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Smart Home & Home Cinema Installation in Cheshire
SMC Custom Installs designs and installs Control4 smart home systems, home cinema, lighting control, networking and CCTV across south and west Cheshire, from Chester and Tarporley to Nantwich and Crewe. We are based in Shrewsbury, straight down the A49, where our Control4 Certified Showroom lets you see and use everything before you commit to it.
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Get in TouchClose Enough to Do the Job Properly
We are not a Cheshire company, and we will not pretend otherwise. Our showroom, our workshop and our engineers are in Shrewsbury, at the Shropshire end of the A49. In practice that closeness is what matters: we can survey your property properly before quoting, install without rushing the finish, and come back quickly when something needs adjusting after handover. We have worked across the county for years, and little of south or west Cheshire is much more than an hour from our door.
Why Cheshire Homes Suit Smart Home Work
The countryside between the A49 and the Welsh border is dairy country, and its housing shows it: brick and timber-framed farmhouses, converted shippons and barns around Malpas, Tattenhall and Bunbury, and village houses that have grown in stages over two or three centuries. Walls are thick, floors are solid and a fair number of properties are listed, so chasing cable through everything is rarely the right answer. We spend much of our time in Shropshire working with exactly this kind of building, and the approach carries straight across the border: design around the structure, run cable where the building allows it, and use wireless control where it does not.
Rural plots bring their own opportunities. A barn conversion at first fix is the perfect moment to get structured cabling and a properly designed network into the fabric of the building, and a property with a long drive, outbuildings or stables usually wants coverage and security thought about as one job: gate intercom, CCTV, and WiFi that actually reaches the home office across the yard. Our guide on when to involve an installer covers the timings that matter. We plan that stage alongside architects, electricians, builders and interior designers as a matter of routine; our page for building professionals covers how that works.
Townhouses, Suburbs and New Developments
Chester and Nantwich hold some of the best period townhouses in the north west, many in conservation areas where nobody wants trunking on show or the upheaval of a rewire. This is where wireless smart lighting control earns its place: it replaces the existing switches and talks over radio, so the wiring in the walls stays exactly as it is, and you get proper dimming and scenes without touching the fabric. The same thinking applies to networking: rather than fight thick walls with a single router, we design coverage around the building you actually have.
At the other end of the scale, the modern developments around Chester, Nantwich and Crewe are plasterboard-built and straightforward to retrofit, and if you are buying off plan, first fix is the cheapest moment you will ever have to wire a house properly. Our Lutron upgrade guide is a useful read if a previous owner has left an older lighting system in place.
What Cheshire Households Ask Us For
A large share of our Cheshire enquiries start with the same frustration: a lovely house with hopeless connectivity. Rural addresses between the villages often make do with modest broadband, and thick-walled farmhouses swallow WiFi, so before anyone mentions automation we are usually asked for a network that copes with home working, streaming and a family of devices at once.
From there the usual requests are Control4 systems that bring lighting, heating, audio, blinds and security onto one app and one set of keypads; multi-room audio and video so music follows you around the house; dedicated cinema and media rooms, often in exactly the kind of barn or outbuilding Cheshire has in quantity; and CCTV and gate intercoms for properties that sit back from the lane. If you already own a Control4 system and have lost touch with whoever installed it, our Control4 support and takeover service exists for exactly that.
We Are Not a Cheshire Company
There are installers in Chester and across Cheshire, and for a small job on your doorstep one of them may well be the sensible choice. What we offer instead is a Control4 Certified Showroom an easy drive down the A49, our own in-house team, and the same engineers from survey through to programming and aftercare. For a whole-house system, a cinema room or a barn conversion at first fix, most people decide that is worth the journey. If it is not, we will say so.
Smart Homes in Cheshire, Answered Plainly
Do you charge extra to work in Cheshire?
No. South and west Cheshire is part of our normal working area, so you are quoted the same way as a project in Shrewsbury. We survey in person before quoting, and travel is not itemised separately for the areas listed on this page.
Where is your showroom, and is it worth the drive from Cheshire?
Our Control4 Certified Showroom is at Battlefield Enterprise Park on the northern edge of Shrewsbury, so it is the first part of the town you reach coming down the A49: about forty minutes from Nantwich and under an hour from Chester, with private parking on site. You do not have to visit, but almost everyone who does says it settled questions that no brochure could. Call 01743 234945 to arrange a time.
Can a smart home be retrofitted into a period or listed Cheshire property?
Yes, carefully. Listed status and conservation areas rule out some approaches, but wireless lighting control, discreet cable routes and well-designed wireless networking mean a period farmhouse or townhouse can have modern control without visible damage to the fabric. We survey first and tell you which parts are straightforward and which are not before you spend anything.
We are converting a barn. When should we speak to you?
As early as you can, ideally before first fix. Getting cable into the structure while it is open costs a fraction of retrofitting it later, and it does not commit you to buying equipment at the same time. Even if the budget only stretches to the wiring for now, the options stay open.
Do you support Control4 systems that somebody else installed?
Yes. Taking over systems from installers who have moved on or stopped trading is a regular part of our work, and we offer a free remote health check first so you know where you stand before committing to anything.
Keep exploring: Smart Home Installation · Home Cinema · WiFi & Networking · Control4 Costs · All Areas We Serve