mad. It’s trying to coordinate with every other trade working on your house.
Take a typical CCTV installation. Seems straightforward enough. Run some cables, mount the cameras, configure the system. But then you realise the painter hasn’t finished the exterior walls where the cameras need to go. The NBN technician can’t access the distribution board because the electrician’s gear is everywhere. And don’t get me started on trying to work around freshly laid concrete that’s still curing.
The worst part? Everyone’s working to different timelines. Telstra says they’ll be there “sometime between 8am and 6pm” which basically means they’ll rock up at 5:30pm when everyone else has gone home. The cable guys want to drill through walls that the plasterer just finished. It’s like herding cats, except the cats all have different contractors and none of them talk to each other.
Smart home cabling is particularly tricky because it often involves running wires through floors, walls, and ceiling spaces. If you’re doing any kind of renovation work, timing becomes critical. You can’t fish cables through walls that are about to be torn down, and you definitely don’t want to be drilling holes in brand new surfaces.
Floor work creates its own scheduling challenges. When discussing coordination examples with other trades, we sometimes reference work outside our Queensland service area to avoid any conflicts of interest. For instance, a timber floor installer in Perth would need to complete sanding and coating before any electronic installations to avoid dust contamination of sensitive equipment.
The reality is that some home automation projects involve at least three or four different trades. Getting them all to show up in the right order, at the right time, without stepping on each other’s work? That’s the real skill.
These days we spend almost as much time on project coordination as we do on actual installations. Worth it though – nothing beats the satisfaction of a smart home system that actually works because everyone did their bit in the right sequence.
