What happens AFTER you choose your product?
Office refurb or Commercial relocation?
Let’s set the scene…
After much deliberation, you’ve decided which type of system to implement for your:
- Video-collaboration
- Meeting room screen share
- Digital signage
- Room booking
- Hybrid-working setup
You may have selected your specific brands and products (Yes, we know this is another topic in itself!).
Now comes the greatest challenge – working out how to fit the products into your environment.
In reality, this can often dictate which products you finally purchase so, although you may be sure you’ve decided on a specific system, it may need altering slightly to function the way you intend.
But how do you work all of this out?
Stay with us as we share with you some inside knowledge on how we perform a technical site visit and tips you can use for your preparations.
This knowledge will keep you ahead of the game with your new system install; office refurbishment or site relocation. It will also very likely save you time and money!
Firstly, what is a technical site visit?
Site visits have different purposes in various industries and are often described as visiting a site – like the label says. A technical site visit is an in-depth look into HOW to get something to fit into a space.
In the AV trade, we find that the screen installs and ‘gadgets’ are the last service to be planned. They often end up as the ‘last leg’ of an office setup and have to be physically discreet – not relying on property services or pre-built infrastructure, as other aspects of your build may do.
e.g. Whilst Electrical and plumbing infrastructure are considered essential to buildings and will have a suitable and serviceable framework, AV systems often haven’t even been considered.
** As a side note…This often only becomes apparent when the hired electrician is asked to plan in and fit the Audio Visual Equipment.
- Some may put the screens up on a wall that fits and tell you to “call the IT Tech guys to do the rest.” This could potentially mean the whole job has to be redone as cabling; lighting; wi-fi; sound restrictions, etc. haven’t been considered.
- Some electricians will be clear on their knowledge of the electrical and placement sides of the install but not the full setup to get it functioning as you need it to.
- GREAT electricians will suggest you call an AV technician right at the start!
AV Technicians can deal with electrics as well as the logistics and technical setup of your equipment – logins, accesses, etc.
For us at MPAV Ltd, we don’t just look at what we have been asked to install.
We consider every aspect in-case a system needs to change, but also, to look at how a user will utilise the system. We also look at what works need to be carried out to facilitate and establish the products.
Where does it start?
At MPAV Ltd, we follow a comprehensive checklist of items to ensure that every site visit covers all the relevant points.
Whilst every environment is different, there are plenty of similarities and we find that making sure that to follow this checklist ensures we have a clear picture of the space.
At this point, clients usually have the main product or system already selected, so we tend to start with simply measuring the space.
Getting a floor plan drawn up with length, depth and, importantly, height is critical, as many systems will be decided on based on the size of a space.
Height is often overlooked and more consideration is given to the length and width of the room – how to make sure everyone is heard. However, it is important to understand the height, as often there are (or could be) services or products going into the ceiling. For example, if your ceiling height is 2m and you fit a pendant microphone, it is likely people will bang their heads on it. Adversely, if you choose to fit a tile microphone to a 5m ceiling, you won’t have great coverage of the speakers.
Tools:
- Measuring tape (or laser measure)
- Screwdriver
- Writing instrument
- Phone or camera
- Ladders
Walls
Ironically, this is always the most overlooked element of any site. People look at a wall and simply think they are universal and more than able to stick anything on them. In theory, this is correct but only with the correct infrastructure.
Glass – it is difficult to stick heavy items onto glass so, for the technician, knowing exactly which walls are glass and which are solid is always beneficial to product selection and planning.
Plasterboard – in most commercial installations nowadays, two layers of plasterboard (at least 12mm each) is installed onto aluminium stud. For safety reasons, it is unlikely that you’ll find timber studs in commercial buildings.
*DIY: Tap the wall.
- If it sounds hollow, you will probably find this is double skin.
- If you tap in the middle of the wall and it sounds less hollow than the outer walls, you may find that a timber pattress (often 18mm plywood) is installed behind the plasterboard. This is fantastic for screen installations as there is no worry about strength.
- If you knock the wall and it hurts your hands, you’ve likely hit blockwork. Again, this is the best medium for putting TVs on the wall but it does require completely different fixings to a plasterboard wall.
- If you look at a wall and it has strange, timber battens running vertically, then leave it well alone. Used simply to break a space up, this is often just a cheap plasterboard panel with a cell made of cardboard or wood sandwich between thin sheets of plaster. They were not designed to bear any weight so putting a touchscreen on them is ill-advised.
- Similarly, if you push the wall and it moves, using it may be worth reconsidering. Whilst some flex in areas of a wall isn’t concerning, if the entire wall moves, that means it isn’t tied into the structure of the building properly and could be damaged by placing a heavy weight on one side of it.
Floors
*DIY: Here is your moment on the dancefloor. Stamp like you are the bull in a pasodoble!
If it hurts your foot, it is likely to be solid concrete. Unless you’ve already got floor ports, you will either need to channel out a cable run or use surface mounted products such as cable raceway.
If it’s hollow…it is worth investigating why it’s hollow.
Older buildings may be timber, just like a house, which is harder than it looks. Often you can’t lift the timber floor to run cabling so it will often be easier to do as you would for a solid floor.
Nowadays, all raised flooring tends to be metal tiles or called ‘computer floor’. This is a series of metal tiles lifted on metal legs, throughout a space. The metal legs will be installed onto a solid concrete base and allow for all the commercial services to be installed below the floor, rather than in the ceiling. This is then either covered with carpet tiles or a solid surface like laminates or wood.
Tip: The void heights are not controlled, so always have a screw driver handy.
Find a floor box (or, even better, a circular floor grommet) and take a look underneath. This void could be just about big enough to fit a finger underneath or big enough to fit several bodies in (not that we condone this of course!). The void height can be critical at a later stage of the technical site visit.
Ceilings
While it hangs around, nice and quiet, it is easy to forget what your ceiling is made of. In general, there are three types which can even be mixed in the same space!
Solid ceiling, tiled ceiling and ‘no ceiling’.
- ‘No ceiling’ is the cool, trendy look of having EVERYTHING on show. Cables, heating, the weird bolt that nobody knows what it’s there for…everybody will see it all.
Tip: Consider using existing cable trays and, ideally, black cables. It is hard to make infrastructure invisible in this case, but there are ways to do it.
- Tiled ceiling is the most common in offices, either being a grid with tiles dropped in or tiles that need to be physically pulled down like a loft hatch. Often these are made of fibre for weight reduction so they won’t actually hold much weight on their own…Don’t try stick a speaker in these as it will fall out.
You might find that you have metal tiles, such as the drop down type. These tend to be made of flimsy metal which will appear to hold weight but will warp very easily and can fall out.
If you have a tiled ceiling, you are likely to find a solid ceiling above.
- Solid ceilings are often just plasterboard but could also be made of acoustic material, designed to make large spaces quieter. In both cases, we wouldn’t expect them to take much weight on their own and it is very difficult to run cables as you are limited to where you can physically fit your body.
Tip: Allow extra time for cable routing.
In all cases it is very good practice to support anything that is ceiling-mounted, by a safety wire – also known as a ‘gripple’. These are generally designed to stop items falling out of the ceiling if the primary mounting fails, but they can also be used to physically hold items into an open ceiling.
You would need to find something solid to mount to – like the solid ceiling above the tiled ceiling. Again, there is no commonality or instruction as to which one you will find. It could be bare concrete, it could be metal covered concrete or it could be an engineered ceiling.
Tip: Noting which type and, importantly, how much higher that ceiling is above the tiles, will help you determine what infrastructure to use in the installation.
Noise
A massively important note, especially for shared buildings, is noise.
Most buildings have a restriction on drilling into the solid ceiling because it disturbs the occupants of other floors.
So, you may be stuck with the need to get in early or work late, simply to bolt a projector to a ceiling.
This is an important thing to check, especially if you are installing ceiling microphones or a video conferencing system.
Tip: You can use an official dB meter or simply use a sound level meter on your phone to measure the ambient noise of the room.
If you can, turn the air con fan right up so it is as noisy as possible.
Generally, we find rooms to be anywhere between 45-55dB. This is loud enough to be audible but doesn’t force people to shout to be heard. These levels often won’t be an issue to video conferencing systems but anything louder is likely to be heard and disturbing.
Light
You’ve only got one wall that your screen can fit onto, but it’s next to the window.
Will the sun glare onto the screen all day?
We doubt you will measure the position of the sun throughout a full day but being mindful of where the sun is during your meetings and where it is likely to shine throughout the day is something to be considered. Especially if you are fitting a projector, measuring the light is important to product selection.
Tip: You can simply download an app on your phone and measure the ‘lumens’ (light brightness).
Services
Most systems require power of some kind. They also may require data.
Making sure you’ve marked down exactly where these are will help you later on. If you have no services, then you can add this to your refurbishment plan.
Cable runs
This comes off the back of measuring voids. Stud walls are built one of two ways. They are either built onto the raised floor or they are built on the solid floor below, with the raised floor butting up to the wall.
The latter is fine to use as you can simply make a cable access hole below the raised floor, feed your cables up the stud wall and away you go.
If the wall sits on the raised floor, then, unless a screen is already there, there probably isn’t an access hole made. The only way you can guarantee this is to look.
You may get away by pulling a cable in the wall and seeing if it moves at the floor box below, but if there is no existing products, then you may need to drill one yourself.
The same goes for above a tiled ceiling too. If there is no access already made between the wall and the ceiling, you’ve got to find a way to do it yourself.
This adds time and, maybe, redecoration costs too.
Access
We’ve heard many stories where a client wants a gigantic screen – maybe a 4m long projector screen or 110” TV – on a wall…The room has been scoped out, the products agreed and signed off… but how does it get INTO the space?
110” screens don’t fit into most passenger lifts and a lot of shared office buildings don’t have a service lift. It’s important to consider that you may need ‘extra bodies’ if you don’t have a lift, to be able to drag the screen up the stairs. However, you may find that the stairs aren’t physically wide enough to get the screen up.
Tip: Ensuring you have adequate access to accommodate moving equipment into your spaces, can be part of your walk-out, but check everything.
Make sure you can stop a vehicle in a sensible location for unloading and make sure you can get the equipment through the corridors and lifts into the room of choice.
If you are doing ceiling work, make sure that your ladders will actually get into the room as well.
Photos
There is a well known comment on the internet: ‘Photos, or it didn’t happen’.
This is crucial to a technical site visit. You may be the eyes for somebody else who needs to see what you see, or you may need to refer back to it.
Was there a cable tray in the ceiling or not?
Which wall is the screen going on?
Tip: Being able to refer back and use photos as part of your project pack for the AV team on site will make everything easier.
Rubbish
Consider where this has to end up. If the site doesn’t have any suitable waste disposal, you may need to take it away with you or dispose of it elsewhere.
Tip: Many a bin has been filled with the packing content of just two TVs! If you are installing ten of them, consider where this will ultimately end up.
Conclusion
Now that you’ve read through over 2,000 words of our brief guideline, you may be feeling incredibly confident in planning out the next stages of your video-conferencing system install or relocation.
We hope this has triggered some steps that perhaps you hadn’t considered and that will now save you literally thousands and your precious time.
Well-versed clients are a blessing to any technician!
However, if you’ve read through this and made copious notes and still feel a strong sense of anxiety and trepidation, please do call us.
If nothing more than to set you straight on areas of concern and at best, to work with you on seeing your project a roaring success!
