My Guardian Frustrations

I feel like I have a little bit of built up resentment towards Guardian right now, although it may not be fair of me to be upset with them for these things, but I'll let you be the judge of that.


We spent a decent chunk of money with the options we selected from Guardian and with that amount of money, I expected a certain level of service/assistance to come with it. The selections we made were:


* Outdoor speakers
* 5.1 surround sound speakers mounted in the ceilings in one room
* Pre-wired surround sound in second room
* Pre-wire run to a component closet
* Pre-wire for two wall mounted televisions
* Security system

Outdoor Speakers


I wish I could tell you how these work ... except all we have right now are two pieces of wire hanging down the exterior of our house where I assume speakers should be installed. Maybe it is my own fault, but for the first few days after moving into the house, I didn't call anyone about this because I just assumed Guardian would be out to install the speakers within a day or two. Nope. I finally called yesterday to set up the activation of our security system and mentioned that we still had no outdoor speakers. The gentleman I spoke to seemed shocked.

Him: "You have two blue wires, correct?"
Me: "No - two grey ones"
Him: "Grey ones? Just hanging there?"
Me: "Yes ..."
Him: "Hrm. I'm sorry about that. We'll take care of that."

It'll be another week until that is taken care of.

5.1 surround sound speakers mounted in the ceilings in one room / Pre-wire run to a component closet
I am not the most technical person, but I work in IT and have always been the one in our household in the past to set up any electronic components, etc with no problems. I expected to look in our coat closet (using the shelf to house our components), I expected to see raw speaker wire coming out of the wall, labeled for each speaker, but with a male and female end for each. What I see are what look to be component jacks - one male and one female for each labeled speaker.

After much confusion a few weeks ago, before moving in, and a call to our Guardian rep, I learned that I simply needed to unscrew each 'jack', push my speaker wire through it (which is connected to my receiver at the other end), and tighten the jack. Voila, should be as simple as that. However it wasn't. No matter how tighly we would screw those puppies shut, our wire would slip right back out. We were using the 16-guage wire that was recommended as well.

Finally, after a night of finally screaming out my frustration, my husband drove to Best Buy to purchase Banana Plugs for each piece of speaker wire - we needed 12 total. He spent some time connecting a plug to the end of each raw wire, then was able to plug the banana plug into the jack and finally, we had working surround sound speakers in the ceilings. This only took us over a week to figure out (sarcasm?).


I really feel that one of two things should be done, if not both. Guardian should have a rep come meet with you right as you move in - if not on the same day as your pre-settlement meeting - so they can show you exactly how what you have purchased will work. Additionally, at the time of purchase from them, they should provide you with literature explaining exactly what it is that you purchased, and what else you may need to purchase on your own, or ensure that you already own, to make sure that everything works smoothly for you. I don't know, just something I would expect.


So my advice is this. If you plan to even do the surround sound speakers - and if you have the means - I'd just go ahead and buy the whole kit and kaboodle from Guardian (i.e. Receiver, etc) and let them set the entire thing up for you. Doing this would have saved me hours of frustration, many trips to Best Buy / Radio Shack and about another $200 in materials to properly connect.


Security System
I can't provide feedback on this as Guardian cannot come and set up the security system until your home phone is installed - and that has been a nightmare in itself. More on this when I can comment on it.


All the Other Stuff
The pre-wires for the wall mounted televisions are great - no complaints at all. The pre-wired surround sound in the basement seems to be fine as well - just haven't gotten around to hooking up our receiver yet.


All the while I received our final bill from Guardian, asking that we pay our balance immediately. I am calling the billing department today to let them know that I cannot send them a check until their work is finished and in working order. I hope this goes over smoothly.

Pre-Wire Meeting

During lunch today we drove out to the house to meet with our Guardian Technologies rep for our mark-out meeting.  During this time we walked through the house and literally marked on the studs with spray paint where cable jacks, phone jacks, surround sound speakers, and any additional wiring was going to go.  This gave us the first opportunity to actually walk through our house and see everything.  Wouldn't you know it, my camera died.

Everyone told us how the house would look small when you saw it framed and would look much larger once the drywall was complete.  They are right.  Until I got to the basement.  In the Florence model, if you choose to finish the basement, there is a standard section that is finished and another section that is unfinished storage.  We were able to request that some customization be done to our basement, where we wanted to finish a larger portion of the storage, and close it off with French doors.  The plan is to have this be Riley's playroom (and baby-to-be's!) and once they are older, turn it into a workout room.  We had this idea after seeing the model Florence where they had finished an extra portion to use as their design center.

Anyhow, when we walked to the basement, I was blown away with how large the finished area looks.  BLOWN.  AWAY.  Granted, the Florence model near us is an older version Florence and doesn't have the larger morning room on it ... so the basement is smaller as a result.  This will be our first time to see a larger finished area, but if it is true that spaces look smaller when framed and larger when finished, I think we're going to be absolutely amazed at this massive playroom.  I couldn't be happier - the more room for toys, the better!

A team of about four electricians were on-site working while we were at the house.  They were all extremely friendly and carried on small chit chat with us - something that makes a difference in my eyes. 

About 45 days to go.  I feel like as we get closer and closer to a finished product, it becomes more and more painful to wait!

Also, early this morning Kevin received a message from our project manager.  He was informing us that the basement had been framed and he was expecting us to be "very happy" with it (wonder if he realized how gigundous the playroom looked as well!).  Additionally, he'll be calling in a day or so to schedule our pre-drywall meeting for early next week.  Exciting stuff!

Mark-Out Meeting with Guardian Technologies

I just received a voicemail from our rep with Guardian Technologies.  This is the company that handles all of our electronic wiring (speakers, components, cable jacks).  We knew that this meeting would be coming shortly, as it is necessary to have it before drywall begins so that we can literally mark on the studs where certain things should be (such a cable jacks for wall-mounted televisions). 

Anyhow, our rep just informed me that our pre-wire (not sure exactly what that is) was supposed to be Friday, but has been moved up to today and that it is imperative he meet with us tomorrow at some point to do the mark out.  Basically, I took one thing from that whole message:  "... been moved up to today".  Anything being moved up is good news to me.

So we'll be meeting with him tomorrow during our lunch hour to do our mark out.  Fun stuff!

Meeting Fun!

Tonight we had our meeting with Guardian Technologies.  I was a little apprehensive because I have heard several times that these sales people are extremely high pressure.  I was delightfully surprised.  Our sales rep was AWESOME.  I had done a decent amount of research on the products they offer and we knew what things we had absolutely no interest in.  All we had to do was tell him that and he moved right along; perfect.

While a lot of their stuff is super enticing to a somewhat gadget geek like myself, we didn't go overboard.  I am really excited about what we decided on.  We first decided on the location of our phone jacks and cable outlets that come standard with the house.  We then decided where we wanted additional cable jacks ... and which TVs would be hung on the wall, etc.  They run all the wiring during construction so everything is hidden in the walls.  I hate having any wires showing, etc, so this was exciting to me.  We also decided to have them pre-wire the living room and basement for surround sound.  We decided on two all-weather outdoor Bose speakers for the back deck, as well as a security system.  Very, very excited!  We had to put one-third down tonight, and pay the remainder once we move in. 

We'll have two more meetings with Guardian - placement and activation.  At the placement meeting we'll actually walk through the house once it is framed and mark on the exact studs where different wires and components will be.  Then at the activation meeting - once the house is done - we'll learn how to use the security system, etc.

We were originally going to have our 'colors meeting' tonight, too, but the Guardian one ran over and we decided to reschedule for Sunday.  This way we'll also use that time to confirm all of our upgrades and sign-off on those, too.  We have our flooring meeting scheduled for noon on Monday.  Then that's it!  We just have to wait to close on our house and provide them with our downpayment. 

Oh - it was also very exciting to walk in today and see the SALE sticker on our lot!!  407, baby!

The best part is that Kevin and I are just so excited. It is so awesome getting to do this together. I am building my dream house with my dream man for our dream framily. Life is good.