Short answer: for new construction, bring in an integrator during design — ideally before permits are even final. For a retrofit, the right time is now, because most of a retrofit's cost comes from working around what's already there, and that math only gets worse the longer you wait.
New Construction: The Timing That Actually Matters
Building a home is the one moment you'll ever get a truly clean slate for technology — and it's also the easiest project to get wrong, because by the time most homeowners start thinking about smart home features, the walls are already closed.
The right sequence:
- During design/architectural planning — an integrator can flag equipment locations, mark up electrical plans, and make sure conduit and low-voltage pathways are part of the drawings from day one.
- Before framing is closed — this is the last real opportunity to run network cabling, speaker wire, and conduit without opening a finished wall.
- During finish/trim — this is when in-wall panels, keypads, and speakers actually get mounted, and when the system gets programmed and commissioned.
Our full breakdown of what gets missed lives in 5 Things Your Houston Builder Forgot About Pre-Wiring — the short version is that most builders are focused on the structure, not the low-voltage systems, so the homeowner (or their integrator) has to be the one insisting on it.
Retrofit: Working Around What's Already There
Retrofitting an existing home is a different discipline entirely — instead of designing from a blank slate, the work is largely about achieving the same outcome without unnecessary demolition. That means leaning more heavily on:
- Wireless and mesh-based control where running new wire isn't practical
- Existing electrical infrastructure, upgraded selectively rather than replaced wholesale
- Strategic, targeted wall openings — a good integrator can often fish wire through existing cavities and patch a handful of small access points rather than opening entire walls
A retrofit generally costs more per room than the equivalent scope would have cost during new construction, simply because of the labor involved in working around finished surfaces. It's still very achievable — most of MavTech Pro's projects are retrofits — it just changes the design approach and, in some cases, pushes projects toward wireless audio or wireless lighting control where a wired run isn't realistic.
Renovation: The Best of Both Worlds
If you're gutting a kitchen, finishing an attic, or doing a whole-home renovation down to the studs in certain areas, you get new-construction-level access in exactly those areas. This is the ideal moment to add wiring you'd otherwise have to retrofit later — even if the rest of the home stays wireless for now.
What This Means for Budget
New construction pre-wiring is genuinely inexpensive relative to the value it protects — running extra Cat6 and conduit during framing costs a small fraction of what the same cabling costs to retrofit later. See our smart home cost guide for full pricing tiers either way. The honest budget advice: over-wire during new construction, even for systems you're not ready to install yet. Unused conduit costs almost nothing; unrun conduit costs a wall repair later.
The Bottom Line
The single biggest mistake in either scenario is waiting too long to bring in a professional. In new construction, that means losing your one chance at a clean, wired foundation. In a retrofit, it means another year of living without the system you actually want. Either way, a free consultation early in the process — even before you've picked a builder — is the cheapest insurance you can buy against redoing work later.
