For Builders | Southern Colorado
New Construction
Smart Home Pre-Wire Guide
Three-week window. Walls open, electrical roughed, insulation pending. That is when smart-home wiring goes in. After drywall, every change order costs three to five times more. This is a builder-to-builder guide on how we run pre-wire on Colorado Springs and Pueblo new builds.
The Window
Why Pre-Wire Is a Pre-Drywall Decision
If you are framing right now, the clock is running. The structural rough is the cheapest moment in the entire build to drop in low-voltage infrastructure. Once drywall closes, every Cat6 run, every camera feed, every speaker pull turns into a fish or a surface mount. Skip this and you eat the change order or your buyer does. Builders who have done a half-dozen smart-equipped homes already know this. Builders new to smart construction usually find out when the homeowner walks in for the orientation and asks where the office Ethernet is.
This guide walks through what we actually pull, in what sequence, and how we coordinate with your trades. If you want the consumer version, see our smart home installation guide for Colorado Springs. For pricing benchmarks across builds, the smart home cost in Southern Colorado guide breaks down ranges by tier and finish level.
Scope
What a Real Pre-Wire Actually Includes
Pre-wire is not a single cable type. It is a layered cable system run on a path that anticipates how the home will be used in five and ten years. We pull conservatively, label everything, and terminate to a structured media panel in a mechanical room or dedicated low-voltage closet. NEC Article 800 governs the communications cabling side of this work, and Article 725 covers most of the smart-control low-voltage. We follow both, and we coordinate with the electrician so we are not running parallel to high-voltage feeders longer than 24 inches.
Cat6A or Cat6 Data Backbone
Two Cat6A drops minimum to every TV location. Two to every wireless access point location. One to every camera location. Two to the home office desk wall. Cat6A is our standard now because 10GBASE-T is already in mid-tier consumer gear and the cost gap to Cat6 is small at install. CAT5e in a 2026 build is malpractice. If your spec is still calling for it, change the spec.
RG-6 Quad Shield Coax
Less common in 2026 but still asked for. We pull RG-6 quad to the family room and master where the buyer specifies. DirecTV and Dish still drive a few of these requests, and over-the-air antenna distribution is back on the rise. We run it because it is cheap insurance, not because most homes will use it long term.
Fiber for 4,000+ sqft and Detached Structures
Past 4,000 square feet, copper Ethernet starts hitting distance and electrical-noise limits in a real way. We run OS2 single-mode fiber from the MDF closet to a secondary IDF in the basement or far wing. Detached garages, casitas, ADUs, and barns get fiber too, with a minimum of one buried conduit between structures.
In-Wall Speaker Cable
16/4 CL2 or CL3-rated speaker wire is the baseline for whole-home audio zones. Theater rooms get 14/2 or 12/2 to each in-wall and in-ceiling location. Subwoofer locations get a dedicated CL3 line plus a Cat6 for IP-controlled subs. Outdoor speaker pulls run in conduit with weatherproof terminations. Non-rated speaker wire stuffed into a wall cavity is a code fail and a fire risk.
Smart-Switch Hub Rings
Some smart-switch ecosystems need a hub or a low-voltage drop at the switch box. Lutron RadioRA, for example, needs neutral wires at every switch. We coordinate with the electrician to verify neutrals are pulled to every gang box and add low-voltage rings where keypads or temperature sensors are planned.
Conduit and Pull Strings
3/4-inch ENT or smurf-tube from the structured panel to every TV location, and 1-inch from MDF to attic and crawlspace. Pull strings in every conduit, even short ones. Conduit is what makes a home upgradable in 2031 without opening drywall. It is the cheapest thing on the BOM and the line item homeowners thank you for years later.
Phase 1
Rough-In: After Framing, Before Insulation
This is the heavy day. Framing is up, electrical rough is in, plumbing rough is in. We schedule rough-in as soon as the electrician finishes pulling Romex, usually one to three days behind them. The walls are still open and we have line of sight to every stud bay. This visit is about the skeleton of the system.
We start at the structured media panel location, which is usually a mechanical room, basement utility closet, or a dedicated low-voltage closet on a main hallway. From there we run trunk lines to every floor and every wing of the home. Conduit pulls go in first because they need clearance and bends are easier to set without cable in them. We run 3/4-inch ENT from the panel to each TV wall, 1-inch ENT from the panel to the attic and to the crawlspace, and 2-inch buried conduit to detached structures or to the curb if the build includes outdoor cameras at the property line. Conduit runs over 100 feet always get an intermediate pull box. Skip the pull box and you will be on a roof in two years explaining to a homeowner why their fish tape will not feed.
Cable pulls follow conduit. Cat6A trunks, fiber if specified, RG-6 where the spec calls for it, and speaker wire for any whole-home audio zones. We run speaker home-runs from the panel to each speaker location, not daisy-chained, because a single broken cable on a daisy chain takes out the whole room. Every cable gets labeled at both ends with the room name and the run number before it ever gets stapled. Coordinate stapling with the electrician so we are not crossing each other's runs in the same stud bay. Inspector pre-walks happen here too. We pull a permit when the AHJ requires it for low-voltage, and we leave room for the electrical inspector to see and sign off on his stuff before we cover anything.
Phase 2
Smart-Rough: After Insulation, Before Drywall
Insulation is in, drywall is staged but not hung. This is the second visit and it is shorter, usually one day on a 2,500 square foot home and two on a 5,000 square foot estate. The work is finer, the decisions are more permanent, and photographs matter.
Box placement comes first. Switch heights get verified with the electrician. Low-voltage rings install at every smart-switch location, every keypad location, every thermostat location, and every wall-mounted touch panel location. Camera back-boxes go in at every exterior camera location. We use 4-inch square junction boxes with single-gang plaster rings for most cameras, and 4-inch round boxes only when specified. Wrong box size at this phase is one of the most common errors we walk into on takeover jobs, because the camera mount will not seal against the wall and water gets behind the trim.
In-wall and in-ceiling speaker cutouts get rough-cut in drywall blocking. Pre-pulled speaker cable gets dressed and tied into the blocking so the trim crew can find it. Theater room rough is its own thing, with a riser blocking detail, projector mount blocking, and acoustic panel attachment points. We coordinate with the framer if any blocking is missing.
Then we photograph everything. Every wall, every box, every cable run, every label, with a tape measure visible in the frame. We shoot the whole home before drywall closes. The photos go to the GC, the homeowner, and our files. When something goes wrong in trim-out or two years later when a homeowner wants to add a sconce, those photos are the difference between a 30-minute fix and an exploratory drywall cut.
Phase 3
Trim-Out: After Paint, During Punchlist
Drywall is up, primed, and painted. Trim and tile are in or going in. This is when the smart-home system actually becomes a system. We come back in and terminate every cable in the panel, install switches and keypads, mount cameras, hang access points, and program the network. Final speaker grilles go in after the painters finish ceilings.
Coordination during trim-out is mostly about timing and protection. Painters get one more pass after our network gear racks in, because the rack itself needs the wall behind it sealed. Tile installers in master baths can damage in-wall speaker cutouts if our cutout patches are not flush, so we walk that wall with the tile lead before they start. Any ceiling speakers near recessed lighting need a six-inch clearance from the can light housing for thermal reasons, which we verify with the lighting trim crew. We also commission the network at this phase, hand-off Wi-Fi credentials to the homeowner, walk through camera coverage with them, and stage any voice-control integration. Builder punchlist gets our items added so nothing closes early.
Working with the Trades
How We Sequence with Your Subs
We follow the electrician by one to three days on rough-in. We follow the insulator and HVAC by a day on smart-rough. We come in after paint and before final trim on trim-out. We do not slow down your schedule. If your electrician is running behind, we move our rough date and notify the GC the same day. If we are running behind, the GC hears it from us, not from a missed inspection.
On site, our crew shows up in branded shirts, hard hats, eye protection, and steel-toe boots. Fall protection rigs come with us when ladder work goes above 6 feet. We bring our own dumpster bags for cable scrap and we sweep the site before we leave each day. OSHA compliance is on us, not on the GC. We will not be the sub the safety officer chases out the front door.
Insurance: we carry a $2 million general liability policy and workers comp on our entire crew. We issue a Certificate of Insurance naming the GC and project owner as additional insured before the first onsite visit. We prefer being on a builder's preferred-sub list, where we hold a slot on the schedule and you get priority response on changes. We work two ways: per-project pricing for one-off custom homes, and a retainer model for production builders running multiple homes a quarter. Retainer locks us into your build schedule and gets you a 8 to 12 percent discount off the per-project rate. We do not bid against ourselves and we do not work as the cheap sub. We work as the sub you trust to walk into a million-dollar home and not get a call from the homeowner.
For the service-page-level overview, see our new construction service page and the related networking and Wi-Fi and security camera pages.
Per-SqFt Ranges
What Pre-Wire Actually Costs
Honest numbers, not bait pricing. Bronze-tier pre-wire on a basic single-family home runs $5 to $8 per square foot, all-in for cable, labor, terminations, and basic structured panel. That covers the data drops, a few TV locations, basic audio, and a small camera package. Standard tier runs $8 to $12 per square foot and adds whole-home audio, full perimeter camera coverage, conduit pathways, and a managed network. Premium tier with conduit everywhere, fiber backbone, dedicated theater pre-wire, and motorized shade infrastructure runs $12 to $15 per square foot.
Real-world translation: a 2,500 square foot custom home runs $15,000 to $30,000 for pre-wire all-in, depending on tier. A 5,000 square foot estate with theater, fiber, perimeter cameras, and full automation infrastructure runs $40,000 to $75,000. Detached structures add $3,000 to $8,000 per structure depending on distance and what is feeding into it. Equipment is separate, billed at trim-out or under a separate purchase order, because finish-level decisions on AV gear typically happen 60 to 90 days before move-in. For a deeper breakdown of total smart home cost across tiers, see our smart home cost in Southern Colorado guide.
What We See on Takeover Jobs
Mistakes That Cost Real Money
Single Cat6 to a TV location. The minute that homeowner adds a streaming device with hardwired backhaul, you are fishing a second cable. Always pull two. No conduit to TV walls. Same problem, worse fix. No pull strings in conduit. A conduit without a pull string is just a tube full of regret. CAT5e specced in 2026, which we still see on builder plans pulled from old templates. CAT5e tops out at 1 Gbps and most consumer gear today already exceeds that. Speaker cable that is not in-wall rated, which fails inspection in any AHJ that actually looks. Camera back-boxes sized for the wrong camera model, which the integrator finds out at trim-out and now everyone is fighting over who pays the change order. The fix on all of these is a 15-minute conversation at framing walk. The cost of skipping that conversation is a phone call from a frustrated homeowner six weeks after closing.
FAQ
Common Questions
How early do you need to be on-site?
Two visits typically. First visit is during framing and rough electrical, before insulation, to do the conduit pulls and main cable runs. Second visit is after insulation but before drywall closes, for back boxes, smart-rough, and final cable dressing. We follow your electrician by 1 to 3 days on most projects. If we are doing a heavy theater or whole-home audio package, plan for one extra day at the smart-rough phase.
Do you carry your own general liability insurance?
Yes. We carry a commercial general liability policy and we will issue a Certificate of Insurance naming the GC and project owner as additional insured before the first visit. We also carry workers comp on our crew. Send us your COI requirements with the contract and we will route it through our broker.
Will you work directly with my electrician?
Yes, and we prefer it. We coordinate box placement, conduit stub-ups, and pre-wire path with the electrician on the framing walk so we are not crossing studs or fighting for the same chase. We bring our own MC fittings and low-voltage rings. If your electrician has never worked alongside a low-voltage sub, we have a one-page handout that covers the workflow.
What if the homeowner changes their mind on TV locations after rough?
It happens. If the change is before drywall, we re-pull. If the change is after drywall, we use existing conduit or pull strings to fish a new run, or we drop a wireless display kit at that location. The cost difference is real and we put it in writing as a change order so the GC and homeowner both see it before we touch anything.
Can you provide a written scope I can give my buyer?
Yes. We deliver a builder-facing scope and a buyer-facing scope. The builder version has cable types, run counts, conduit specs, and termination details. The buyer version translates that into rooms and outcomes, which is what they actually care about. Both are PDF, both are signed, and both can be referenced in your purchase agreement so there is no confusion at closing.
Get on Our Builder Sub List
We work with custom home builders, GCs, and production builders across Colorado Springs, Pueblo, and the front range. Per-project pricing on one-off homes. Retainer model with priority scheduling for builders running multiple homes a quarter. Send your plans and we will return a scope, a COI, and a sub-schedule fit within three business days. Call (719) 286-0035 or use the form below.
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