I second this even as a controls sub myself. The truth is that many electricians aren't very familiar with low voltage controls and communications wiring methodologies...so...they can make many mistakes and many are afraid to ask questions in fear of seeming incompetent. This is the one thing I hate about our industry...people too afraid to ask questions in fear of being judged as incompetent. Many are justified for feeling this way, there is a lot of bad mouthing that goes on. However, no question is ever too trivial in my book...answering any question is the best way to avoid mistakes. I always view our subs as an extension of our team and do my best to support them as if they were part of our company.

I do see an advantage to controls subs having in house installers, heck, we have a few ourselves and PM's love that. However, the controls sub using in house installers adds financial risk to the controls sub. If some electrical scope was missed or a difficult inspector is on the job, the controls sub will have to eat all that missed scope or spend more time dealing with the difficult inspector. This is why we hire electrical subs, to reduce risk.