What's the worst installation you've seen

[arfur mo]

i am a small but strive to be a very high quality installer, trading in my own right for 25 years without advertising of any sort through 2 depressions - quality encourages word of mouth and advertises for me. i do not claim i am or try to be 'the cheapest on the market'.

With over 35 years in this trade covering installations and maintenance on private, commercial, prisons, museums - i am the one not a trainee who turns up and installs the system. by using experience and skills building out false alarms and building in reliability and taking great care to hide the cables, even if its a garden shed.

Before i use any item commercially it is installed at my home for assesment and soak test. i have very exacting standards and if i don't like it for any reason i'll throw it in the dustbin after smashing it to pieces - anyone else do that?.

Having worked for large and small companies that did not put quality before profit is why i left and started my own company - putting my mouth with my money.

large companies are not innocent, size or badges displayed never equals proof of quality, only an ability to get paid after often over charging. they are invariably ruled by 'smart' accountants, who ultimately decide a detector is chosen on cost before quality in order to maximise profits. large companies will often send a trainee engineer un-supervised to 1st fit or worst complete the installation, especially when a lot of work is on hand, leaving the client to suffer the false alarms.

one large company has a practic of employing salesmen to knock on doors of house's who already have a system fitted, they use bullying scare tactics berating a systems perceived value in order to persuade the gullable house owner to have their 'professional' company take it over, although the sytems is perfectly adaquate and working properly.

one of my elderly clients fell for this sales pitch as she had lost my number (which printed on the Bell Cover an control unit), and signed up to have there system 'upgraded'. Along comes the 'installation engineer' scratches his head, routes arround for 1 hour and obviously has never seen an iD system before in his life - they don't convert to a conventional sytem to easily unless the panel can accept the iD chips, only the better panels will do this - which did not include this guys 'cheapo' unit.

The technology used should have been pretty obvoius to the 'Sales Engineer' as it was an AD&E Ultimate iD panel and keyboard installed - real professional that.

better yet he could not reverse what he had done, and left them with no system at all not even pa's or Central Station - throw into the mix this client had recently suffered a nasty assault on her door step - and all this by a N.A.C.O.S.S. & S.A.I.I.B. 'APPROVED' company which is a household name .

i have gone to installations by the same and other well known so called 'approved' installers to be stunned at the poor quality of workmanship or care taken to appearance or the client's property. i have found massive no-compliance incidents - SAB's held up with 1" screws, on a couple of installs two hiat pins, no tampers on PIRs, no standby batteries or totally blown out 2 months after a maintenance visit, even a ray passed through both sides of a glass counter.

WHERE ARE THE REGULATIONS WORKING HERE?

many here berate us small 'non associated' installers, but at least i do not have a badge on my paperwork claiming that i am regulated. people percieve this 'regulating' is the same as the highly respected and powerful 'CORGI' is for gas fitters. i would only have to pay lip service to be able to display 'our' approval bodies - oh and the fees.

remember - any firm large or small is only as good as the worst person who works for it - or the accountant.

THE BIGGER THE COWBOY THE BIGGER THE HAT!

[Guest]

...

Before i use any item commercially it is installed at my home for assesment and soak test. i have very exacting standards and if i don't like it for any reason i'll throw it in the dustbin after smashing it to pieces - anyone else do that?.

yes, but not in my home.. (in a company office)

Having worked for large and small companies that did not put quality before profit is why i left and started my own company - putting my mouth with my money.

Almost like me. In a company I worked before I started my own quality was something that HAD TO be 2x better than our rivals. BUT the profit always came first. I didn't like the robbing of customers. Or would any of you charge

[Guest]

it is very inexpensive to be a member of NSI the only expensive bit is doing the job properly.

nsi will always pay for it's self.

but is it inexpensive compared to other industry bodies like corgi or the nic eic.

[arfur mo]

Agreed quality encourages reccomendation, reccomendation is the best way to find anything.

Very commendable, but you should really pass those skills of yours on, what will your customers do when you retire?

Basic quality assurance three months testing.

So have I and many others.

I understand your frustration large companies do have smart business men running them, thats because there is money to be made in this industry otherwise you or I wouldnt be in it .....would we?

I dont agree with your statement about the detectors though, most nationals I know use good quality detectors. And the biggest decided to use subbies for their installs, now theyve weeded out most of the useless ones on the whole there installs are not that bad.

Keep up 2002 loads of smaller NSI companies complianed to NSI about this salesman practice, its stopped.

She lost your number but the national co engineer found it? How did you know it was a cheapo unit? just because a panel is not an ID hybrid doesnt mean its cheap.

Salesman and engineer in the same sentence!

Well if he has worked for the same company and had only ever wired double pole or eol then he wouldnt of nec known that the id system was wired in parrallel, it would confuse anyone who hasnt come across one before, it doesnt mean he his stupid just not familiar with the product.

I hoped you reported them to their relevent inspectorate, thats what the inspectorate is for. And if you think that the inspectorate is doing nothing then report them to UKAS.

if you reported them then the regulations are working, if you didnt THEN YOU ONLY HAVE YOURSELF TO BLAME FOR THE WAY THINGS ARE!

We are highly inspected, we also regularly inspect ourselves. As a NSI gold member I would love the NSI to be regulated and regarded as high as CORGI is for gas fitters, perhaps if it was Police Response wouldnt be in the position it is today. Oh and the fees are very small in comparison, it is very inexpensive to be a member of NSI the only expensive bit is doing the job properly.

Agreed I started as an engineer, and so did my partner, every engineer working for us (including subbies) are employed for their attitude not their qualifications. You can train a person with the right attitude to do the job properly, try persuading someone who knows it all not to cut corners.

Very true but just because a company is big, and wants to do things right by joining an inspectorate doesnt mean they are a cowboy.

The post on the begining of the page from grannleyss is a good example of how non inspected companies give this industry a bad name, he went bang owing a small fortune.

Pete

MY RESPONSE

With over 35 years in this trade covering installations and maintenance on private, commercial, prisons, museums - i am the one not a trainee who turns up and installs the system. by using experience and skills building out false alarms and building in reliability and taking great care to hide the cables, even if its a garden shed.

Very commendable, but you should really pass those skills of yours on, what will your customers do when you retire?

i do by employing others, i have releived the doll que by training or retraining some 20 people

Before i use any item commercially it is

installed at my home for assesment and soak test. i have very exacting standards and if i don't like it for any reason i'll throw it in the dustbin after smashing it to pieces - anyone else do that?.

Basic quality assurance three months testing. - i don't know if you are saying yourr company or you do this and is it prior to actually installing it - or do you allow your customers to do a 'free' field test for you?

Having worked for large and small companies that did not put quality before profit is why i left and started my own company - putting my mouth with my money.

So have I and many others - well stating the absolutly Bl***d**g obvious thats always revealing.

large companies are not innocent, size or badges displayed never equals proof of quality, only an ability to get paid after often over charging. they are invariably ruled by 'smart' accountants, who ultimately decide a detector is chosen on cost before quality in order to maximise profits. large companies will often send a trainee engineer un-supervised to 1st fit or worst complete the installation, especially when a lot of work is on hand, leaving the client to suffer the false alarms.

I understand your frustration large companies do have smart business men running them, thats because there is money to be made in this industry otherwise you or I wouldnt be in it .....would we?

no, not quite the only reason, in my case i actually enjoy the work and the pleasure of hiding all the cables to make the system like it always belonged. i am not a charity and so yes i am in it for a profit bt the word you missed out was 'honest'

I dont agree with your statement about the detectors though, most nationals I know use good quality detectors. And the biggest decided to use subbies for their installs, now theyve weeded out most of the useless ones on the whole there installs are not that bad.

so what ytou say is 'the biggest one (implying size is quality) used anybody and every body they could get to hols a screwdriver and let the client road test them in order to 'weed them out'

hmmm! the jury is still out on this method in my oppinion.

one large company has a practic of employing salesmen to knock on doors of house's who already have a system fitted, they use bullying scare tactics berating a systems perceived value in order to persuade the gullable house owner to have their 'professional' company take it over, although the sytems is perfectly adaquate and working properly.

Keep up 2002 loads of smaller NSI companies complianed to NSI about this salesman practice, its stopped.

so why did this happen in 2005? wan't the address

one of my elderly clients fell for this sales pitch as she had lost my number (which printed on the Bell Cover an control unit), and signed up to have there system 'upgraded'. Along comes the 'installation engineer' scratches his head, routes arround for 1 hour and obviously has never seen an iD system before in his life - they don't convert to a conventional sytem to easily unless the panel can accept the iD chips, only the better panels will do this - which did not include this guys 'cheapo' unit.

She lost your number but the national co engineer found it? - that quiery makes no sense to me, read what i say the clues are in the words.

How did you know it was a cheapo unit? just because a panel is not an ID hybrid doesnt mean its cheap - know many decent 'not cheap' panels that do not accept iD adaption then.

The technology used should have been pretty obvoius to the 'Sales Engineer' as it was an AD&E Ultimate iD panel and keyboard installed - real professional that.

Salesman and engineer in the same sentence! -

i agree and appologise in full - bad as saying BT and engineer in the same sentance almost a crime

better yet he could not reverse what he had done, and left them with no system at all not even pa's or Central Station - throw into the mix this client had recently suffered a nasty assault on her door step - and all this by a N.A.C.O.S.S. & S.A.I.I.B. 'APPROVED' company which is a household name realmad.gif .

Well if he has worked for the same company and had only ever wired double pole or eol then he wouldnt of nec known that the id system was wired in parrallel, it would confuse anyone who hasnt come across one before, it doesnt mean he his stupid just not familiar with the product.

my gripe is firstly with the sales 'person' assumingly trained in this industy as per NACOSS blurb and so fully aware of iD technology the ADE Ultimate system has iD clearly displayed on the keypad. secondly the installation 'engineer' having poked about with cables simply wouild have seen the iD biscuit so should have sought advice from his supervisor not left them and walked away, i.e. a perfectly sound system left totally dead and client exposed.

i have gone to installations by the same and other well known so called 'approved' installers to be stunned at the poor quality of workmanship or care taken to appearance or the client's property. i have found massive no-compliance incidents - SAB's held up with 1" screws, on a couple of installs two hiat pins, no tampers on PIRs, no standby batteries or totally blown out 2 months after a maintenance visit, even a ray passed through both sides of a glass counter.

I hoped you reported them to their relevent inspectorate, thats what the inspectorate is for. And if you think that the inspectorate is doing nothing then report them to UKAS.

do you think they would take any notice of little old non affiliated me? it would be a crusade on my part - one i could not afford to finance on my small and honest profit margins, and it's supposed to be done by the relevant bodies checking up - thats what they say they do - that what the in surrance companies think they do and it what the clients fees pay them to do:hmm: .

i have been to show stands and a NACOSS recruitment seminar. having asked the question among others, as if i were to join and i found a fellow member not complying would they take action? the reply as witnesssed in a packed room "it is not for you to complain but the client, you would and should not get involved'" so i gather that means the cats get to look after all that cream then!

WHERE ARE THE REGULATIONS WORKING HERE?

if you reported them then the regulations are working, if you didnt THEN YOU ONLY HAVE YOURSELF TO BLAME FOR THE WAY THINGS ARE!

wow i'm so glad that its for me to accept ALL the blame for the way things are in this industy - i now feel equal to JC anyone got a cross, and a few tabloids to spare? as i need a good bleed to ease my burden

many here berate us small 'non associated' installers, but at least i do not have a badge on my paperwork claiming that i am regulated. people percieve this 'regulating' is the same as the highly respected and powerful 'CORGI' is for gas fitters. i would only have to pay lip service to be able to display 'our' approval bodies - oh and the fees.

We are highly inspected, we also regularly inspect ourselves. As a NSI gold member I would love the NSI to be regulated and regarded as high as CORGI is for gas fitters, perhaps if it was Police Response wouldnt be in the position it is today. Oh and the fees are very small in comparison, it is very inexpensive to be a member of NSI the only expensive bit is doing the job properly.

i see, you are an NSI Gold member - of a non regulated regulation body - all that glitters is not GOLD then you seem to be reinforcing my point so why are you challenging me on this? the fee's ARE IN YOUR OWN WORDS VERY SMALL, ah! it's just dawned on me - the penny dropped now i know i should have said "by paying lip service and SMALL fees" - oh! to be corrected like this - its a wonderful life

remember - any firm large or small is only as good as the worst person who works for it - or the accountant.

Agreed I started as an engineer, and so did my partner, every engineer working for us (including subbies) are employed for their attitude not their qualifications. You can train a person with the right attitude to do the job properly, try persuading someone who knows it all not to cut corners.

so you do not say if you started your company simply to make money which is a perfectly capitalist notion in a free society? or are you like me, you got depressed, demoralised by not being allowed the time, support, spares or good quality equipment to do your job properly, so started up to do things 'the right way' as well as hopefully earn a fair living?

it is for you as to the quality of staff you employ, there are many experienced engineers who know how and do the job properly having pride and high standards. unfortunately not so many companies large or small, are prepared to pay the proper rate for a really good skilled engineer. using unskilled labour as you do which they are during their training - but still charging the full price is not very moral is it?

companies who do have quality engineers see them as an expensive commodity so tend to put them under severe pressure. that in turn encourages the less forceful individuals to cut corners (or to be 'fly') in order to meet targets, and avoid being rucked by management using the hated 'paid per performance'. supervisors want to be managers, managers do not want to be seen as lagging and who in turn have to meet thier usually impossible or overly ambitious targets - the main sufferers of all this are the clients and the police - but don't worry its all MY fault as a small unregulated company.

THE BIGGER THE COWBOY THE BIGGER THE HAT!

Very true but just because a company is big, and wants to do things right by joining an inspectorate doesnt mean they are a cowboy.

i do not make the asumption that ALL big companies are cowboys, but many operate in what is or close to that fashion, using the affiliated badge as a cover of respectability.

The post on the begining of the page from grannleyss is a good example of how non inspected companies give this industry a bad name, he went bang owing a small fortune.

well pete you dropped into the same 'trap' you accused me of regarding large companies - i am a small company, and not regulated which is your criteria of reference and i beleive complaint. But I have not gone bust, or for that matter do I owe anybody including my Suppliers VAT, TAX or NI men either, and i have full PL&E liability that covers my staff and subcontractors. my vehicle is insurred for any driver over 18 fully comp with a current road tax disk - perhaps i am the only one - but then i have to be careful as ALL the industries problems are down to me anyway - according to you..............

what times the next train or earthquake? - i'm going off now to end it all because i'm so depressed by guilt of not being regulated - errr nope i eat some all-bran instead!!! lucky this aint smellyvision

Alan

[stevehaley]

unsure if the install below is the worst but it is worth a mention , when i first satred out i worked for a company who one morning asked me if i knew any one that could do a install the next day,I shook my head but our salesman said his brother would do it as he had just been laid off from the his latest job in food processing.I was called out to the job about 2 weeks later due to a problem with the pirs,on arriving outside i noticed tha bellbox was about chest height and adjacent the front door.Anyway on entering the downstairs toilet i had noticed that the engineer had drilled straight through the back of the panel for the bellbox .the problem with the pir was that the one in the landing sometimes had a red light on it when the customer went passed it. all the pir's in the house were upside down apart from the hall,the customer thought the hall one was faulty.I spent the next 2 hours turning them round .i didnt open the panel up. i only worked there 3 months.i thought that is was a poor company when on the first day i started 2 engineers came to work in shell suits. I hated the job , was given the call out pager on the first day.

[sparky999]

Here`s one I saw earlier there`s more but I can only load one at a time 1MB limit

[Chorlton]

Here`s one I saw earlier there`s more but I can only load one at a time 1MB limit

Sorry I didn't have any cable ties Pete.

[sparky999]

P.S. This was an install done by an electrician who was training youngesters in a training centre

[arfur mo]

Here`s one I saw earlier there`s more but I can only load one at a time 1MB limit

i'd have used hot melt glue - far neater

regs

alan

[sparky999]

Another pic from same job