8 Times Nature Got in the Way of an AV Installation

When Reliability Shifted with the Seasons

“Who thinks about the life blood of any AV system also being the thing that kills it? Back when I was working as design and technical support for a manufacturer, there was a peak season when electrical problems would be a primary reason for the call to support. I’m not talking about the electrical portion inside the building, but rather lighting strikes hitting the building.

We used to get at least a dozen calls each fall talking about devices in a no power/no fault state that needed to be repaired or replaced. This can cause delays, cost increases, and immense trouble when you run into very tight project schedules.

The other season that would bring peak support calls would be at the end of August, beginning of September. This was the time when schools were preparing for the new year and would test their intercom systems for functionality. All too often we’d find intercom stations had fallen offline with no power or no signal.

Upon testing, these stations were often found to have lost connection to the system due to rodent teeth! Various vermin on campus would get into the walls and chew through the cabling, causing the stations to drop offline and requiring the school to get a qualified dealer on-site to pull new cable and then reprogram any portion of the system that required it.”

• Josh Srago, AV writer and speaker