10 things or more this customer wish they knew about Smart Home before they started...

Ellis Audio Visual Technology were asked to consult and assist, in fixing a project for a high value Villa up in the hills, near Vilamoura. We have a long history of fixing projects that have been badly installed and/or badly specified, making use of as much if the existing equipment as possible.

Originally the system had been a KNX system, which looked like it had been well installed and documented. A second contractor had been brought in and replaced the system with Control 4 - In our opinion, a downgrade. As it turns out, the Control 4 system installation was not only poor - it also did not work properly and in some respects was dangerous to leave in it's current state.

The owner had just bought the property and is intending keeping it, long term, and after short discussion it was decided that the best course of action was to, effectively, start again with quality product and organised installation. We suggested using Lutron QS homeworks for the lighting and Environmental Controls/Energy Management, AMX control for the Home Automation/Domotica and HAI/Leviton for the Alarm system. The owner agreed and we agreed a schedule of works that would work around his family's visits to the property.

Further works were going to be needed but these would be put off until the winter, allowing the owner to use the property through the summer, with his family without engineers being constantly in the property.

How one of the electrical boards looked before we started. Cluttered, mixed High and low voltage wiring and no labelling. Also , the phases had not been balanced. The Air conditioning and underfloor heating did not function correctly as the engineering for this was flawed.

Updating the system started with the lighting system. Limited time was available to do this, due to the summer schedule, so we had to work extended hours to make the deadline.

Lutron system almost finished. Much cleaner installation, high and low voltage separated and connection to phases balanced. Thermostats have still to be connected to enable both heating and cooling from one thermostat.

The central equipment rack was also a little disaster of its own. Equipment that should have been bolted in was cable tied to the rack. Power supplies with open live terminals were fixed in places where people could easily touch them.

Rack disaster

Dangerous stuff!

After a lot of hard work, stripping the rack down and rebuilding it looks like this. This is how it should look with high quality product and engineering to match.

Rebuilt and re-engineered central equipment rack

This project is still underway, further updates will follow.....