15th May, 2008
The Burning Question - Are your jobs up to code?
Brent Butterworth
We’ve all seen incredible A/V installations. And we’ve all seen incredibly bad A/V installations. It’s no secret in this industry (or any industry) that some practitioners are a lot better than others. The issues go beyond getting the best possible picture and sound, though, and beyond designing a system that works easily and reliably. There’s one more issue that few people ever discuss: safety.
Integrators come in all types: from quarter-century-old firms that specialize in quarter-million-dollar jobs, to the “man in a van” with scant experience who hung out his shingle last month. It’s a fairly solid bet that the former’s practices are sound, otherwise they probably wouldn’t have lasted this long. But what does the upstart know about national electrical codes? About local regulations? About fire safety? Perhaps everything he needs to know. Or perhaps nothing at all.
Obviously, customers paying good money for an A/V installation deserve to have their work done to code; they certainly assume it will be. However, there are greater dangers than flunking the home inspection when it comes time to sell. According to the National Fire Prevention Association, between 2002 and 2005 an annual average of 20,800 household fires—resulting in 330 deaths and $524 million in damage—were caused by electrical distribution or lighting equipment, i.e., the work done by electricians and low-voltage installers. It’s the third leading cause of household fire.
“I would venture to tell you that there are a lot of unlicensed, uninformed installers out there,” said Eric Bodley, a pioneering custom installer, former CEDIA member, and currently bearing the title Custom Installation Monster at Monster Cable. “Most legitimate integrators and low-voltage contractors have learned how to do the right thing, whether or not they know the electrical codes. I think most violations come in with the low-cost provider who doesn’t have the right insurance or licensing. It’s hard to say how often these violations occur, but they do.”
According to Bodley, one of the most common code violations is stuffing low-voltage wires such as Cat-5 and speaker cables through the same holes the electrician has drilled for 120-volt AC lines. “The low-voltage wires have to be spaced from the high-voltage lines,” he explains. “Typically the requirement is 24 inches but it can vary depending on municipal codes.”
Another common violation Bodley cites (and one we’ve witnessed a few times ourselves) is that the jacket of cables run inside a wall needs to be fire-rated. The fire rating must be stamped on the jacket, usually in the form of the letters CL followed by a number—for example, in-wall speaker cables must have a CL-3 rating. “If a fire does occur and wires installed in a wall aren’t fire retardant, the wire could theoretically act as a fuse and carry the fire to other places in the home,” Bodley explains. “Also, if the jacket isn’t fire-retardant and you run too small a wire for the power it’s carrying, the heat from the wire can ignite the jacket.”
For integrators who want to be sure they’re doing the right thing when it comes to electrical codes, an obvious first step is to buy a copy of the National Electrical Code. (It’s $67.50 on Amazon.com, but if the editor of The Integrator can afford a copy, so can you.) Most municipalities simply adopt the NEC rather than concocting their own regulations, but some write their own rules; your local buildings department can fill you in. Bodley also recommends sending your installers to CEDIA Boot Camp. “Much of what was developed for that course has to do with codes,” he says.
Given the damage that improper installation can do to your reputation and your customers’ homes, there’s no excuse for not knowing the national and local codes that apply to your work, or for failing to educate your staff on this topic—even if you just went into business last month.
Posted at 4:16 pm | Comments (3)
2nd May, 2008
Outdoor TV: What the standards do and don’t tell you
Brent Butterworth
For the integrator, the latest trend emerging in custom installation probably beats the profit potential of Blu-ray, Media Center PCs, and downloadable movies combined. That’s for a simple reason: When you turn a garden hose on a TV and the set keeps working, people instantly understand the benefit. And they want it.
The trend I’m talking about is, of course, outdoor TV, and it’s being pioneered most noisily by Runco, but also by Aquatic AV, Pantel TV, and SunBrightTV. The potential for integrators is huge. People are getting more into outdoor and backyard living, and having a TV out there simply makes sense.
But as wonderful as it is to watch House while sitting on your patio smoking a cigar, there’s danger in that there backyard. It can get nasty out there. It rains. It snows. It freezes. It bakes. It blows. And if the product fails—as ordinary TVs commonly do if used outdoors—you’ve got at best a service call, and worst a deeply disappointed customer telling all his neighbors that you suck.
Fortunately, outdoor TV is one of the few frontiers of the CE industry where some performance standards already exist. You don’t have to trust in a new vendor’s promise that his or her TVs can withstand rain, dust, and bugs. Just ask if the TV meets the IP56 standard.
The IP (or Ingress Protection) standards are governed in the U.S. by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) in most other parts of the world. The two numbers after the IP refer to specific degrees of protection afforded by an electronics enclosure.
The first number refers to penetration of the enclosure by foreign objects. A device with a rating of 5 is impervious to penetration by a wire of 1mm diameter or larger. While a 5-rated product is not completely, absolutely sealed against dust, it’s designed in such a way that what little dust gets in cannot damage the device or impair operation.
The second number, 6, refers to a product that cannot be damaged by “powerful jetting water” sprayed from any direction—i.e., your garden hose can’t hurt it, even if you use a high-pressure nozzle.
It’s possible for TVs to achieve higher numbers. For example, Aquatic AV’s 17-inch waterproof TVs would appear to earn a rating of IP68, the 6 indicating that the product is sealed against dust, and the 8 indicating that it can withstand continuous immersion in water. (And it goes up from there, too—there are even explosion-survival standards for electronics enclosures.) But it seems IP56 will do for backyards.
What IP56 doesn’t tell you is the range of temperatures the device can withstand. That’s because IP56 is a standard for enclosures, not for the stuff that goes into them. It’s no great trick to make an enclosure that can take freezing temperatures or desert heat. But making an LCD panel that can operate in direct sunlight inside an enclosure with an internal temperature of 140 degrees? That’s tough. Making a panel that works after it’s been frozen? Also tough.
IP56 also tells you nothing about a TV’s ability to produce a watchable picture in a bright outdoor setting. It’d be nice to see someone set two standards here: one for use of a TV in bright ambient light, and one for situations where direct sunlight hits the TV.
While IP56 compliance should give you some comfort, it doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about an outdoor TV. For now, at least, some things you’ll have to find out for yourself in the field or by word of mouth. The good news is, with nothing more than an IP56-rated TV and a garden hose, you can now do the most dramatic TV demos ever.
Posted at 6:21 pm | Comments (2)
