Spot the speaker: Flush-mount speakers disappear into the wall.

A friend who installs home-entertainment systems has a story about in-ceiling speakers. He'd done a whole-of-home audio job in the eastern suburbs and every room got at least two speakers. After he'd finished, the client got a painter to colour-match all the ceilings to the speaker grilles. It was only after this that the guy discovered the grilles could have been painted to match the ceilings.

Practically all in-ceiling and in-wall speakers have paintable grilles, but here's a tip for first-timers: paint the grilles separately, let them dry, and then clip them in place over the innards of the speaker. And take them off before cleaning, too.

The attraction of in-ceiling and in-wall speakers, known as flush-mounts, is that once in place they tend to disappear from sight. They are flush with the surface and can be the same colour, so tend not to be noticed. They're a good compromise if space is tight or when your partner won't countenance regular speakers dotted around the room.

Colour match: Most in-ceiling and in-wall speakers have paintable grilles.

Brands include Pyle, Bose, Sonance, Kef, Canton and Opus One. Among the dealers I spoke to, Yamaha is the popular customer choice, with prices starting at $349 a pair and going to $529. Get into the specialist brands such as SpeakerCraft and prices range from about $400 to $1200 a pair.

Lots of home theatres have regular speakers at the front and in-ceiling speakers at the rear, which works because the in-ceilings usually only provide fill-in sound. Occasionally, when a voice or a key piece of soundtrack is at the rear, it can sound odd coming from above, but you'll only notice this occasionally.

Flush-mounts have two disadvantages.

The first is installation. A hole has to be cut and cables run to the audio source. This involves mucking around, dust and disruption, and of course dollars, especially in double-brick houses. Plasterboard is easier to cut but there's still the cabling. For a couple of speakers, think anywhere from $300 to $500 for installation.

The second: flush-mounts seldom sound as good as regular speakers. There are a couple of reasons for this.

See the article here:
Flush-mount speakers look good, sound OK

Brooklyn, New York (PRWEB) August 27, 2014

LED lighting supplier and manufacturer LED Waves is pleased to unveil the PR15 Square Ultra Thin LED Recessed Light: a 13 Watt ceiling fixture comparable to a 60 Watt halogen downlight.

The new product is modeled after the PR15 Round Ultra Thin LED Recessed Light, a longtime best seller from LED Waves. The original PR15 fixture gained a devoted following particularly with residential and commercial lighting designers for both aesthetic and mechanical reasons. Its strong yet diffuse glow lends itself to high end home and hospitality settings, and its uniquely low profile (less than inch in height) eases installation even in tight ceiling spaces.

The PR15 Square Ultra Thin LED Recessed Light delivers the same pleasant, hotspot-free lighting experience as the original round PR15 just out of a new 6x6 inch light source. Both round and square-shaped units are available in warm white (3000K), neutral white (4000K) and cool white (6000K) color temperatures; include dimmable or non-dimming options; and are covered by LED Waves three year warranty.

The PR15 Square Ultra Thin LED Recessed Light is available for pre-order at LEDWaves.com. Pre-orders will begin shipping out on September 22nd, 2014. Large quantity discounts are available for certified resellers by calling 1(800)986-0169.

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New Low-Profile Square LED Recessed Fixture from LED Waves

August 22, 2014 - Addressing line of sight challenges, MiniStation features Vertica adjustable pendant arm and can be ceiling-mounted for accelerated and facilitated repositioning. Counterbalanced arm, which lets operator position display where needed, can also be adjusted vertically. Promoting clear visibility of work area while maintaining instant interface access, HMI supports various customizations; examples include fully integrated keyboard trays, keyboard and mouse ports, KVM extenders, and mountings. Strongarm Designs, Inc. 425 Caredean Dr. Horsham, PA, 19044 USA Press release date: August 21, 2014

Strongarm Designs has developed an HMI solution that addresses the challenges faced by drill cabin operators. The MiniStation features the industry standard Vertica adjustable pendant arm, and can be ceiling-mounted to allow for quick and effortless repositioning. The counterbalanced arm allows the operator to position the display exactly where needed, and can be adjusted vertically to suit the operator's preference.

The MiniStation addresses one of the greatest challenges faced by drilling rig operators, line of sight. Operators need to have clear visibility of the work area while maintaining instant access to their interface displays.

Xtreme Coil Drilling Corp. recently employed the new solution to solve its ergonomic interface challenges.

Gary Werner, project engineer with Xtreme Coil Drilling, said "We required a robust overhead mounting system, complete with display that provided adequate adjustment flexibility for operator use and servicing control panels locations. We needed to allow the operators to move their monitors in order to improve visibility, unlike our preexisting monitor equipment that was fixed-mounted.

"We investigated competing operator interface system vendors, but Strongarm was the only one willing to address our requirements by directly involving their design team personnel to meet our specific requirements and delivery schedule."

Strongarm's ability to rapidly customize these systems meant that it could address all of Xtreme Coil's interface needs. These included fully integrated keyboard trays, easily accessible keyboard and mouse ports, KVM extenders for remote PC locations, and customized mountings to facilitate easy installation into the operator cabins on drilling rigs.

The rest is here:
Ergonomic and Customizable HMI addresses drill cabin challenges.

August 21, 2014 - Intended for fire alarm and emergency communication systems, Wheelock Exceder LED Series includes ceiling models for horns, horn strobes, strobes, speakers, and speaker strobes. Series features dual voltage 25/70 Vrms, field selectable tap settings from 1/82 W for speaker models, and field selectable candela settings of 15, 30, 75, and 95 cd. With frequency response spanning 3008,000 Hz, speaker and speaker strobe models suit mass notification applications. Eaton Corp. Eaton Center Cleveland, OH, 44114 USA Press release date: August 13, 2014

Eaton Provides Energy Efficiency, Cost Savings with Expanded Line of Wheelock Exceder LED Series Ceiling Notification Appliances

LONG BRANCH, N.J. Power management company Eaton today announced that its Cooper Notification business has expanded its Wheelock Exceder LED Series to include ceiling models for horns, horn strobes, strobes, speakers and speaker strobes. The Wheelock Exceder Series is the industrys first line of notification appliances to utilize high-efficiency light emitting diodes (LEDs) as the strobe light source to help reduce overall costs in fire alarm and emergency communication systems.

The addition of new ceiling appliances completes our low candela line of Wheelock Exceder LED products, said Huyenchau Villas, product manager, Eatons Cooper Notification business. Our break-through optical design and energy-efficient LED technology leads the industry in low current draw, which equates to lower installation costs, reduction in materials and overall system savings for customers.

Exceder LED ceiling appliances offer one of the industrys smallest footprints in a sleek, modern design. For faster and easier installation, the series includes dual voltage (25/70 Voltage Root Mean Square), five field-selectable tap settings (1/8 to 2 watts) for speaker models and multiple audible settings for horn models, field-selectable candela (cd) settings (15, 30, 75, 95 cd), and convenient mounting options for both new and retrofit construction.

The Exceder LED speaker and speaker strobe models feature the widest frequency response range in the industry spanning 300 to 8,000 Hertz. Ideal for mass notification applications, the wider frequency response range allows the speaker to reproduce frequencies closer to the original sound, improving the clarity and comprehension of the intended message for intelligible communications.

Eatons Cooper Notification business offers the Exceder LED ceiling speaker data files for the EASE Evac software design tool from AFMG technologies to help system designers meet intelligibility code requirements,. To import the files, visit http://www.coopernotification.com.

To learn more about this solution or others from Eatons Cooper Notification business, visit http://www.coopernotification.com.

Eatons Cooper Notification business is a leader in developing integrated, advanced technology and code-compliant solutions for life safety and mass notification, providing critical, emergency communications for higher education, industrial, commercial, government and military markets.

Eatons Electrical Sector is a global leader with expertise in power distribution and circuit protection; backup power protection; control and automation; lighting and security; structural solutions and wiring devices; solutions for harsh and hazardous environments; and engineering services. Eaton is positioned through its global solutions to answer todays most critical electrical power management challenges.

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Notification Appliances utilize LEDs as strobe light source.

New York, NY (PRWEB) August 18, 2014

Turner Construction Company is pleased to announce that construction is underway on a $28 million modernization of Kramer Middle School in Washington, DC, which has not seen a significant renovation since its original construction in 1943.

On this job we are putting more than $17 million in place in nine weeks, which is no small feat, said Kaan Celebi, project manager. He continued, Im confident that we will pull it off for the students, the client, and the community.

Scheduled for completion in phases, planned improvements include installation of a new elevator, build-out of IT and electrical closets, replacement of the buildings mechanical and life safety systems, and installation of upgraded windows, exterior doors, and exterior lighting.

On just the second day of wall and ceiling demolition, the project team began hanging ductwork and piping for the updated mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, by the second week, they had installed steel on the roof to support the installation of mechanical units which arrived shortly thereafter, and by the fourth week they had completed inspections and begun painting and finish work on two floors. Work still ahead includes additional architectural upgrades to hallways, classrooms, bathrooms, the cafeteria and the gymnasium, and the schools entrances.

About Turner Construction Company Turner is a North America-based, international construction services company. Founded in 1902, Turner first made its mark on the industry pioneering the use of steel-reinforced concrete for general building, which enabled the company to deliver safer, stronger, and more efficient buildings to clients. The company continues to embrace emerging technologies and offers an increasingly diverse set of services. With an annual construction volume of $9 billion, Turner is the largest builder in the United States, ranking first in the major market segments of the building construction field, including healthcare, education, sports, commercial, and green building. The firm is a subsidiary of HOCHTIEF, one of the worlds leading international construction service providers. For more information please visit http://www.turnerconstruction.com.

About HOCHTIEF HOCHTIEF is one of the most international construction groups worldwide. The company delivers complex infrastructure projects, in some cases on the basis of concession models. The Group operates in the transportation infrastructure, energy infrastructure and social/urban infrastructure segments as well as in the contract mining business. With nearly 81,000 employees and a sales volume of more than EUR 25 billion in FY 2013, HOCHTIEF is represented in all the worlds major markets. With its subsidiary Leighton, the Group is market leader in Australia. In the USA, the biggest construction market in the world, HOCHTIEF is the No. 1 general builder via its subsidiary Turner and, with Group company Flatiron, ranks among the most important players in the field of transportation infrastructure construction. Because of its engagement for sustainability, HOCHTIEF has been listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes since 2006. Further information is available at http://www.hochtief.com/press.

Continue reading here:
Turner Construction Company Selected to Perform Classroom Modernization Project at Kramer Middle School in Washington ...

"Deserted Rooms" by Kristina Siegel and Jorg Schnier

"Bruise" (acrylic, 2014) by Alicia Malik

Lots of mortality imagery in the current Buffalo Arts Studio exhibit, featuring an installation by the artist team of Kristina Siegel and Jrg Schnier, and paintings by Alicia Malik.

The installation is called Deserted Rooms and consists of a gallery space and accoutrements in severe white to off-white. White plaster walls on three sides, the fourth wall a kind of diaphanous white scrim curtain with doorway cutouts, and mid-room two garments or outfits, one female, the other ostensibly male, constructed of the same or similar white gauzy fabric, hanging on white hangers, suspended from the ceiling, the female garment a kind of credible nightdress of simple design, the less crediblein such flimsy material and delicate constructionmale outfit, a sort of suit jacket and pants. One other suspended item, a representation of a window, in similar see-through fabric, of similar sewn manufacture. And as room dcor, on the plaster walls, a half dozen or so photographs of modernistic architecture fragments as abstract artwall and ceiling planes and angles of intersection, and what looks like the railing of a pristine modern staircase or balconyagain in whites and off-whites. Puritan modern.

While in the slight air current throughout the gallery from ceiling fans, the hanging items sway gently back and forth, to and fro, ghostly animating the installation. The work as a whole is reminiscent of a famous painting by Andrew Wyeththe centerpiece painting of an Andrew Wyeth exhibit now at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.of an open window looking out onto a farm field crossed by tire tracks, a line of dark woods on a rise in the distance, and most prominently in the picture, filmy delicate lace curtains blown inward, into the room, on a gust of breeze through the window. The painting is called Wind from the Sea, and it is also a piece about mortality, I think. About the presence of whats no longer present.

Whereas the paintings by Alicia Malik are reminiscent of nothing I know of. Each painting presents a sole subject matter single dead insectflying or crawling variety, housefly, honey bee, mayfly, or beetledepicted relatively small on a relatively large canvas, the remainder of the canvas offering a subdued painterly background to the focal matter dead bug.

What to make of this work? Its about death, of course, of insects, but also of humans, surely, because weartist and audience alikeare humans, and invariably self-referential. So about likenesses and possible differences between the insect mortality situation and our own. Likenesses such as the complete and inexorable finality of demise. Differences such as that humans have traditionally had recourse to palliativesreal or imaginedto the inexorable finality. Religious beliefs about continuance in some way. Secular schemes of continuance via the faculty of memory somehow. The idea of legacy.

But also just about insects, living or dead. The pictorial style is realistic, though not field guide realistic. But we get to glimpseand in a small way appreciatethe incredible fragility and complexity of the insect mechanism. The wing of a housefly, constructed like a cathedral stained glass window, thinning to translucence in light islands amid dark support structure ridges, like the lead bead network around the stained glass in the window.

And also just about painting. The artist Robert Bechtle painted suburban tract houses, with attached garage, and late model Detroit car in the driveway. That is, painted pictures of tract houses, with attached garage, and car in the driveway. Remarkably uninteresting subject matter, it seemed to some observers. Asked why he chose such subject matter, he responded that the subject of painting is painting, only that, to be a painter, you need to find something to paint.

The Alicia Malik and Kristina Siegel and Jrg Schnier exhibit continues through September 13, with extended hours on Fri (8/22) until 8pm.

More:
In the White Room

Installation art: See it now, or don't see it at all. Beckett Fest: options for your Beckett fix. The library pops up. Bike In for free films.

Editor's Note: Were posting our Weekend List recommendations onGoJotter.com, as well as here on Crosscut.You can also follow Crosscut's Weekend List at GoJotter.com/crosscut.

* Denotes events that are $15 or less

CASCADE: Installation by Ian McMahon *

If youre reading this and you havent yet seen this site-specific work well, youve only got a few more days before it is magnificently destroyed. Two theater curtains made out of plaster have taken hold of the gallery, a pair of architectural sentinels extending floor to ceiling that you can examine ever so closely, every crinkle and fold. Ian McMahons sculptures address the notion of time and permanence both of art and of space. The show closes Friday then, two days later, one of the curtains will come crashing down. The demolition event is open to Suyama Space Friends; in other words, make a donation to the gallery and witness something special. How special? Take a look at a previous demolition below.

A Momentary event with a Sculpture: Bringing down the curtain Phone Clip from Ian McMahon on Vimeo.

If you go:CASCADE: Installation by Ian McMahon,Suyama Space, (Free). F.D.

Life=Play: An Evening of Short Works and Rarities by Samuel Beckett

Seattle Shakespeare Company and Theater Puget Sound along with 15 let me say that again 15! organizations are celebrating the Irish multi-hyphenated Samuel Beckett playwright-novelist-theater director-poet over the next three months. Which means you can get your Beckett fix in myriad ways: radio plays, poetry readings, even European clown movement. The Seattle Beckett Fest kicks off with Life=Play: An Evening of Short Works and Rarities, which features some of my very favorite thespians (Carol Roscoe, Ray Tagavilla and Rachel Delmar). You can keep tabs on the entire festival by goinghere.

If you go:Life=Play: An Evening of Short Works and Rarities by Samuel Beckett,West of Lenin Theatre, through Aug. 24 ($20). The Seattle Beckett Fest continues at various venues in Seattle through November.F.D.

Read this article:
The Weekend List: The arts and culture guide to Seattle's good life

AKRON, Ohio -- Ken Merunski has seen home construction mistakes that make him shudder.

He's seen floor joists notched to a dangerous extent to make room for plumbing. He's seen bearing walls that don't align with support beams. He's seen joists butted against ceiling beams instead of overlapping to handle the weight of the roof.

"You'd think the building inspectors would catch it," he said, "and quite often they don't."

Merunski is an architect who sometimes testifies as an expert witness in lawsuits involving residential construction. Between that work and visits to construction sites related to his own architectural practice, he's seen faulty construction that can result in leaks, wall cracks and worse.

Sometimes the builder and the inspector just aren't up to date on requirements for the way materials should be installed, he said. Sometimes they don't know enough about structural engineering to recognize a problem in the making. Sometimes, he said, the builders are taking shortcuts to save money.

That's why Merunski, who owns M.E. Architecture in Seven Hills, Ohio, counsels homeowners to stay vigilant when their homes are being built.

Here are his recommendations.

Show up daily

You've probably already heard the advice that you should visit your home's construction site every day the workers are there. But Merunski takes that recommendation a step further.

Take pictures, he advises. Lots of pictures.

Original post:
Potential problems; Be watchful in home construction process

Princeton Engineering Department reports that Yannuzzi Corporations removal of carpeting, non-asbestos ceiling tiles, lighting fixtures, non-asbestos pipe coverings, copper water piping, electrical wiring and office partitions from the inside of hospital buildings on Witherspoon Street is proceeding slower than anticipated and will continue for the next couple of weeks. To date, 40 dumpsters of 100-cubic-yard capacity containing recyclables have been removed from the site. The removal of additional soil from the location of the 6,000 gallon tank and the installation of the new monitoring well is scheduled to be completed within the next two weeks. Asbestos removal from the interior of the buildings is anticipated to continue through the third week of August. The contractor continues to identify additional areas of asbestos removal. To date 31-40 cubic yard dumpsters of asbestos have been removed from the site. PSE&G cut off the power to hospital buildings on Monday, August 11. A building permit is scheduled to be issued allowing for repairs to be completed to the former Hospital Parking Garage. This work is anticipated to start in late August / early September and take 8 to 9 months to complete. During this time the garage will remain open for limited parking. For more information, call the Engineering Department at (609) 921-7077 or emailcceballos@princetonnj.gov.

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BREAKING NEWS: Avalon Bay

The Southern School District made a number of small improvements to its buildings over the summer, including a new ventilation system in the high school gymnasium.

Prior to the air conditioning installation, the gym had six large fans mounted on the ceiling to provide air circulation. The fans remain on the ceiling but are now joined by two large red air ducts crossing the width of the gym.

It gives us better air quality and helps us meet the air quality standards, Superintendent Gene Haddix said.

The project was made possible through a $60,000 Thomas Foundation grant. The foundation was set up by long-time Wymore residents Margaret and Martha Thomas to support community projects.

Haddix said the gym also contained six electric heating units and that two of them were removed as part of the ventilation project. The other four remain in place for emergency situations.

The school also received new carpet in the guidance office, a tile floor in place of carpet in the art room, a new finish on the gym floor and fresh concrete in areas of the parking lot.

Haddix said the school is still registering students but that he expects enrollment numbers close to 400 students for the coming semester.

Email emily.hemphill@beatricedailysun.com

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Wymore gets HVAC, floor facelift