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Hardwired sensors over wireless, even in a 1925 house with plaster walls
When I bid a job in Cleveland Heights on a 1925 house with plaster and lath walls, the guy wanted wireless everywhere because his buddies said hardwired was impossible without tearing the place apart. I pushed back and ran hardwired anyway, using the unfinished basement and attic as my paths, and it took 14 hours across two days instead of the 6 hours a wireless kit would have taken. That was 8 months ago and he has not had a single false alarm or dead battery since. Wireless is fine for retrofits, but everyone treating it as the default is how you end up back at the same house every year swapping batteries. Curious if other installers are still running wire in old homes or if I am the odd one out here.
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violatorres20d ago
14 hours vs 6 hours is a big gap to just shrug off. That is basically two days of labor you are eating to solve a battery problem that does not exist yet. Plaster and lath is a pain, sure, but is it really that bad, or do most guys just not want to deal with it? A lot of wireless kits these days run years on a battery, so calling it a yearly swap feels like a stretch. Not saying hardwired is wrong, just that the stakes here sound smaller than you are making them out to be.
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