New Rochelle is a tower boom bolted onto 11,500 houses

Twice, and both are earlier than most schedules assume. First at rough-in, alongside the electrician, to place sleeves, back boxes, conduit stubs and the pathway from the lobby to the head-end closet. Second at trim, once doors are hung and hardware is set, for devices and terminations.

What we need from you before rough-in: the door schedule with hardware types, the elevator make and whether the bank is traditional or destination dispatch, the location and power provision for the head-end, and confirmation of who is furnishing electrified hardware: the door supplier or us. Nine out of ten conflicts on a residential tower come from the electrified hardware being supplied by one party and prepared for by another.

One per controlled entrance that the public can reach, which usually means the main lobby, the garage pedestrian door and any secondary street entrance. A second station in a vestibule inside the first is worth it where the building wants a two-stage entry: visitors call from the street, packages and residents pass a second controlled door.

The directory format matters more than the count. In a 200-unit building a scrolling name directory becomes unusable for anyone who does not already know the resident’s name, so a keypad-and-code path and a resident-initiated release from a phone should both exist alongside it. Ask for the panel to be specified with the directory populated at handover, not left for a superintendent to type in one name at a time.

In our experience the order is: exposed screw terminals inside an outdoor enclosure, then fasteners and any dissimilar-metal joint, then powder-coated housings through pinholes, then gaskets and dome bubbles. Electronics themselves usually outlive their enclosures on the Sound.

The specification that actually helps is unglamorous. Gasketed enclosures rated for outdoor use with the glands facing down, a drip loop on every cable entry, marine-grade stainless where a stainless fastener has to touch aluminum, conformal-coated boards where available, and a rinse-and-inspect visit annually. Also: mount things where wind-driven spray does not sit on them. A camera two feet under a soffit lasts several times longer than the same camera on an exposed corner.

Most people want it, and it is the single most-used feature in a modern building. It is also the feature that lets a resident open the street door for someone they have never seen, from a train, without looking at the screen, which is how a good deal of package theft and unauthorized entry happens.

The design answer is not to remove it but to record it properly: every remote release logged against the apartment and the time, with a camera at the door recording the same moment so the two can be matched. Buildings that have that data have a very different conversation with residents about vestibule incidents than buildings that only have a video clip of a stranger walking in.

Genuinely a trade-off, and the answer usually comes down to the riser. If the existing conductors can carry video, the incremental cost of video over audio is modest and the benefit is obvious. If it means a full riser replacement, the cost jumps by an order of magnitude and a good audio system with a camera at the door feeding the building recorder gets you most of the value for a fraction of the money.

The other factor is who answers. Video only helps if the person deciding to open the door actually looks at the screen. In a small owner-occupied building that happens; in a high-turnover rental it happens less. We will tell you which one your building looks like rather than assuming video is automatically the upgrade.