Attempting to install a home electronics system in a flat roof home can present a multitude of problems, says Ryan Beaugureau, which can dramatically drive up the cost of such a project. And Beaugureau should know. He is the owner of HAVPRO, a home entertainment system installer serving clients throughout the state of Arizona.
The shape of the roof on a home might be the last thing on someone’s mind when he starts thinking about getting a home theater system put in. But the truth is that the type of roof can impact the overall cost of a project like that.
When a client asks to get a whole-house entertainment system put in, the majority of the wiring that we do is run through the ceiling. Because of that, we have a much more difficult time doing these types of jobs on homes with flat-style roofs.
Here in Arizona, many homes have flat roofs. And although people don’t realize it, installing entertainment systems inside these homes is almost always more time-consuming and difficult. That is opposed to someone with a pitch-style roof, where there is plenty of room to move around and set up wiring systems in the attic.
When it comes to the installation of nearly anything, the more elaborate and time-consuming it is to set up, the more costly it is going to be. And of course, the same is true with installing entertainment systems inside flat roof homes. The fact is, there is simply less space to work with in a flat roof home and therefore less options as far as getting power up into the ceiling and signals to different places within the house.
The space issues end up changing the way in which we do our electronic system installations in flat roof homes, and there really are tremendous differences between the way we would go about a project like that and the way we would go about wiring a pitch roof home.
All of this definitely needs to be taken into consideration by homeowners with flat roofs if they are thinking about getting any type of whole house entertainment system installed, either now or in the future. The cost to install an entertainment system in a flat roof home is going to be substantially higher.
Because there is no attic to work in, the bulk of the work I do in a flat roof home will have to be done in a demolition-type style. So when I am asked to install an entertainment system with wiring in a house like this, I am going to have to cut out areas of the dry wall and notch out the wood in order to put in the recessed wiring. And then after that part of the job is done, I am going to have to come back in to patch over and repaint all the spots in the walls where sections were taken out.
This is just one thing that has to be done when there is nowhere in the attic for me to crawl around in or run wires through—there is no simple way around a problem like that.
On the other hand, in a pitched roof home, everything like the wires and cabling would go right into the attic and we would be able to pop any of those pieces out whenever we needed to repair anything without doing any major damage to the walls or the ceiling. So it is easy to see why a project like that would be a much simpler, easier, and cheaper task.
This issue probably comes up more here in Arizona, where I am located, than in other areas of the country since so many people here prefer to live in homes with flat roofs. Nonetheless, it is definitely something to consider if you live in a home like this anywhere in the country and you are trying to budget for the time and money it will take to get an elaborate home entertainment system installed.
