New construction pre-wiring that lands on your build schedule
SetupTeam is the low-voltage trade on your site. We attend the framing walk, mark our drops on your drawings, and pull structured cabling, security, and AV between electrical and insulation — then come back at trim-out to terminate, commission, and hand over documentation.
What does a low-voltage pre-wire actually include?
A pre-wire is every cable that has to be in the wall before drywall goes up: data, coax, speaker, control, and security runs, all terminated back to one central panel. It is pulled after electrical and HVAC rough-in, and before insulation and vapour barrier.
The reason it belongs in the build rather than after it is arithmetic. A Cat6 run costs a fraction of what the same run costs once it has to be fished through a finished wall, and some paths — a ceiling speaker over a two-storey foyer, a camera at a soffit corner, a rack feed through a poured basement — are effectively unavailable once the shell is closed. We plan the full scope at framing so nothing needs to be argued about later.
Structured cabling & data drops
Cat6 or Cat6A home-run to a central panel, with drops at every TV location, desk, access point, camera, and rack position. Drop count and panel size are confirmed on the drawings before we pull anything.
Wireless access point positions
Ceiling-mount AP locations set from the floor plan rather than guessed at afterwards. Placement accounts for wall construction, floor plate, and where coverage actually has to reach — including garages, basements, and outdoor areas.
Security & camera rough-in
Camera runs to soffits, entries, and driveways, plus contact, keypad, and siren positions. Cable is left with proper service loops at each opening so the finish trade is not working against a short tail.
Audio, video & control paths
In-ceiling and in-wall speaker rough-in, TV locations with power and signal in the same cavity, projector and screen feeds, and control runs for keypads, touchscreens, and shade motors.
Rack room, panel, and the documentation that comes with it
We confirm the rack or panel location early — footprint, clearance, power, and ventilation — because it is one of the few low-voltage decisions that constrains other trades. At rough-in every cable is labelled at both ends. At handover you get a drop schedule keyed to the floor plan, panel photos, and device credentials, so the next trade or the eventual homeowner is not reverse-engineering the wall.
Which build teams do we coordinate with?
General contractors, custom home builders, electricians, architects, and interior designers across Toronto and the GTA — and increasingly security dealers who want the cabling handled by someone else. What each of them needs from us is different, so here is what the hand-off actually looks like.
General contractors and site supers
You get one low-voltage trade instead of three, and a scope that is locked before we set foot on site. We attend the framing walk, mark our drops directly on your electrical drawings, and slot into the rotation after electrical and HVAC rough-in and before insulation.
We book our own inspection-ready window, show up on the date agreed, and tell you immediately if something on site has moved the scope. Certificates of insurance and WSIB clearance letters go to your office before the first visit, not after somebody asks.
Architects and custom home builders
On an architect-led build the low-voltage layer usually arrives as a line on a drawing with no counts behind it. We turn that into a real drop schedule — every location, cable type, and termination — and mark it up so it reads alongside the electrical set rather than competing with it.
Where a specification calls for a system by name, we work to it. Where it does not, we will tell you what the house actually needs and what it does not, which is usually the more useful conversation. Our structured cabling and network installation scope covers the backbone; Control4 installation covers the control layer on top of it.
Interior designers
Keypad, touchscreen, thermostat, and speaker positions get decided before they are wired, with you, against the elevation — not discovered by the homeowner after paint. We will hold a location, move it, or gang it with the light switches to keep a wall clean.
Finish and colour selections for keypads and grilles are confirmed at the same time, so the trim-out visit installs the right part in the right place. Where a speaker or panel genuinely cannot be concealed, we say so at rough-in while there is still room to change the plan.
Electricians and security dealers
We stay out of your way and off your circuits. Low-voltage runs are kept to correct separation from line voltage, crossings are made at right angles, and we work around the panel schedule rather than through it.
For security dealers, we are happy to be the cabling trade only — pull, label, and terminate to your spec, and leave the panel and monitoring relationship entirely with you. For builders who want it under one contract, security camera installation and monitoring hardware can come from us instead.
Send the floor plan and your framing date — we will come back with a marked-up drop schedule and a fixed price.
Send Your DrawingsWhen does low-voltage go into the build schedule?
Three visits, and only one of them sits on your critical path. The framing walk happens while the shell is open, the rough-in slots between electrical and insulation, and the trim-out lands after paint with the rest of the finish trades.
Framing walk & scope lock
We walk the open shell with you, confirm every drop against the floor plan, and lock the rack or panel position. Anything that conflicts with duct, plumbing, or a structural member gets resolved on the spot. You leave with a marked drawing and a fixed price.
Rough-in between trades
We pull and label every run in the window you give us — after electrical and HVAC, before insulation and vapour barrier. Service loops are left at each opening, plates are marked, and we photograph the walls before they close so the as-built record exists.
Trim-out, commissioning & handover
After paint we return to terminate, mount, and configure — jacks, keypads, speakers, cameras, access points, rack build. Everything is tested against the drop schedule, then handed over with documentation and a walkthrough for whoever takes the house.
If the schedule slips, tell us and we move — a rough-in booked against a framing date that has shifted two weeks helps nobody. What we ask for is the window, not the exact day.
What drives the cost of a new construction pre-wire in Toronto?
Drop count, cable spec, and how hard the house is to run cable through — in that order. A pre-wire is priced per project rather than off a rate card, because a 40-drop Toronto bungalow on open joists and a 40-drop three-storey with a poured basement are not the same job.
We quote a fixed price off the marked-up floor plan after the framing walk, itemised by system so you can see what a line costs before deciding to keep it. Labour rates for our standard residential and commercial services are published on our pricing page; structured wiring is quoted rather than listed for the reasons below.
Total home-runs to the panel, and whether the build calls for Cat6 or Cat6A, plain or shielded, riser or plenum. Speaker gauge, coax, and control cable are counted separately. This is the line most worth trimming early and most expensive to add late.
Storeys, engineered versus open-web joists, poured concrete, steel studs, firestopping requirements, and how far the furthest drop sits from the panel. A long horizontal run through drilled engineered lumber costs materially more than the same run in an open bay.
Enclosure or rack size, whether we supply switches, access points, cameras, and control hardware or terminate to yours, and how much trim-out configuration the system needs. Documentation and handover are included in every quote rather than billed after.
For a longer read on where the money goes on a renovation versus a new build, see our guide to low-voltage wiring on renovations and new builds.
Which systems do we rough in and commission?
Everything below is pulled at rough-in and finished at trim-out by the same crew. A builder can take the full stack under one contract or pick the parts they do not already have a trade for.
Network, Wi-Fi and the rack that ties it together
Structured cabling and network installation is the backbone every other system sits on. UniFi installation covers the switching, controller, and access points where a build calls for it, and Wi-Fi optimization handles coverage tuning once the walls are up and the real conditions are known.
On the AV side we rough in and commission home cinema installation, Sonos installation for distributed audio, and Control4 installation where the project wants lighting, shades, audio, and climate on one interface. Security runs are covered by security camera installation.
For a commercial shell — an office fit-out, a clinic, a multi-suite building — the same crew handles commercial network installation to the same documentation standard.
Why builders keep us on the trade rotation.
Because the low-voltage trade is usually the one that creates callbacks, and this is the version that does not. One contract, one crew, a fixed price off the drawings, and a paper trail that survives the handover — on sites from downtown Toronto out to Newmarket and Oakville.
- One trade for cabling, network, security, and AV — no sub-tier to schedule or chase
- Scope locked at the framing walk and marked on your drawings, with a fixed price attached
- We slot into the existing rotation — after electrical and HVAC, before insulation
- WSIB compliant and $2M liability insured; certificates and clearance letters issued for permits, condo boards, and site offices
- Sonos Gold Dealer and Control4 Authorized Dealer — equipment, programming, and warranty from one source
- Labelled cable, an as-built drop schedule, and pre-drywall photos handed over at completion
- Ongoing technology support plans available so the homeowner calls us, not you
We work across Toronto and the wider GTA — see the full list of service areas, or look through recent work for finished builds.
Trade partner questions — answered.
Bring us in at the framing walk.
Send the floor plan, the framing date, and roughly what the house needs to do. We will come back with a marked-up drop schedule and a fixed price — usually within two business days.
WSIB compliant · $2M liability · Certificates issued for permits and condo boards · One trade, framing walk to handover
