A general contractor’s new house had all seven pre-run camera cables sealed behind fresh soffit. We located them through pot light openings, opened only small sections, recovered every cable and installed six siren-and-strobe colour night-vision cameras where originally planned.
Property: New detached home (the general contractor’s own house), GTA
Completed: July 2026
Services: Security camera installation, cable recovery
Installed: 6 colour night-vision cameras with built-in siren and strobe
The problem
We pre-wire new builds for a general contractor we’ve worked with for years. When it came time to do his own house, we ran seven camera cables out to the soffits during rough-in, the same way we always do.
Then the soffit crew came through and closed everything up. When we arrived to mount the cameras, there wasn’t a single cable end visible on the outside of the house. All seven were sealed in behind brand-new soffit.
We’d planned it as a quick half-day job. It wasn’t.
How we got the cables back
- Removed nearby pot lights. A pot light opening is a ready-made hole into the soffit cavity, so we used them to look inside and work out roughly where each cable had ended up.
- Opened the soffit in small, targeted spots instead of pulling off whole panels, then fished each cable back out to its planned camera location.
All seven cables were recovered. None had to be re-run from inside the house, and the cameras went up where they were originally planned.
What we installed
Six colour night-vision cameras with a built-in siren and strobe. These cameras show full colour at night without needing a bright white floodlight, and the siren and light can react when a person is detected, which is often enough to make someone turn around before anything happens.
The lesson for anyone building
Pre-wiring only works if every trade knows the cables are there. After the low-voltage rough-in:
- Photograph every cable location before anything gets closed in.
- Leave cable ends coiled and labelled where they can’t be missed, or poking through so they can’t be covered.
- Walk the soffit, siding and drywall crews through the locations before they start.
A ten-minute handover saves a return visit and patching later. We cover the full list of what to run before insulation in our pre-wire guide for new builds.
Already lost track of your cables?
If you pre-wired a house and now can’t find the cable ends, it’s usually recoverable without major damage. Call (647) 588-9688 or send us a message.
Related: security camera installation · structured cabling · more projects