SERVICE AREA · KINGWOOD · TEXAS
Kingwood AV repair, system takeovers and installation.
Kingwood’s houses span five decades under a heavy tree canopy, and many were rebuilt after Hurricane Harvey. Obsidian AV repairs, rewires and takes over the theaters, control systems, audio and Wi-Fi inside them.
The Livable Forest, from 1971 on
Kingwood is a 14,000-acre master-planned community on the east fork of the San Jacinto River, created by a joint venture of Friendswood Development Company and King Ranch. The first village opened in 1971, and the community kept growing through the 1980s and 1990s, laid out as villages with their own pools, greenbelt trails and associations, some along the Lake Houston shoreline. Houston annexed Kingwood at the end of 1996, so it is part of the city, while village associations still set rules for the outside of homes.
In 2017, Hurricane Harvey brought severe flooding and evacuations to Kingwood. Many homes near the river and the lake were gutted and rebuilt, and that history matters to anyone servicing the AV inside them.
Wiring a house built before network cable
A Kingwood home from the 1970s or 1980s usually has coax and phone wire and little else. Adding speakers, a theater or dependable Wi-Fi means finding routes through the attic, closets and interior walls without opening finished rooms. Two-story plans are harder because the second floor blocks attic access to the first, so runs may need a stacked closet or a chase. Where pulling new cable is not practical, existing coax can sometimes carry a network connection with adapters.
Under tall pines, satellite dishes and antennas need a clear view of the sky, and Wi-Fi meant for a back deck or pool has to work around trunks and dense branches. An outdoor-rated access point under the eave usually does better than pushing signal through an exterior wall.
After a flood rebuild
When drywall is cut out after a flood, the speaker wire, HDMI and network cable that ran low in the walls are often cut, spliced or buried behind new drywall. Wall plates may go back on with nothing connected behind them, and equipment moved upstairs may have been reconnected by someone unfamiliar with it.
Obsidian AV traces and tests each run, records what was lost, then repairs or reroutes it before reprogramming a Control4, Savant or Crestron system to match the rooms as they are now. The same work applies to Lutron lighting and shades whose keypads or wiring were disturbed.
Platform guides for Kingwood owners are below; for faults that come and go, see AV troubleshooting.
PLATFORM SERVICE
Control4, Savant and Crestron after a Kingwood rebuild
In a Kingwood home that was gutted and rebuilt after Harvey, the automation system often came back in a different state than it left. Equipment moved upstairs, walls were closed over new wiring and a controller may have been reconnected by whoever was available at the time.
Control4. After a rebuild, keypads and dimmers may have been replaced or moved, which changes the Zigbee mesh. We check that every device is still in the Composer Pro project, that the mesh reaches the rooms that matter, and whether the dealer account can be moved to us.
Savant. A Savant host relocated during the rebuild may be on a different network path or out of date. We confirm the host, the Blueprint configuration and licensing are intact before chasing problems room by room.
Crestron. If flood-damaged equipment was replaced with newer models, the compiled program may still expect the old ones. We compare the program with the installed hardware and explain what can be adjusted and what needs a rewrite.
Under Kingwood’s tree canopy, we also check where Wi-Fi access points sit, since app control depends on them reaching every room and the back deck.
Platform guides: Control4 service in Houston · Savant service in Houston · Crestron service in Houston
Services available in Kingwood
Before a Kingwood visit
Let us know whether the house was flood-repaired and roughly when, whether the equipment location changed and which rooms lost function at that point. A list of what worked before the storm, even an approximate one, helps separate damaged wiring from programming problems. Router admin access and the internet provider’s name help too.
Villages served in Kingwood
Service requests come from across Kingwood, including Kingwood Village, Foster’s Mill, Kings Mill and Sandstone. These are service areas, not separate offices.
See all service areasAlso serving communities around Kingwood.
Kingwood AV service questions
Our system has not worked right since the flood repairs. What do you check?
Every cable run that passed through the cut section of wall, the wall plates and connectors, where the equipment now lives and whether the control programming still matches the rooms. Wiring faults and programming faults are separated before anything is replaced.
Can whole-home audio go into an older Kingwood house without opening walls?
In many single-story homes, yes, through the attic with in-ceiling speakers. The first floor of a two-story home takes more planning. Wireless streaming speakers suit rooms where no cable route is practical, at some cost in reliability.
Can we get TV without cable under all these trees?
Streaming over a good internet connection avoids the tree problem. An over-the-air antenna may work, depending on the canopy and the direction to the broadcast towers. Satellite needs a clear line of sight, which tall pines often block.
Is it worth writing down a problem that only happens sometimes?
Yes. Note the time, the room, what was playing and whether a restart cleared it. Intermittent faults in older wiring and in closets that run hot rarely show up during a single visit, so a short log narrows them down.
Discuss your Kingwood system
Call 346-357-5323 with the village, whether the house was flood-repaired and what is not working.