# Shoddy school construction



## Sayen (Oct 29, 2009)

Putting up a show is hard enough. Tracing problems for five years through a 'new' and 'state of the art' building is stupid.

Audio board keeps shutting off randomly. I have a team tracing wires. Might be the sequencer. Or bad wiring leading to the rack. Or the breakers. Electricians might come today to help out. Or tomorrow. Show opened last night.

Lighting keeps losing control. I've changed the cables from the console, and the console, twice now. Monitored those brand new snazzy Leviton piece of junk dimmers. I have no idea why we're losing control. Electricians for the district don't even know what DMX is, and I'm not sure they understand 3-Phase either, so they're not much help. Maybe I'll have the crew sit in the catwalks with flashlights?

Backstage work lights keep flickering. And turning off. My running crew, while very close to being able to see in the dark, can't actually see in the dark. Actors can barely manage when the lights aren't off. Contractor swears they checked the ballasts, so it can't be their fault, of course.

AC was full on all week, so it's been in the 60's during rehearsal. They finally 'fixed' the AC, opening night was 85 degrees in the house. I didn't go backstage, but I sent my poor actors water.

The worst my old building had to deal with was rats and a few roof leaks. Can we trade back?


----------



## ruinexplorer (Oct 29, 2009)

Ah, the joys of non-theater experienced architects and contractors.


----------



## mstaylor (Oct 30, 2009)

We have a HS that bought an Expression and ETC dimmers some years back. They were supposed to bring me in to consult but they chose not to. They had a local electrical contractor do the work. They took a bunch of circuits away from the theatre lighting and hooked them to the house lights. I can give you a bazillion looks in the house lights but I can't light the flipping stage because I don't have enough circuits.


----------



## acoppsa (Oct 30, 2009)

Ahh I can't wait! 
I'm going in to school tomorrow to look at our new 'state of the art' performing arts centre. I'm expecting that our extremely low budget will mean that I am destined for many problems like this in the near future.


----------



## Soxred93 (Oct 30, 2009)

mstaylor said:


> I can give you a bazillion looks in the house lights but I can't light the flipping stage because I don't have enough circuits.



Ah yes... one of the things I hate about my theatre..

At our theatre, house lights are controlled by 7 dimmers. 7. I'm since soft-patched them so they only are controlled by channel 48 (we have an express 24/48), but that still doesn't give us back the 6 dimmers which could be used for something more productive.


----------



## len (Oct 30, 2009)

Well, the ship has sailed, but you should be putting this in writing to the school district. If you discovered this stuff when the building or work was new, something may have been fixable. But now, the builder can argue the mistakes were done by someone else. Most new construction/remodeling work comes with a warranty. And certainly anybody big enough to do construction on a school should be willing to stand by their work, but now is too late. Either way, you should still document everything to the higher ups so that:

a. they'll give a closer look to using the same contractor next time;
b. they'll include end users in the process more;
c. it's easier for you to negotiate for more $$ for repairs


----------



## Sayen (Oct 30, 2009)

It's been a five year battle, and I have stacks of documentation several feet high. Literally, since I like to carry my stack into meetings to prove points. I've won a few battles, like the one over our lightboard. We started with a GMA Light, which is great but grossly inappropriate for a high school like ours. They agreed to swap it after much bellyaching from me, and I assumed we would get the spec'd board, which was either a Strand 520i at the time or (Expression? Don't recall). Instead we received the much cheaper and much hated Innovator. A few years later, with more documentation and hate mail from parents we have our Element, so I can cross one item off the list.

I mentioned, conversationally once, that I would never hire that contractor again. The response was, and I quote, "Well, we like them, so we're going to."

Facility manager got the AC working right for us, there's some blessing. I'd much rather troubleshoot systems in a comfortable environment.


----------



## Footer (Oct 30, 2009)

Sayen said:


> It's been a five year battle, and I have stacks of documentation several feet high. Literally, since I like to carry my stack into meetings to prove points. I've won a few battles, like the one over our lightboard. We started with a GMA Light, which is great but grossly inappropriate for a high school like ours. They agreed to swap it after much bellyaching from me, and I assumed we would get the spec'd board, which was either a Strand 520i at the time or (Expression? Don't recall). Instead we received the much cheaper and much hated Innovator. A few years later, with more documentation and hate mail from parents we have our Element, so I can cross one item off the list.
> 
> I mentioned, conversationally once, that I would never hire that contractor again. The response was, and I quote, "Well, we like them, so we're going to."
> 
> Facility manager got the AC working right for us, there's some blessing. I'd much rather troubleshoot systems in a comfortable environment.



You had a grandMA Light and the swapped it for an innovator? Hopefully you also got a 15k reimbursement! If not... I know plenty of people that would have met you in a back alley with an expression 3 or a 500 series strand.


----------



## museav (Oct 30, 2009)

You may still have some leverage. Installed systems often come with a one year 'system warranty' and it is pretty common to keep 10% or so of the construction cost as retainage that is not released until everything is complete, including receiving system documentation, etc. Of course if those with authority have released full payment or don't ask for or enforce the warranty, then you are pretty much out of luck.

The problems in all this typically boil down to two things. One is that when the work is 'complete' and 'acceptable' depends greatly upon what is defined in the Contract Documents (the drawings and specifications) as those documents define the expectations for the Contractor's work. Documents that reflect a great design can still be poor in how they address the related contracting issues. The second factor is that schools are often limited to hiring the 'lowest, qualified bidder' or they only look at the qualifications of the General Contractor and not at the subcontractors or even both, potentially giving you the lowest G.C. bid with no consideration of their sub's qualifications.

I'll also bring up another point. New buildings take some shaking out. And stuff happens during construction. One common situation is that on one side people take the perspective that if construction is scheduled to be complete a certain day then they can start having regular use the next day. At the same time, the Construction Team is often being pushed to compact the construction schedule. The result is a recipe for an unfinished, poorly tested and problem filled building. Always try to leave some time in the schedule for thorough testing and some accommodation for delays. The projects that I've worked on that were most successful had from a week to a month or more that was sort of a 'shake out' period before regular events or use were scheduled.


----------



## chris325 (Oct 30, 2009)

Sayen said:


> Instead we received the much cheaper and much hated Innovator. A few years later, with more documentation and hate mail from parents we have our Element, so I can cross one item off the list.



The Innovator? I'm surprised they switched out a GMA to Colortran. As for the hate mail, did the board freeze in the middle of a show? I've had too much experience with that. I hope that my school will also soon recieve an Element to replace our purple, green and yellow paperweight. Not to completely blast Colortran, but I've gotten too many battle scars from their lekos, and too many headaches from their consoles.


----------



## photoatdv (Oct 30, 2009)

While a GMA is a little much for a school, I would have LOVED that at our high school. We had an express and my last 2 years I felt quite limited by it.


----------



## Sayen (Oct 31, 2009)

Footer said:


> You had a grandMA Light and the swapped it for an innovator? Hopefully you also got a 15k reimbursement! If not... I know plenty of people that would have met you in a back alley with an expression 3 or a 500 series strand.


You would think, and I made that argument many, many, many times. My local dealer offered to help, but as a teacher I'm at the bottom of the bottom, and it's against state law to buy used gear with state funds. I thought we were swapping a GMA Light for a smaller board plus additional equipment. Where the Innovator came from I never learned. In hindsight, I REALLY wish I'd kept my mouth shut and kept the GMA. I wound up buying my own ION anyhow.

The fun continued tonight. Some sort of failure in the power sequencer (I think) nixed two amps and the digital EQ I argued against. I had to raid my personal studio for gear and another EQ half an hour before show. Oh - and I'm not making this up - after intermission one row of chairs actually broke free from the floor and started tipping back. The handle came off the door of one dressing room, so my crew had the fun of tactically removing the door the old fashioned way. We did have fun, and I have to admit I need to use my sawzall more often.

Hate mail from parents was at my request, to document the damage done to the experiences of their children. I also learned tonight that the contractor hired a specialist to do quality control, and the district fired him for being too critical. I'm not sure how that works.

This isn't shakedown, this is five years into a building. The only things that are reliable are the bits of equipment I've purchased myself and installed. I'm just summarizing the disaster, because in many ways it's funny. We've actually taken plenty of steps to document problems, submit work orders and punchlists (they admitted they throw out punchlists!), and consulted legal specialists on more than one occasion. Unfortunately nothing will get done, and the kids get screwed, but at least none of it can be pegged on me - except requesting the GMA be replaced, I suppose. Well, and the door I cut apart tonight.


----------



## Sayen (Oct 31, 2009)

Oooh, you'll enjoy this. When the Innovator first came, and later with the Element, I was forbidden to install them or unbox them, because the district had to _pay to fly out a specialist from the company._ I was told they needed to be programmed to work with our special system and I wouldn't know how to hook it up (it's fancy, something called DMX-512). Oh, and I'm not supposed to use the new DMX outputs onstage - they originally supplied three universes, but no outputs - until they are 'programmed.' It's possible the powers above have some control issues.


----------



## photoatdv (Oct 31, 2009)

Just tell um you have a degree in "Plugging in DMX Cables"...


----------



## Sayen (Oct 31, 2009)

Can I count that as my training?


----------



## epimetheus (Oct 31, 2009)

Sayen, I feel for you, I really do. I'd be so frustrated... Shoot, I'm getting riled up just thinking about it. I'd have a real hard time not telling somebody to shove it, but then you've always got to consider keeping your job.


----------



## photoatdv (Oct 31, 2009)

Sure! Want a fancy degree from "The University for Teachers with Stupid Administrations"?


----------



## museav (Oct 31, 2009)

Or it could be that they had some issues regarding maintaining warranty or getting what they contracted or constraints related to liability or any of a number of legitimate reasons for prohibiting your installing it. You really have to understand the different perspectives and all the factors involved in order to assess why some things are done the way they are, there may or may not be good reasons for it that are not clear to everyone.

The "quality control specialist" mentioned may have been a third party commissioning agent. The problem is that using that approach probably meant the original designer and installer were not kept in the loop during construction so if the Commissioning Agent was let go there was then likely no one with the experience and qualifications to assess the work or any issues that came up. The bottom line in many of these situations is that someone with the authority approved the work and released the Contractors from further responsibility. At that point you lose most of your leverage and recourse.

Chairs breaking free, door handles coming off, etc. five years after the facility opened sounds like they might be maintenance and operations issues rather than installation issues. It would be difficult to tie them back to the original installation unless there was a recurring history of such problems.

You had not previously noted that it was five years but my comment on the 'shakedown' period may still be applicable, if that was not allowed during the initial construction then many things may not have been tested and adjusted as they should and thus can later become long term headaches. I have multiple times seen corners cut and long term reliability compromised in order to meet some short term goals.


----------



## photoatdv (Oct 31, 2009)

We had a door handle break 5 minutes before curtain once. Didn't break off (at least until it had some assistance) just was no longer moving the lock thingy (what's that called?). So our very stressed out student TD (who was possibly also altered at the time) went up there to try to get our crew off the catwalk and freaked that they were stuck (forgetting the 2 other doors...) and decided he had to break the door down. Now instead of getting tools to do so, he insisted upon breaking down a metal FIRE DOOR using just his body. Watching him pretty much body slam/ kick/ bash it for about 3 minutes was quite fun other than dodging the flying bits of metal! When he gave up there were several large dents in the door and the handle was in MANY MANY pieces. Never did get it open though! At some point amidst calling for a drill it occured to him to just go another way


----------



## Sayen (Oct 31, 2009)

epimetheus said:


> Sayen, I feel for you, I really do. I'd be so frustrated... Shoot, I'm getting riled up just thinking about it. I'd have a real hard time not telling somebody to shove it, but then you've always got to consider keeping your job.


It was frustrating and depressing for the first two years. I can point to over 100K wasted in the auditorium alone. Now, five years in, it's funny. The chairs haven't worked since they were installed, and the person in charge deletes emails. I've had rows taped off for ever show since we opened, although this is the first time an entire row has tipped over during a show, with audience in them. Just picture it - and no one was hurt, so it's okay to laugh.

Most doors don't latch in the building - often the latches were either installed backwards so the door won't engage, or the latch is installed using the wrong hardware, so they fall off every couple of weeks. I keep a screwdriver hidden in the booth, the lobby, and backstage to facilitate quick door repairs. I've started using locktite on them, but I'll catch hell if anyone finds out.

It took four years of asking, followed by angry parents demanding, to get audio schematics. When they finally delivered they only gave me ClearCom wiring. It was a very funny meeting, with tons of important people. The contractor made a big speech about how we just need to give them time and ask nicely, and they'll supply what we want...then handed me the wrong plans.

Neither the general contractor, subs, or district trusts us with keys to the equipment, including storage drawers in the audio racks, or the racks themselves. Fortunately most of those keys are universal. Best conversation I've had was where I explained we were having volume problems with the ClearCom and couldn't hear some lines. The contractor countered that it was an easy fix, just had to adjust the knob on the back of the unit. I asked for the key, and was told I couldn't have it - I might mess something up!

I turned a light switch off the other day, and the wall plate fell off. Turns out the hole in the masonry was cut too big, and the screws were held in with bits of metal taped into place. It's just funny now - you can't make this kind of stuff up.

No one can find the circuit breaker panel for my blackbox. No one.

If you wear a wireless mic and touch the walls, you can actually hear the phase shifting. It's actually very cool for class demos.

Contract finished the landscaping, district signed off at the head shed, and no one told the school. Since maintenance didn't know, no one took care of the landscaping watering system which consequently froze, broke, flooded, and then dried out all of the plants - underground, where no one knew about it.

I have all but physical evidence that some of the people in charge hired friends from other companies, without state bids. The parents filed a freedom of information request for budgets, and are still being stonewalled. Someone is very worried at the top.

When it came to lighting, the contractor and lighting dealer questioned the purchase of equipment going into a high school. They were both under a gag order not to talk to school employees like me. Someone at the top compared written specs, and made decisions based on that. Our gear ranges from purchases like the GMA - a great console - to what looks like some homemade architectural controls that have never worked.

Instead of fixing a ground issue with lighting, the contractor actually supplied, as an official solution, a bent piece of wiring and some metal to jimmy a cabinet. System not working? Short it out yourself to restart.

All of this really is funny, at least now. It's fun to share too, only because no one quite believes it at first.


----------



## Les (Oct 31, 2009)

Too bad the district signed off on it...

I say - find a new district. Sounds like you will never get all the kinks worked out and even if you do, they still won't trust you. I just think that life is too short and you're better than to have to deal with people like this.


----------



## museav (Nov 1, 2009)

Sorry to hear you had such a mess, there are way too many stories like yours out there. It can be almost as frustrating from the Consultant side as well. All I can do on a job is offer input, recommendations and comments to my Client, what they do with that is up to them. And unless I can reference some relevant code or documented accepted industry standard practice (of which there are very few), anything I offer is only a recommendation or opinion, not a requirement or mandate. I've had Clients who listen carefully to those opinions and weigh them thoroughly and I've had Clients who simply ignored anything that didn't fit their ideas or goals.

I recently recounted the story in another forum where I had designed a small sound system for a school theatre renovation, a nice system but definitely nothing fancy. The School District came back and directed us to redesign the system using a particular speaker that the Sound Contractor who got most of their work had used in the past. We found out that what they wanted was one of these, Welcome to KDM Electronics a speaker that it turned out they had been installing in gymnasiums but that was totally inappropriate for the space and application in question. We wrote a letter explaining why we designed what we did, identifying the problems with the proposed speaker, but they persisted. Since they provided the direction in writing and it did not conflict with any codes or other accepted standards, our only real choice was to either do what was asked or end our involvement. We chose the latter, telling them they had our design and that using it or not was their choice, however we would not ethically or morally issue something we knew would not work. I have no idea what they actually did after that as we had no further part in the project. Sort of the old "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink" situation.


----------



## emac (Nov 15, 2009)

Im sorry this happened to you...... My school district(im a student) a few years ago decided to build us a blackbox (yayayayay we are alternative school and have no) they got around to expanding one wall, painting the walls a dark navy blue, installing black out curtains, giving us 8 ancient fixtures, and building a booth with stairs that cut the space in the room next to us down by a fourth until they realized that the booth could not be wheel chair accessible. The big thing was we were on the third floor and the WHOLE building was not wheel chair accessible. On top of that they completely ignored our director when ever she tried to give us advice. 

In the next few years they built a VERY nice preforming arts center at the school next to us and when we needed a stage to preform on because the stage were we usually preformed on was booked the person incharge at that space pretty much said no cause he did not want us there even thought we COMPLETELY rearranged our schedule for them

anyways they now moved us to a new location and i have only a cafetoruim to work with  but i did manage to get some movers for our dance committee now i just need to get DMX for my laptop 


i feel your pain


----------



## dcollins (Nov 26, 2009)

Soxred93 said:


> Ah yes... one of the things I hate about my theatre..
> 
> At our theatre, house lights are controlled by 7 dimmers. 7. I'm since soft-patched them so they only are controlled by channel 48 (we have an express 24/48), but that still doesn't give us back the 6 dimmers which could be used for something more productive.



7? Is that all? Try 14. Though I also have twice as many dimmers as you do, I don't understand why the designers felt that I need to independently control each of 6 chandeliers, each of 6 sets of incandescent lighting, and each side of the casino windows, when I'd be fine with maybe 4 dimmers, but also decided that it was OK to have a stage electric with 9 dimmers, 2 of which don't work, and 4 of which are taken up by strip lights.

If only we had the chance to design our theaters...or the money to redesign them...


----------



## Les (Nov 26, 2009)

dcollins said:


> 7? Is that all? Try 14. Though I also have twice as many dimmers as you do, I don't understand why the designers felt that I need to independently control each of 6 chandeliers, each of 6 sets of incandescent lighting, and each side of the casino windows, when I'd be fine with maybe 4 dimmers, but also decided that it was OK to have a stage electric with 9 dimmers, 2 of which don't work, and 4 of which are taken up by strip lights.
> 
> If only we had the chance to design our theaters...or the money to redesign them...




How many watts do these house lights consume? Therein may lie the answer as to why they had to split it up so much. 

We had at least 14 dimmers controlling our 1350 seat auditorium back in high school, and while it seemed like overkill, the reality was that each houselight pulled 500w.


----------



## dcollins (Nov 26, 2009)

You had a larger auditorium than I - mine is about 500 seats, with a balcony, and I think we worked it out and could put the houselights on 6 (2.4kw) dimmers while retaining all the independent control we wanted.

But just because we HAD more dimmers than instruments at the time, they decided that more independent control was better. We since managed to buy, you know, a useful set of instruments.


----------



## mstaylor (Nov 28, 2009)

We have a local HS that did the same thing. I believe when they put in the new ETC dimmers they are half the size of the old so it did require more dimmers. The problem was they replaced with the same number of dimmers and took some the lighting circuits to break up the house circuits. I can give you a ton of looks in the house but I am short of dimmers and circuits to light the stage.


----------



## thatactorguy (Nov 30, 2009)

This particular situation isn't a school, rather a community theatre, which could- I suppose- qualify somehow as "educational": When they got the grant to build the theatre, part of the stipulation was it serve also as a community center. The stage is four feet off the concrete floor, and the three walls of the stage- you read that correctly- are faced with drywall over metal studs. Stage exits are a 5' wide opening DSL & DSR, 29" openings USL & USR, and a 72" opening UC, complete with a four foot drop to the concrete floor backstage. SR/SL exits go to a hallway, on the other side of which are the dressing rooms. Imagine my chagrin when I discovered this little suprise before building my first set up there (Cinderella), a major part of which had "book page" walls to ease scene changes and have a different look on the stage: Stepmother's house and Prince's palace. Fun...


----------



## shiben (Nov 30, 2009)

re the houselights issue, the place I used to work for had an entire rack of dimmers specifically for the houselights. We did have 1100 50W bulbs in 1100 sockets, all on winches (which broke). I believe we had 30 dimmers for the collection, 6 major sections. They were thinking of replacing them all with LEDs that color changed, but budget cuts are a b****.


----------



## SHARYNF (Nov 30, 2009)

As a funny aside, I once was in a meeting with Frank Borman ex Astronaut and president of Eastern Airlines. Some one was talking about how smart he was etc etc. One of my co workers made the comment, He cannot be that smart, after all he went into space in a rocket/capsule provided by the lowest bidder.

Schools are stuck with the lowest bidder, all sorts of crazy bidding rules, and usually the people who control the funds no nothing about what they are doing but are typically afraid to ask for fear of loosing control or looking stupid.

Sharyn


----------



## museav (Nov 30, 2009)

SHARYNF said:


> As a funny aside, I once was in a meeting with Frank Borman ex Astronaut and president of Eastern Airlines. Some one was talking about how smart he was etc etc. One of my co workers made the comment, He cannot be that smart, after all he went into space in a rocket/capsule provided by the lowest bidder.


The statement "It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract." is attributed to Alan Shepard. John Glenn was quoted as saying "You're thinking you're sitting on top of the most complex machine ever built by man, with a million separate components, all supplied by the lowest bidder." And when asked what he thought about while waiting for launch Wally Schirra supposedly replied "This was all put together by the lowest bidder." That their lives depended on the work of numerous lowest bidders for government contracts was apparently often on astronauts' minds.


SHARYNF said:


> Schools are stuck with the lowest bidder, all sorts of crazy bidding rules, and usually the people who control the funds no nothing about what they are doing but are typically afraid to ask for fear of loosing control or looking stupid.


And that is often a huge disconnect, the purchasing people usually know all about contracts but typically know little or nothing about what they are for while the people who understand what is being purchased have little experience or involvement in the purchasing aspects.


----------



## tjrobb (Nov 30, 2009)

And then there is the joy of "value engineering" wherein one tries to get the same result using less material (parts, etc.), and thus less money. Can cause some unusual issues, especially with fly tower construction.


----------



## Sayen (Dec 2, 2009)

I can at least say I am never bored teaching in a school. When I worked professionally there were often gigs where one day flowed identically into the next.

The fun tonight was when the counter, provided by the contractor in the booth, collapsed under the weight of the audio equipment (console and eight space rack with CD/communications/etc). Fortunately a replaceable student was in the way to brace the irreplaceable equipment, and other than a small bruise and some pulled wires for me to resolder tomorrow everything was gently lowered to the ground safely.

The counter, regrettably, split down the length and must be relegated to the firewood pile.


----------



## museav (Dec 3, 2009)

tjrobb said:


> And then there is the joy of "value engineering" wherein one tries to get the same result using less material (parts, etc.), and thus less money.


That was the original, and sensible, concept for VE; trying to gather suggestions to obtain the same quality and functionality for less money or to provide greater quality or functionality for the same amount of money. It has sadly too often become just another form of cost cutting.

An example of the difference was one school theatre where the Contractor, at the Owner's request for Value Engineering ideas, suggested switching from a two line comms system to a single line system. That may have been a legitimate cost savings idea but it was not really VE since it obviously changed the functionality. Luckily, that Owner asked about all of the suggested VE items an dthus was aware of the implications before making a decision, however many times I think the people making the decisions do not really understand what is proposed and make decisions based on assumptions that what is offered is actually VE and would not negatively affect the quality or functionality when the reality is that items offered may do just that.

Then there was the community theatre project where one of the bidders made a "Value Engineering" recommendation on their own to provide speakers that were a step down from what was in their bid. Not only did they provide no justification other than that reduced cost, but it also turned out that the speaker they offered in their bid, for which they were suggesting a further reduction in quality and capability, was itself already deficient compared to what was specified and required. It was pretty obvious the goal was not to provide the desired quality but merely to try to get their bid as low as possible in order to get the work. Another example where without someone identifying that what was proposed was not truly VE and had negative implications on the results, this attempt very likely would been successful.


----------



## ajb (Dec 13, 2009)

Sayen said:


> Lighting keeps losing control. I've changed the cables from the console, and the console, twice now. Monitored those brand new snazzy Leviton piece of junk dimmers. I have no idea why we're losing control.



I know this is a cathartic rant and maybe you're not looking for advice, but do you mean that the Leviton packs stop responding? I have that problem too, I think it comes down to the fact that the packs are fundamentally stupid and get fatally confused at an invalid DMX frame. At one point a board op went to rearrange his headset cable and bumped the power cable to the board--it didn't actually reset the board but evidently screwed up a few DMX frames since ALL 10 of the Levtion packs (spread among various optosplitter outputs) immediately stopped responding. The Sensor+ rack, Seachangers, scrollers, and Twinspins all kept chugging along just fine, but the DDS packs wouldn't respond at all until they all got power cycled. And these used to be our only dimmers! Thankfully we have the Sensor rack now to handle the bulk of our dimming and we can afford to reserve four of the DDS packs as spare for when one of them fails (a monthly occurrence). I've gotten pretty good at replacing their fuse holders. . . .<I could keep ranting, but I don't want to hijack your thread> But you might want to check cable type & length (see if it falls within DMX spec) and termination, or futz with transmission speed in the board settings.

At any rate, our recent renovation was overseen by one benefactor who jealously guarded the architectural and technical plans. This has led to a vast number of WTFs from the worthless wireless headset system that was purchased to fundamental bizarreness in the floor plan--lots of wasted space that with a bit of rearrangement could have given us some much needed storage space--all of which is costing us $$$ to fix now (see Sensor rack). So I feel your pain.


----------



## GrayeKnight (Dec 18, 2009)

It's interesting reading about other high school auditoriums.. 

I'm currently a senior at my high school (Stage Manager for productions... basically keep the space up and running since our school system can't) and have quite the long list of problems. 

I know at least for us our house lights are not tied in to our system, they have their own controls because first and foremost we're an "auditorium" not a theatre. Electricians from the school said they couldn't rewire our catwalk to have more than 9 channels because we "didn't need them for anything that would happen in our space."

Another quite funny story, after 4 work orders and one year the electricians came to our auditorium and told us they couldn't change our house lights because... they were too high up. Needless to say i brought in a pole from my house to do what they couldn't do in one year. 

Also, sorry for reviving the dead thread and hijacking it, but it's something i can relate to since I have all kinds of problems with my space.

Any other stories? This thread is a fun read 

GK


----------



## GHSStageManager (Dec 18, 2009)

I'd actually be interested in knowing if its possible to take control of house lights if they are currently wired to a wall switch


----------



## mstaylor (Dec 19, 2009)

If you are asking can you wire into the circuit to gain control at another location, the answer is maybe. It would depend on a lot of things and you would need to have a local electrician look at it. Many times it will require running new wire so have somebody take a look for you.


----------



## DuckJordan (Dec 20, 2009)

Example on house lights controllable is: In our theater they had the bright idea we will use the dimmer packs for the lights (which is ok i liked that idea) but then also had the bright idea lets only make them controllable from a 5 slider analog box not accessible by anything as far as changing plugs or anything else. Me and the new TD came to the conclusion the next time we go to blow out our dimmer packs as they were stupidly placed right next to an enterance spot on our stage, that we would "rewire" these to go into our DMX Horizon controlled system as well as the manual box, they will never know 


P.S. before you ask yes he is a qualified electrician. and no we would not attempt doing so without first having blue prints, schematics, and the head of the departments go ahead.


----------



## derekleffew (Dec 20, 2009)

Okay, two different issues here.

1) GHSStageManager, unless it's a very small auditorium, the wall switch does not actually switch the power for the houselights. More likely it controls one or more contactors, so it would be possible, for a qualified, licensed electrician with knowledge of relay circuit wiring, to install an alternate control location. Operating the On-Off functionality from your stage lighting control system would not be cost-effective however.

2) DuckJordan, whether or not you can accomplish what you desire is entirely dependent on the make/model of the dimmer packs in question. Many dimmer packs provide for multiple control inputs simultaneously, at its simplest, on an HTP priority basis.


----------



## Sayen (Dec 20, 2009)

I just had the chance to visit another school in my district, unofficially as a crew member for a rental. I'm not sure anyone there even knew I worked for the district.

Older building, and their dimmers apparently failed. The district electricians chose to buy an ETC Sensor system in a roadcase from a rental company, and wired it in 'permanently.' First, the installation involves a box on wheels and cables from the system running across a hallway, with the DMX line run along the wall out to the booth. No trip hazard there. Second bit of genius was the electrician's choice of circuits. As near as I could tell they just gave it their best guess where power needed to go, with only fifty dimmers (and it looks like only power for half) available. That's three up in FOH, six or seven over the stage, a couple of random floor pockets, etc...

I was glad I was there for scenery, and not lighting.


----------



## GrayeKnight (Dec 20, 2009)

None of our floor pockets work, because 1) theres so much dust in them and 2) the ones i've cleaned out don't have dimmer modules to power them because 1/4 of ours are broken. If we want to use the floor pockets we have to pull a module that would be powering either an electric or something on our catwalk. Or just drop cable from an electric. However.. With 42 circuts overall thats not something i like doing..


----------



## tjrobb (Dec 20, 2009)

Graye - The strangest floor pockets I have found were discovered post-flood when we were removing the damaged deck. We had 3 or 4 pockets already, we found 4 more... and all four had 2 stage plug (not pin) connectors in them, likely from when the theatre was built in 1928.


----------



## billn (Jan 25, 2010)

> 1) GHSStageManager, unless it's a very small auditorium, the wall switch does not actually switch the power for the houselights. More likely it controls one or more contactors, so it would be possible, for a qualified, licensed electrician with knowledge of relay circuit wiring, to install an alternate control location. Operating the On-Off functionality from your stage lighting control system would not be cost-effective however.

Not necessarily. It would not be hard to have that wall switch control the power to a small dimmer rack. The light board could then control the dimmers. The only real caveat is that both the wall switch and the light board would need to be active for the house lights to work.

To get around this problem, you can use dimmers that default to full on when DMX is not present, then use an inhibitive submaster to control the house lights. There are four possible states to examine here:

1: switch off and board off - no house lights
2: switch on and board off - house lights on full
3: switch off and board on - no house lights
4: switch on and board on - board has control of house light levels


----------



## CSCTech (Jan 28, 2010)

Soxred93 said:


> Ah yes... one of the things I hate about my theatre..
> 
> At our theatre, house lights are controlled by 7 dimmers. 7. I'm since soft-patched them so they only are controlled by channel 48 (we have an express 24/48), but that still doesn't give us back the 6 dimmers which could be used for something more productive.



Haha, try 14 dimmers being used for house 
Plus 12 of our dimmers arent hooked up, one leads to no where, ones broken, and one is a spacer.


----------



## Morpheus (Jan 29, 2010)

CSCTech said:


> Haha, try 14 dimmers being used for house
> Plus 12 of our dimmers arent hooked up, one leads to no where, ones broken, and one is a spacer.



is it a reall dimmer then, or an AFM (?) Air Flow Module (installed in racks to help channel air alog the other dimmers.


Also, the reason why house sometime 'appear' to take up more dimmers than they need:
Wattage.
EACH DIMMER CAN ONLY HANDLE 2.4K WATTS (standard ETC dimmers anyway. [yes, there are larger, i know, but they take up 2 or more rack spaces]), BUT THE TOTAL STILL DEPENDS ON SYSTEM WIRING.
So, if you run 300 watt lamps, with a 15 amp circut... 15ampsx120volts= 1800 wats max (for that circut)... 1800/300 = 6 lamps. with 120 watt lamps (1800/120) = 15 lamps... HOWEVER, it is possible that at some point further down, the amp rating might drop again (not sure why it would, but yea. I would double check)...

So, anyway, yea... house lights (usually) HAVE to be on more than one dimmer, it's not just to piss off people 


(disclaimer: all math is off the top of my head, feel free to correct)


----------



## MarshallPope (Jan 29, 2010)

Off topic, but this made me wonder - 
Has anyone with nice, neat individually dimmed rows of house lights ever gone House Out with a wave from the stage to the back? Might be distracting, but I bet it would look pretty darn cool.


----------



## Morpheus (Jan 29, 2010)

MarshallPope said:


> Off topic, but this made me wonder -
> Has anyone with nice, neat individually dimmed rows of house lights ever gone House Out with a wave from the stage to the back? Might be distracting, but I bet it would look pretty darn cool.



Sort of, my high school was wired like this...
But we didn't know much back then, so who knows if we effectively used it


----------



## masterelectrician2112 (Jan 29, 2010)

Our houselights don't dim but they can be controlled either from architectural controllers or from our expression 48/96. The wiring is very crazy though. I thought they could have at least wired them in zones that make sense. When I get back there, I'll try to post a diagram of the patch. It is quite interesting and makes half-house a nightmare to program.


----------



## zmb (Mar 22, 2010)

My school (the one with the best drama department of five others in my district) doesn't have a theater so for almost everything we use theater in the nearest school. The theater was a renovation in an existing building that has no lobby, no dressing/make up rooms, no wing space, uses 5 portable dimmers with 4 600w outlets each and 20a twist-lock connections, a sound board in a booth a reinforced (mesh inside the glass) and unopenable window that is also too high to see all of stage from for lighting.

Anyways, the main users of the space have repeated tried to use 750w lamps on the 600w dimmer and have abused the dimmers to the point that the fuse holders snapped off the circuit board inside the case.


----------



## Burgeonite (Apr 10, 2010)

These stories make me so happy to have a good theatre.(except for the fly rail)


----------



## Parker (Apr 10, 2010)

Burgeonite said:


> These stories make me so happy to have a good theatre.(except for the fly rail)


...at least you have a fly rail


----------

