The basement job that made me switch to wireless sensors for good

Last month I had a rough retrofit in an old house in Columbus. All the walls were plaster and lath, and I spent 6 hours fishing wires through a crawlspace that had maybe 2 feet of clearance. My back was done by noon. That night I ordered a starter pack of wireless contacts from a distributor I use, and ran my next job in a similar house with zero headaches. I still do hardwired on new builds when the customer wants it, but for anything with finished walls I'm not even offering wired anymore. The battery life claims are actually holding up so far, and the panel setup took me about an hour less than my usual terminations. Anyone else made the full switch for retrofits, or am I just getting soft in my late 30s?

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1 Comment

margaret_singh112h ago

Wired is still my go to for retrofits, honestly. I get that fishing through plaster is miserable, but I trust a solid copper connection over a battery that dies in the middle of the night. You swap a sensor out in two years and the customer is already annoyed, then they blame the panel or the app. Plus wireless sensors get interference in old houses with thick walls, and I have seen false alarms drive people nuts. The hour you save on termination gets eaten up by troubleshooting link issues on site sometimes. Not saying you are soft, but I would rather take the back pain than deal with a callback on a dead battery.