Jordan O'BrienSteve Ratcliffe, Mood Installations Ltd:
“We once had a pole-mounted distribution transformer fall over landing in a brook, the ensuing chaos of around 30 vehicles from the fire service, environment agency, central networks (as it was then) and numerous others halted any further progress on site that day. Despite numerous phone calls beforehand they never would take our word for it that the pole appeared to be leaning a bit more… and a bit more…”
Lawrence Hill, Alt AV:
“Three days before sea trials there was a fault with the fire detection system on a boat. The sprinklers got activated on the main guest corridor and drenched everything. It made for huge delays as the carpets all had to be ripped up and done again and there was no access to the area for days, meaning we had a very tight push to get the installation done in time. It led to some long days and longer nights!”
Heather L. Sidorowicz, owner of Southtown Audio Video:
“We lost an installer three days before the install. In a panic I called everyone I knew locally begging for help to make sure the job happened. Eventually I was introduced to someone and made a connection. Turns out he was so great; we’ve hired him for many projects since. It is always darkest before the dawn.”
Joe Gormley, Finite Solutions:
“We were working on a large smart home project, which was the total refurbishment and extension of a large detached house. The main contractor discovered asbestos in the property. In my view that was actually good news for the client as they now know the Asbestos is there and can have specialists remove this nasty material. On the downside of course, this is more cost for the client and will hold up the project considerably.”
Colin Scott, ET Home Cinema:
“We recently took on a ‘smart home’ project where the client who was an electrician had already pre-wired the property. On closer inspection and testing we discovered the Cat5e cable was in fact Cat3 cable and was not suitable for HDBaseT distribution. Fortunately the project was still at a stage where we were able to salvage the situation without too much internal disruption.”
Jonathan Dugdale ,Connected Smart Home:
“We do lots of retrofit work on new builds and renovations and on every job we have to try and provide some sort of solution because other trades think what we do is easy. These ‘have a go’ trades who don’t have our knowledge or experience cost the customer time and money and diminish the level of expertise that we need to do our job. We’ve seen all sorts of crazy installs!
Simon Redfearn, AV Candy:
“Unfortunately, a valued client passed away just as a large project we were working on was coming to an end. I worked closely with the client and got to know him well; it was a difficult time for both my team and me.”
Iain Martin, iCubed Home Cinema Ltd:
“The room was freshly plastered and painted then a burst pipe caused a few hiccups!”
Luke Newland, New Land Solutions:
“The worst experience we had was a main contractor going under; all the trades packed up and never returned. The install was placed on hold for nearly nine months and we almost had to start again.”
John Maltby, Jacobs & Thorne:
“A customer’s bath overflowed and flooded into the media room below, it caused a lot of damage and we had to replace most of the equipment.”
Shain Mcleod, Design Innovation Ltd:
“Arriving on site to commission to find it’s the day of the power switchover!”