Plan the low-voltage work for a build-out or office move at the floor plan, before framing. That covers structured cabling, WiFi, cameras, door access, phones and the network closet. Order the internet the week the lease is signed, get cable into the walls before drywall, and give one contractor one schedule so move-in day is not the day you find out what is missing.
The lease is signed, the general contractor has a schedule, and the furniture is ordered. Somewhere near the bottom of the list is a line that says “IT and phones.” In most build-outs that line gets attention about two weeks before move-in, which is roughly six weeks after the moment it mattered.
Lowcountry Technologies, an IT company in Rincon near Savannah, does structured cabling installation and the systems that ride on it for businesses moving into new space, from a single suite in Pooler to a warehouse off I-95. This post is the sequence we wish every tenant, property manager and general contractor had before the first wall went up: what low-voltage covers, when each piece has to happen, the item with the longest lead time, and when the honest answer is to reuse what is already there.
When Should Low-Voltage Planning Start on a Build-Out?
At the floor plan, before framing. Low-voltage work happens in two passes: cable goes into open walls and ceilings during rough-in, and devices get mounted and connected after finishes. Miss the first pass and the second one gets harder, slower and uglier.
1. Floor plan
Mark every desk, printer, TV, camera, controlled door and access point. Pick the closet. Order the internet.
2. Rough-in
Walls are open. Cable, back boxes and any conduit go in now, alongside the electrician, not after.
3. Before ceilings close
Cable above the grid is pulled, labeled and tested. Anything missed here means lifting tiles later.
4. Trim-out
Jacks, access points, cameras, door hardware and the closet go live, then a walk-through before anyone moves a box.
Get on the general contractor’s schedule, not after it
General contractors schedule trades in a fixed order, and the low-voltage crew needs a window between framing inspection and drywall. If nobody asked for that window, it does not exist. The fix is cheap: put the cabling contractor on the same schedule as the electrician, and make sure the electrician knows where the closet, the access points and the controlled doors need power.
What Does Low-Voltage Cover in a Commercial Build-Out?
Everything with a thin cable that is not electrical power: data drops for desks, printers and phones, cable to WiFi access points, security cameras, door access control, the alarm system, conference room audio and video, and the network closet that all of it runs back to.
Data drops. Count them from the furniture plan, not the floor area. A good rule is two at every desk and one at every printer, TV and phone location that is not on a desk, plus spares in the conference rooms. Adding a drop after drywall costs several times what it costs during rough-in.
WiFi. Access points belong where the coverage design puts them, which is rarely where the old ones were or where the ceiling grid makes it easy. We covered how that design gets done in our post on commercial wireless network design, so here the point is timing: the design has to exist before the ceiling cable is pulled.
Cameras, doors and the alarm. These touch other trades. A controlled door needs the right hardware from the door supplier, power from the electrician and a tie to the fire alarm so it releases when it should. Decide which doors get access control and where cameras go while the door schedule is still being written, and bring the alarm and monitoring plan into the same conversation.
The room nobody draws
Every cable in the building ends in the network closet, and on a lot of floor plans it is a leftover corner next to the water heater. It needs a dedicated circuit, a battery backup, somewhere for the heat to go, a door that locks, and enough wall or floor space for a rack with room to work on it. On this coast, keep it off an exterior wall and off the floor if the building has ever taken water. A closet that cooks itself every August will take the whole office down with it.
What Is the Longest-Lead Item in an Office Move?
The internet connection, almost every time. If the carrier already serves the building, activation can be quick. If it has to build into the building, it can take longer than your entire construction schedule, and nothing you do on site makes it faster.
Order it the week the lease is signed, and ask the carrier directly whether the building is already lit or needs construction. Coverage maps are optimistic. Plan a second path from a different provider, or at least a cellular backup that takes over on its own, and have it on site for move-in in case the main line is late. Opening on a temporary connection is normal. Opening with none is not.
The phones have a deadline of their own. A business phone system has to send the caller’s location with a 911 call, and the federal rule for multi-line phone systems says it cannot be operated unless it is configured to pass that “dispatchable location” to the 911 center. Moving the phones to a new address, or to a new floor, means updating that information before the first call goes out, not after.
What Happens to the Old Cable When You Move In or Out?
Test what is there before you plan around it, keep only what passes and lands in the right places, label it, and expect to remove the rest. Cable left above a ceiling is not free infrastructure. It is often a code issue someone will have to pay for.
The National Electrical Code has said for more than two decades that the accessible portion of abandoned communications cable is not permitted to remain, as Electrical Contractor magazine laid out when the rule arrived. “Abandoned” means not connected at both ends and not tagged for future use. Whether your inspector enforces it depends on the code your city or county has adopted, so ask before you assume the ceiling can stay a museum.
Read the lease for the other direction too. Many commercial leases require the tenant to remove its cabling at move-out, and a landlord who finds a ceiling full of it will price that into your deposit. If you are leaving one space for another, budget for both ends of the move.
Should the Electrician or a Cabling Contractor Run It?
The electrician should run power. Data cabling, WiFi, cameras and access control go better with one low-voltage contractor who will also configure and support what the cable connects to, because then one person owns whether it works on move-in day.
Splitting it up is where things fall through: one crew pulls cable, another mounts cameras, a third sets up the network, and nobody tested the run to the access point in the far corner. Whoever you hire, ask for labeled cable at both ends, test results for every run, and a drawing of where everything went. In Georgia, low-voltage work is licensed through its own division of the state construction licensing board, separate from electrical, so it is fair to ask for a license number and check it.
And the tradeoff, honestly: if you are moving five people into a suite that was an office last month, the existing cable tests clean and the closet is sensible, you may not need a cabling project at all. Test it, add a drop or two, move the equipment, and spend the money somewhere else.
Seven Things to Settle Before the Drywall Closes
1. Is the internet ordered, and has the carrier confirmed whether the building needs construction?
2. Is every desk, printer, TV, camera, access point and controlled door marked on the plan?
3. Where is the network closet, and does it have its own circuit, ventilation and a lock?
4. Is the low-voltage crew on the general contractor’s schedule between framing and drywall?
5. Has the existing cable been tested, and is everything not reused coming out?
6. Who updates the 911 location on the phones before the first call from the new space?
7. Who hands you the labeled drawing and test results when the job is done?
Build-Outs Around Savannah and Well Beyond
A lot of the new space around here is going up fast: flex and office suites along the Pooler and I-95 corridor, medical and professional offices in Effingham and Bryan counties, and warehouse space that grows with the port. Fast construction is exactly where low-voltage gets skipped. We take on cabling projects nationwide as well, including multi-site rollouts, and our post on warehouse network infrastructure covers the larger end of the same work.
Have a Floor Plan or a Move Date?
Send us the plan, even a rough one. We will mark up the cabling, WiFi, camera and door locations, flag the long-lead items, and tell you what in the existing space is worth keeping.
Frequently Asked Questions
When should low-voltage cabling be planned in a build-out?
At the floor plan, before framing starts. Cable has to be in the walls before drywall and in the ceiling before the grid is closed, and the internet order can take longer than the whole construction schedule. Planning it after the walls are up means surface raceway, extra cost, or both.
What does low-voltage include in a commercial build-out?
Data cabling for desks, printers and phones, cable to WiFi access points, cameras, door access control, the alarm system, conference room audio and video, and the network closet that ties it together. Electrical power is separate and belongs to the electrician.
How far ahead should a business order internet for a new office?
As soon as the lease is signed. If the carrier already serves the building, activation can be quick. If it has to build into the building, it can take months, and a temporary cellular connection is the usual way to open on time anyway.
Can we reuse the cable already in the space?
Sometimes. Test it before you plan around it. Cable that passes and lands where your desks go can stay, labeled. Cable that is untested, unlabeled or ends in the wrong places usually costs more to work around than to replace, and abandoned cable above the ceiling may have to come out anyway.
Low-voltage is the cheapest part of a build-out to get right and one of the most expensive to fix afterward. Order the internet early, get the cable in before the drywall, and give one contractor the whole job and the whole schedule. The rest is details.
And if the space you are moving into already has good cable in the right places, keep it. Nobody should sell you a cabling job you do not need.
Planning a build-out or a move? Ask us. Straight answer, no pressure. Call (912) 335-0175.