This has been one of my pet peeves during the renovation of our last two homes - wall acne. I don't know how widespread this term is, but I use that to describe when you have a bundle of different switches, thermostats, and controls placed haphazardly in the same zone of the house, with no regard for esthetics. A few examples follow.:
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| Thermostat, 24V Legacy Automation Lighting Control with 8 Switches, Closet Switch. The light switches are aligned horizontally, the thermostat doesn't line up with anything. |
The problem with wall acne is that it takes time, skill and patience to correct it. In the thermostat example above, I set out to correct the misalignment. There are other posts in this blog which discuss my legacy automation controller and the 24V switches - these have been all changed out for Insteon Switchlinc switches, keypads and dimmers. In this case - I doubled up the wall switch box for the closet light switch to accommodate the Insteon Switchlinc Keypad. The thermostat was moved in line vertically above the light switch and Insteon Keypad, and the new air exchanger control was added above the thermostat.
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| Doubling up the closet light switch to accommodate the Insteon Keypad. |
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| Thermostat moved to vertical alignment |
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| The completed alignment, Insteon Keypad installed with closet light switch, thermostat and air exchanger controls aligned vertically. |
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| Garage Door Controls - Door opener and Legacy 24V Lighting Control. Why doesn't the garage door opener line up either horizontally or vertically? |
On to the garage switches. Besides the alignment, I was bothered by the surface run garage door opener wire, and the lack of a thermostat for my two 4000W wall heaters. Running the thermostat wire down through the wall, and incorporating the garage door opener control wires in the wall necessitated a few drywal cutouts to help with fishing the wire past a structural beam.
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| Aligning the controls with the light switch, and running the wires behind the drywall. |
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| Finished product - Insteon Switchlinc Switch, Thermostat, and Garage Door Opener control all aligned vertically, with wires hidden. |
Maybe I'm a bit fussy about this, but I really don't think so. If some forethought is given to the various trades involved in house construction, and control wires are run behind the drywall during construction (such as the garage door control wires), then this should never be an issue in new construction. But I think the time spent solving the issue is well spent.
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