FAQs

Sometimes, but it is the single most over-requested mount we talk people out of. Two things decide it: heat coming off the firebox, and viewing angle. If the mantel throws heat straight up the wall, it will shorten the TV's life. If the screen ends up too high, you will be craning your neck every night. We measure both and recommend a pull-down mount, a different wall or a different room when the numbers do not work. This is one of the mistakes that costs homeowners the most.

Yes, with the right hardware. Outdoor installs need a weather-rated display, a corrosion-resistant mount, GFCI power and shaded placement - a standard indoor TV on a covered patio will fail in San Diego's coastal air. We handle the wiring, mounting and audio together so the patio actually sounds as good as it looks. See our guide to wiring an outdoor living space.

Screen size and light control decide it. Under about 100 inches in a room with windows, a large TV is usually the better and more reliable picture. Above that, in a room you can darken, a projector gives you cinema scale that no panel matches. We measure throw distance, seating distance and ambient light before recommending either. Our home theater planning guide walks through the decision.

For most media rooms, a 5.1.2 layout - five surround speakers, a subwoofer and two in-ceiling height channels for Dolby Atmos - is the point where the room stops sounding like a TV and starts sounding like a theater. Dedicated rooms often go to 7.2.4. More speakers in the wrong positions sound worse than fewer in the right ones, so placement and calibration matter more than count. We can also extend audio to the rest of the house with whole-home audio.

They solve different problems. Sonos is excellent when you cannot run wire and you want flexibility - it is wireless, simple and sounds good. Wired in-ceiling and in-wall speakers disappear into the architecture, never drop off the network, never need charging or firmware babysitting, and deliver noticeably better sound per dollar at the higher end. In a home being built or renovated, wire it. In a finished home where opening walls is not on the table, Sonos is a legitimate answer. We install both.

Yes. Outdoor audio needs weather-rated speakers and proper amplification - patios are open spaces without walls to reinforce sound, so undersized speakers just sound thin. We typically use a combination of landscape satellites and a buried subwoofer to get even coverage without one loud speaker blasting the neighbors. See our roundup of outdoor speaker systems for San Diego patios and pools.

Not with the systems we install. We record locally to an on-site NVR, which means your footage stays on your property and there is no recurring cloud storage fee. Remote viewing from your phone still works. Cloud storage is available as an option if you want off-site redundancy, but it is a choice rather than a requirement.

Usually yes, but the rules vary and they tend to cover the doorbell's appearance and where it can point - not whether you can have one. Communities in Rancho Santa Fe, Fairbanks Ranch and Del Mar are often the strictest. We install hardwired doorbells that replace the existing chime wiring, which keeps the exterior change minimal and generally sails through approval. See our Rancho Santa Fe page for how we handle estate communities.

No. A system can run entirely self-monitored, sending alerts straight to your phone with no monthly fee. Professional monitoring adds a service that dispatches when you cannot respond - worth it if you travel or own a second property, unnecessary for plenty of homeowners. We build the system so you can add or drop monitoring later without replacing hardware.

Yes, and that is the real advantage of having one contractor do all of it. A tripped sensor can pull up the nearest camera, turn on exterior lighting and send a clip to your phone in one action. That only happens when the alarm, the cameras, the lighting and the automation platform are designed together rather than bolted on by three different companies.

Yes. Every wireless device still reaches the internet through a wire somewhere - the question is only whether that wire is in the right place. Access points, cameras, TVs, streaming boxes, control processors and NVRs all perform better hardwired, and a wired backbone is what makes the wireless part reliable. Structured wiring is the cheapest thing you will ever do in a house and the most expensive to add later. See our network design page.

Cat6 handles gigabit comfortably and is the sensible default for most runs. Cat6a is worth it for longer runs, access points and anything you want future-proofed to 10 gigabit. Fiber makes sense between floors or outbuildings and for the main backbone in larger homes. We usually run a blend rather than one cable everywhere. Our breakdown of Cat6 vs Cat6a vs fiber covers where each one earns its cost.

We install and program Control4 and Lutron. Control4 is the broadest integrator and the usual choice when you want one system running audio, video, security, HVAC and lighting together. Lutron is the strongest lighting and shade platform in the industry and often runs alongside Control4 rather than instead of it. Savant is excellent but a narrower fit. We spec based on what you actually want to control - our comparison of Control4 vs Lutron vs Savant lays out the tradeoffs.

Yes, for anything local. A properly designed system keeps lighting scenes, shades, keypads, audio and locally recorded cameras running on the home network with no internet at all. What you lose is remote access from outside the house and any cloud-dependent streaming service. That is a deliberate design choice - we keep the critical functions local rather than routing them through someone else's server.

It replaces a wall of individual switches with a small keypad where one button sets an entire room or an entire floor at once - and it lets that happen automatically. Shades drop at sunset, path lighting comes up at ten percent overnight, everything goes off when you leave. It also cleans up the wall aesthetically, which is often what people notice first.

Yes. Lutron's retrofit lines were designed for exactly this - wireless dimmers and keypads that replace existing switches without new wiring, paired with battery shades. You get the majority of the experience without opening drywall. If a remodel is coming, we will tell you which parts are worth waiting to hardwire. We also handle new construction where everything is wired from framing.

Most do not, and California licensing is the reason to check. Low voltage systems fall under a C-7 license, which is separate from the C-10 electrical license. An electrician can pull wire, but structured wiring, audio, network and security have their own standards for cable type, separation from line voltage, termination and testing. Getting it wrong shows up as a network that will not hold speed or a speaker run with hum in it - after the walls are closed. We hold an active C-7 (CSLB #1056087).

Run the wire for everything you might plausibly want, and terminate what you are using now. At minimum: ethernet to every TV location and every ceiling access point position, speaker wire to the rooms you would ever want audio in, camera drops at the corners of the house and the front door, and conduit from the rack to the attic and to the exterior. Wire is cheap during framing and expensive forever after. We work directly with builders on custom homes and new construction.