Low Voltage Contractor for Multifamily and Affordable Housing

Occupied rehab: closed walls, live risers, scheduled unit visits#

In new construction the building is empty, the walls are open, and the cabling crew follows the framer. In an occupied multifamily rehab the building is full of people who live there, the walls are closed, the risers are the only vertical pathway, and every unit visit is a scheduled event that a resident, a property manager and a general contractor all have to agree on. The materials are the same as new construction. The sequence, the hours and the paperwork are not.

That changes the design as well as the schedule:

• A property-wide Wi-Fi layout for an occupied concrete high-rise starts from the riser closets that exist, not from an idealized closet layout.
• A camera layout starts from the corridors, stairs, parking and entries the owner already has trouble with.
• An entry system replaces a panel residents use every day, so the cutover happens in one visit with the old system working until the new one is live.

Telelink Business Services is a licensed C-7 Low Voltage Systems Contractor, CSLB License #472017. We have completed the low voltage scope of occupied rehabs in Los Angeles and San Diego, and those two projects are the basis for what follows.

Who buys low voltage on a multifamily rehab#

The buyer is rarely one person. On an affordable housing rehab the low voltage package is usually decided by three parties working from the same drawings:

• The owner or asset manager, who wants a property-wide Wi-Fi amenity, working cameras and an entry system that stops tailgating, and who answers to a lender, a housing authority or a HUD field office.
• The general contractor, whose estimator carries Division 27 and Division 28 on the bid list and whose superintendent has to fit unit visits around abatement, kitchens, bathrooms and window replacement.
• The property management company, whose staff issue the notices, hold the keys, field resident questions and operate the system after turnover.

We write our bids so that all three can read them. Scope is listed by system and by location, unit visits are counted, and the handoffs to the electrician and the door hardware supplier are stated on the first page.

Systems that show up on nearly every affordable housing scope#

Four systems appear on most multifamily and affordable housing rehabs in California, and they are the four we self-perform.

Property-wide Wi-Fi. Owners are moving from resident-paid internet to a managed network that covers every unit and common area. In a concrete or masonry building that means an access point in or near every unit, not one per floor, because concrete and masonry structural walls block the signal. We design from a survey of the building as it stands, pull Cat6 or Cat6A to each AP location, and install managed wireless on Cisco Meraki or the platform your IT consultant specified.

CATV and MDU distribution. Existing coax plant in older buildings is often a mix of splitters, amplifiers and outlets added over decades. A rehab is where that plant gets replaced with a documented MDU distribution system the video provider will accept: headend, riser trunks, floor taps and a dedicated drop to each unit, installed to California Electrical Code Article 820.

Video surveillance. Cameras in lobbies, corridors, elevators, stairwells, parking, trash rooms and at every exterior door, recorded to a network video recorder or a cloud platform and viewable by property staff.

Access control and entry. ButterflyMX video intercom panels, DoorKing telephone entry and vehicular gate access, card or fob readers at common doors, and package room integration. We install and configure all of these. Door strikes, maglocks and closers are coordinated with the GC’s Division 08 hardware scope or performed by a licensed C-28 contractor.

Compliance hooks when federal money is in the capital stack#

The funding in the deal decides which rules follow the low voltage package. Three come up on nearly every HUD or LIHTC rehab.

NDAA Section 889 and 2 CFR 200.216. Section 889 bars federal agencies from buying covered video surveillance and telecommunications equipment from Huawei, ZTE, Hytera, Hikvision, Dahua and their affiliates. On its own that would not touch a private owner. 2 CFR 200.216 extends the prohibition to federal grant and loan funds, which is how it reaches HUD-assisted housing. Many low-cost camera brands are relabeled Hikvision or Dahua hardware. The fix is to specify and document the actual manufacturer. We submit manufacturer and model for every camera, recorder, switch and access point, using compliant lines commonly specified for this work, such as Axis, Hanwha Vision, Avigilon, Cisco Meraki MV and Ubiquiti UniFi Protect, installed to the named line and verified per model. Our NDAA camera guide goes deeper.

Davis-Bacon and prevailing wage. HUD programs carry federal labor standards when the program and unit count trigger them: CDBG, project-based Section 8, Section 202 and public housing modernization among them, along with HOME Investment Partnerships funds passed through a city or county above the program’s unit threshold. Tax credits alone do not trigger Davis-Bacon, but state or local soft money in the same deal can trigger California prevailing wage under Labor Code 1720 et seq. Your counsel or lender makes the call. We ask for it in writing before we price, and we produce weekly certified payrolls in the format the labor standards officer requires.

Resident notice and relocation. California Civil Code 1954 sets the notice a landlord must give before entering a unit for improvements, with 24 hours in writing as the presumptive minimum. HUD-assisted projects add Uniform Relocation Act rules the moment a resident is asked to leave a unit, even temporarily. Low voltage work almost never needs a vacant unit, which is one reason owners like to run it ahead of the heavier trades. HUD Section 3 labor hour reporting may also apply; your compliance coordinator sets the format and we complete it.

How we phase and coordinate work around residents#

The sequence on an occupied building is set by the available pathways. Risers first, because everything else depends on them. Then the network rooms and headend. Then the floors, one stack at a time. Then common areas and exterior. Then cutover and training.

Risers and pathways. We survey every riser closet before pricing, because a closet drawn as a clean sleeve is often packed with abandoned cable. We remove abandoned cable where the specification calls for it, firestop each penetration we open, and pull backbone fiber and coax trunks while the closets are open once.

Unit visits. Each unit gets one scheduled visit for Wi-Fi, coax and data, and sometimes a second short visit for cutover. The property manager posts a floor schedule, a runner knocks ahead of the crew, and no crew member enters an occupied unit alone. Units are left clean, with outlets labeled per TIA-606 and photographed before the crew leaves.

Common areas and cutover. Corridor and lobby work runs during posted daytime hours. Cameras and entry panels are installed alongside the live systems, then cut over so the entry system stays in service throughout. Wi-Fi goes live floor by floor. Property staff get hands-on training and written instructions for the camera client, the entry platform and the wireless dashboard.

Our occupied building guide walks through this sequence with the paperwork attached.

Occupied-building checklist for your bid package#

Item	Why it matters on an occupied rehab	Who owns it
Funding sources and labor standards determination	Decides Davis-Bacon, prevailing wage and NDAA obligations	Owner, counsel
Riser and closet survey with photos	Pricing is wrong without it	Telelink
Resident notice template and lead time	Sets the earliest unit visit date	Property management
Unit visit schedule by stack	Lets the GC sequence other trades	Telelink, GC
Manufacturer and model list for cameras and network gear	Required for the NDAA compliance file	Telelink
Electrical handoff points (rack circuits, TR bonding)	Electrician scope, shown on submittal	Telelink, electrician
Door hardware schedule	Access control integration depends on it	GC, Division 08
Existing video provider contact	Coordinates the CATV cutover	Owner
Closeout: test results, as-builts, labeling schedule, training	Turnover to property staff	Telelink

Proof: Little Tokyo Towers and Horton House#

At Little Tokyo Towers in Los Angeles, an occupied multifamily renovation, Telelink installed property-wide Wi-Fi, CATV distribution, surveillance cameras and access control while residents lived in the building. At Horton House in San Diego, an occupied senior housing renovation, the same four systems went in along with a nurse call system, which added care schedules and vulnerable residents to the phasing plan. Both case studies describe the scope the way it was performed.

Next step#

Send the drawings, the funding summary and the resident notice lead time to request a bid, and a scoped bid comes back with unit visits counted and the electrical and door hardware handoffs marked. General contractors carrying Division 27 and 28 can read how we work inside your schedule on the general contractor page.