Meeting with Guardian people

I met with the Guardian people the other day (I am still trying to catch up on blogging about the whole experience, so it was really over a week ago).  Guardian s the company that will install the low voltage wiring in the walls of your house.  For those of you who don't know, low voltage wiring is all the wiring for phone, internet, cable tc, in-wall speakers, alarm systems, in-wall video cables.  They also offer a central vacuum setup.

The home comes with two phone jacks, and two cable jacks.  The phone jacks have to be in the kitchen and master bedroom.  The cable jacks have to be in the family room and master bedroom.  If you want them elsewhere you should ask, but there is no guarantee that they will do it.  You should know that they use Cat5 cable for the phone lines too, and the jacks they use accept both phone and Ethernet plugs, so if you don't plan on having a home phone system these can still be used for internet.  They were charging me $95 per additional phone, Ethernet or phone line that they put in.  This is something you can do your self after you move in but it involves cutting drywall and patching it up.  If you plan on painting the place this isn't so bad since you will paint the patches.  Even if you don't plan on painting you can paint the patches you make with the same color paint they have. It is difficult to run a line between floors, so I asked them to run a cable line and two cat5 lines (one can be used for phone) up to the attic.  This way I can split the cables from there and easily run them in to each bedroom, I think this was worth the $285.

They also hang a tv up for you and run lines behind the wall to the cable box\blu ray player.  The price for this seemed a bit high, and if you have a little DIY skills you can also do this yourself with little trouble.  What I didn't like about this service is they run a specific number of cables, I believe it was one HDMI and one set of component cables.  If you have more than two devices, or need two HDMI cables you will be out of luck, so think ahead.

They also offer features such as whole house audio, setting up in wall speakers.  Agian, these are things you could do later (and better) if you have the know how for less.  The research I did showed that these things add very little value to your house, so you won't make the money back when you sell the house; however, if it is something you want and don't know how to do it your self it may be worth having guardian do it.

Guardians big thing is the alarm system.  They want to put a wired alarm system in to your house for little cost and then have you committed to paying for their alarm service for 3 years.  This is what they will spend the most time selling you on.  My wife and I wanted an alarm system so we looked at what we got for free plus what we would want to add on.  We only got one control panel, sensors on the doors to the house, and a motion detector for free.  To get sensors on the first floor windows, another control panel and a smoke detector would have been many hundreds of dollars.  As a comparison we could get a wireless system with ATK for $100 installed that had everything we wanted (ATKs package came with more free stuff if you sign a 3 year contract).  The monthly cost was $2 cheaper per month with ATK.  ATK also had the ability to monitor your home from your cell phone, a feature Guardian's wired package currently does not (but it is in the works).  The guardian rep tried to sell me on the idea of a wired system.  It has a couple of advantages, you don't have to replace batteries (ATK does monitor the batteries in all your devices and will call you when one gets low so you know to replace it), and the door sensors can be hidden (the window sensors are not hidden).  The wired package also has some disadvantages, it takes a lot of effort to add on to the system.  If you want to add another window sensor, or glass breaking sensor you can't without having to run wire through your walls.  With a wireless system you just put a battery in and put it where you want.  In the end I decided to not go with guardian for the wired alarm system, although I will consider them and ATK (plus others) for their wireless system.  The guardian guy pushed the alarm system using quite a few scare tactics. When I continued to say no he offered me three months free OR a free smoke detector.  When I continued to say no it turned in to three months free AND a smoke detector.  This was tempting but just wasn't enough to get me, but if you are going to use them for your alarm company try saying you aren't interested, you may get similar offers to mine. 

In the end I didn't get much from guardian except a few cable runs because I plan on doing most of the stuff myself for less money and a better system.  It actually isn't about the money for me on this topic, I really enjoy setting these types of things up myself and doing it the way I want it done.  That might not be for everyone though.  Overall, the Guardian rep was nice, only a little pushy on the alarm system (but not overly pushy) and was knowledgeable about what he was talking about.