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Pimping Out a New House
Jason Michael Perry writes "I just got pre-approved to buy some gutted property in New Orleans. A lot of the houses I'm looking at are blank canvases that need new wiring, new walls, new everything. I've always dreamed of a high-tech house that says my name when I walk in the door and now is my chance to get a close as I can with current technology. So I'm looking for ideas to pimp out a newly renovated house with all the best technology. If you had a blank canvas to start with, what would you do? Run CAT-5 or fiber optics? Build a closet for servers and A/V equipment? Build a 7.1 speaker system into the living room walls and ceilings? Install automated lights and intercom (with support for Apple equipment)? How about appliances, the kitchen, and other spots... what cool tech can I use there? My only rules and requirements are support for the four Macs I have in the house, and reasonable support for technology on the fringes."
smurf tubing
(cheap plastic conduit)
I would (and have for both houses I have owned) install CAT5e. It's cheap, you can install it yourself, and all the computerized crap you'll need (or want) will have NICs.
Also keep in mind that you might not want to live in that house forever so whatever crazy crap you put in there might be a turn off for a prospective buyer. In that aspect, make sure you document and have layouts of all your excess cabling (network, cable, telephone, speaker cord, etc...).
Mr. Universe: "They can't stop the signal, Mal. They can never stop the signal."
http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/duh/ Although this doesn't really address your technical questions exactly, there are surprisingly a lot of good ideas in there.
Author of Enyo: Up and Running from O'Reilly Media
Yeah, second that. Run some cheap 1" id tubing from your central computer closet, to the same places you run your cat-5. Leave pullcords in each tube. When the next big thing comes along, you have an easy job of rewiring.
We are all just people.
I have no idea if they exist yet, but after I saw them in Blade Runner as a kid I always dreamed of being able to dim and outright black out my windows with the push of a button.
o ws/switchable-glazing-windows
Took me a long time to find thanks to Microsoft, but here you go http://www.toolbase.org/Technology-Inventory/Wind
http://www.sage-ec.com/ makes them and links to a number of places like http://macdonaldsystems.com/glazing.htm that sells them.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
No, Cat5 isn't a waste of money. Wireless N may have 137mbps or whatever but it is a shared medium- you only have one wireless channel for your network to run on (unless you turn your RF power down and split up into cells). So assuming 1 AP for your house, ALL your devices have 137mbit to play with. That's like running gb ethernet into a HUB- data between machine a and b, will slow down transfer between C and D.
An example might be if you have a central mythtv box, and several TVs. If you stream from the box to one TV, that may not use up all 137mbit, but add a second stream and you might.
So yes, run Cat5.
Also conduit runs to everywhere (leave the pull string in) and cubbyholes for APs are great ideas. That will future proof almost anything- and if you add something with the conduit, pull both the cable and another pullstring so you can keep adding stuff.
--IronHelix
Put two things of Cat 6e and a thing of Coax to each room, 6e is not that expensive drag the wires to the wiring room put them on their own rack , put a cheap gigaswitch here, wire your phone service so that you can now just jump each connection so it is either phone or data as you want.. You can now route single/dual data to each room as you want w/ the switch you can afford, Fiber is pointless because its for long haul really (at least in its current version), you need fast switching, which as far as I am aware doesn't exist for fiber. Verizon will bring fiber to your house w/ FIOS but that will switch back to XbaseT to connect to your network... oh you can also put a filesystem here..
.. do you want a media room / den? It could be fun :)
btw since you have 4 macs, do the proper file system / networking so they have common logins i.e. each machine sees the same file system and userlogins.. the cool thing is this works w/ ppc and intel macs.. You can even set it so your laptop works the same way w/ very little work (it will resync as you come back to the network).
I've thought about doing the speaker thing.. this is up to you if you can dedicate to a room to such things
We just put in a HDTV and stereo system. This was a real problem in our existing construction, since we had to run about 25 cables of various sorts.
Instead of putting components in a closet, we used a TV shelf in an unused corner. Helps keep kids out of it, uses the space, and swivels for access.
We wired for 7.1 sound, so that is 8 new wires. We used orb speakers, they are small and nice. We also ran wires to the kitchen and deck. I have heard some amps support dual subs, but we only ran one RCA.
I ran a 35 ft HDMI and component and some composite just to be sure, since the TV is difficult to mount / dismount. HDMI / HDCP stinks, we have to power cycle the amp/box occasionally when it gets screwed up. Grrr.
Order your cables online, there are many cheap places with nice cables. Maybe I should have run two HDMI, but I assumed I could always get a switching amp.
Having the wires hidden is really nice and clean, not a jumble of HT mess. The Wiimotes hang around and a couple of DVD cases usually, but that is not too much clutter.
Cable, new power, Ethernet. Nice wall outlets where needed.
And we left pull ropes in case we need to run more cable in the future.
Whatever they pay guys to run cable in existing construction, it is not enough.
And we used a shelf in an existing closet to hide the cable modem, VOIP, and router. Just cut a hole for the wired ETH and run some power into the closet.
One system that I have looked at is PlutoHome http://plutohome.com/index.php
:)
They can in some circumstances integrate just about everything you want for automation, Phone (Asterisk), Lighting (Insteon, X10 and others), Security, HVAC (I think), and presence based services (Music, phone calls, video follows you from room to room), TV, DVD jukebox, etc.
And if you want to install it yourself you can, or you can have it professionally installed.
For the infrastructure, go for Cat5e, and Wireless A/B/G. Fiber is overkill and doesn't appear to be coming to a desktop as a standard install anytime soon.
Conduit as others have mentioned is also a great idea... How many HD connectors have there been in the last 3 years? How about the next 10? Put in generous counduits between your video devices (TVs, Projectors, etc) and your server room/closets. (3 inch should be good)
Multi Zoned Heating/Cooling System. (If you are looking for do it yourself, Pluto has some built in, and DIY Zoning http://diy-zoning.sourceforge.net/
Depending on Cell phone converage, possibly integrate a Cell repeater in the house.
Plan for also quite a bit of COAX for satelite or Cable. 2 COAX or more per data drop, remember you can use good COAX for your Component, or digital COAX audio also.
Zoned in wall speakers with room based controls (Like A-bus or similar). For the actual home theater system I would stay away from the in wall speakers, stick to good floor standing or wall mountable speakers. For Speaker Wire check out this site before you drop major dolars on "Premium" speaker wire http://www.roger-russell.com/wire.htm.
Plan for Sound deadening your rooms. (http://www.soundproofing.org/index.html or http://www.soundisolationcompany.com/
Also consider running Data cabling where you might not think to, Washing machine, Dryer, Fridge, Stove, Microwave, Freezers. At least you can use this data cabling for alarm circuits to monitor temperatures inside your freezer and fridge to check for temperatures out a range (It sucks to come home to an upright freezer that the door didn't close and it is 95 degrees out... Say goodbuy to your Frozen Elk and Deer...) Also Aquariums for temperature and other sensors that you can feed back into your central HVAC/Security systems. Temperature sensors all over the place (check out the aforementioned DIY Zoning site)
Outlets outside under your eaves for Christmas lights.
And the list goes on.
Good luck and I hope you have some deep pockets...
The primary focus should not be wiring. You should be installing 3-5" plastic conduits in the walls, that run between all rooms and a central location such as attic, basement, or a wiring closet.
With the wiring closet method, you might end up with more than one (IE a closet on each floor) in which case youll also want to run conduit between the closets, and possibly between there and the attic/basement.
This way you can pull cheap cat5e now, and later easily upgrade to cat6 or fiber, as well as run low grade cat5 for simple wiring purposes (IE phone, security, alarm, or any electronics you want to wire up together or to a computer.)
This not only lets you upgrade as needed, but you don't have to waste money on fiber you won't use just yet, or worry that whatever you ran won't be compatible later. You just run what you need when you need it, as you need it.
Another thing to keep in mind, do NOT run electricity/power lines in the conduits! Not to mention it wont meet electrical codes, but will cause interfearance with data/signal cables. So you'll want to do/have-done the power lines seperate, and lots of them.
Even if the house is only rated for a set amount of amperage from the mains, and youre limited in circuits in the breakerbox, it's still a good idea to run extra wiring to plug outlets in the wall and simply leave the lines unused by the breaker box.
This way if you ever move your server room/closet, you can disconnect and reconnect outlets as needed when the time comes.
I did the phone/data thing at my parent's house (I couldn't do it in my apartment because I knew I'd be moving out eventually... screw the next tenant) and it's pretty sweet.
I have 12 runs and arranged the terminations in a cabinet in the basement like this: 3 rows of 12. The top panel is for terminating the run to whichever room. The middle panel splits out the middle two wires (pins 4 & 5) and connects them to a 66 block (which is in turn connected to my vonage router) and forwards the remaining wires (pins 1-3, 6-8) to the bottom panel. I also have a 24-port 100Mswitch and a 5-port 1000M switch. The 24-port switch supports vlan and is connected to a linksys WRT54GL which has priority queuing for specific vlans.
This allows me to select the following configurations simply by swapping patch cables:
1. Full ethernet (compatible with 100M or 1000M ethernet): patch from the top panel to one of the switches.
2. Ethernet + phone (compatible with 100M ethernet & 1-line phone CONCURRENTLY ON THE SAME RUN): patch from the top panel to the middle panel, then patch from the matching bottom panel jack to one of the switches. Whether phone or ethernet is used then depends on the device plugged into the jack on the other end of the run.
3. Phone only: Patch from the top panel to the middle panel. No patch connected to the matching bottom panel jack.
One thing about this: You have to be careful when using the mixed ethernet and phone configuration. Some ethernet cards terminate pins 4 and 5 to ground (or somesuch) which is "picked up" in telco wiring. This makes the phone unusable.
An improvement on this system would obviously be to have some sort of asterix box in the wiring cabinet such that each phone or phone+ethernet could be its own extension. This would eliminate the problem mentioned above.
Being a resident of New Orleans, I'm curious where you saw these houses with toxic waste on them. All of the flooded houses have a scum line but that is more from normal dirt and grime that exists in any city. The real concern that a buyer needs to consider is mold contamination in the house. The mold is the real toxic danger, which is why many companies have sprung up that treat the mold problem.
Many outsiders who only watch the news have no idea what things are like down here. Midcity is coming back just fine and people are starting to renovate and rebuild in the Lakefront area. The only areas that remain uninhabited for the most part are around the lower ninth ward, which was a run down area to start with, and the other immediate areas near the major flood wall breaches.
When that is the case you get and "tone and probe" set. Which is a two-device tool, one clips onto one end of the wire run (the tone generator) and the other is a pencil like (much bigger) proximity sensor to locate the wire source of the signal. So you would go to say the living room and clop the tone to a jack there, then to the wiring closet to locate the other end with the probe.
Frys Electronics has them for as low as $39ish.
If sorting out electrical wiring you can find one for AC outlets at many big-box hardware places.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
You can get structured wiring cable pre-bundled with two cat5 or cat 6, dual rg6, and cat3 for telephone. Or get bigger bundled cable that also includes two fibers for future expansion. Leviton wall plates with "keyhole" adpters for fiber, cat5/6 telephone, etc.
...
Put in a biger than you think you'll ever need structured wiring panel. Put in a wall mount swing out rack mount above it for the rack mount UPS, the rack mount ethernet switch, small shelf for your Vonage adapter(s), video routing equipment, security camera DVR,
Replace all the wiring and update the electrical service panel. Put in a automatic transfer switch to accomdate a generator (wire the generator junction box outside if not adding the generator now, but put in the transfer switch. In an area with natural gas? Run a line to the same area and have it capped off (and run one to where your outdoor BBQ will be just in case the hi-tech attracts friends frequently)
Determine where your flat panel entertainment device will go, as well as the one for your work, if different. Accomadate a power oulet (clock style that is recessed) and data cables to the location for video to be remotely accessible. Similarly wire the ouside security cameras with siamese cable, even if you don't install any camera yet. Or wire the camera locations with cat5 and low voltage power cable for a future net-cam security system, although normal video to a central location and a video server/dvr is cheaper and almost as flexible or more flexible depending on the money spent.
The importnat thing: Wiring now during the rebuild and leaving wasted wire in the wall is cheaper than doing concealed wiring after the walls are up.
Consider running high voltage and low voltage conduits to the attic and other potentially hard to route to areas or locations where maybe you want something but are not sure yet. Also, consider having some outlets in the house to be battery backud up UPS driven where a BIG UPS sits in the wiring closet. Old "APC Matix" units show up occasionally on eBay.
I can not stress too much that you want, really really want, to put in the wire and access ways and conduits etc. for your wildest dreams while the walls are stripped. Don't forget IR sensors and transmitters as well for whole house AV control. They'll run to your wiring cabinet too.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Step one is not getting stuck whatever happens. .. you will cuss :)
Passing wire is nice but when it's time to add
and change things around
think : conduits
Whatever you put in for the a/v and the networking
think ahead and pass it under conduits.You can then
change wiring easily.
Also think ahead and so pass networking cable to most
device locations at the same time you pass the other
cables. Most projectors, video, and audio devices are moving in that direction.
I highly recommend to plan ahead for automation like
amx or crestron. it's not only fun , it's also very
usefull to have. If you love high tech , just take a
look that way.
Ric
You can go with conduit and pull anything in the future, or probably be safe with a lot of cat5e and coax.
I'd definitely put those conduits in. You never know what future requirements will be (says somebody who put together a house when thin ethernet was popular...).
The 7.1 speakers in your AV room is good, you can get nice in-wall speakers, which makes things look cleaner.
Yes, but you end up with speakers not facing in the ideal direction. Wall-mounting brackets are ideal, IMO.
As long as you're wiring, also remember that you need power for stuff. Don't skimp on electrical outlets.
Absolutely. And don't understimate their value when you come to sell a house, either: a friend of mine is in the property development trade, and reckons he always gets positive opinions about the number he puts in from prospective buyers. Most people think the average house doesn't have enough.
As for other questions from the OP:
Install automated lights and intercom (with support for Apple equipment)? How about appliances, the kitchen, and other spots... what cool tech can I use there?
Automated lights aren't particularly useful, IMO. As for the intercom, they aren't expensive, so maybe it's a good plan. Although with your cable conduits you'll easily be able to put one in later if you choose to. In the kitchen, I'd seriously suggest considering an induction cooker. Yes, you may have to replace your pans, but they are really good. The best thing about them, compared to any other type I've ever used, is if you spill something, you can just pick up your pan and wipe down the surface without having to worry about burning yourself. Plus you get as much control as you do with gas, without the ignition danger that normally goes with it.
Probably more practical than my first thought of putting the house on hydraulic stilts. But the stilts could be computer controlled (as long as there is a backup generator)!
Either way, yacht or house on polynesian-style stilts, I'd definitely go with solar panels and high efficiency electronics for independence. And Euro high-efficiency toilets for conserving water. Solar water heating should be very practical in New Orleans and how about a rainwater collection system?
Keep a smaller boat in what is currently the back yard. That could also operate on batteries and be solar rechargeable. And consider a room dedicated to weapons and MREs so you can decide which neighbors it might be useful to allow on your above-water dwelling in a crisis.
Seriously, the government hasn't done anything substantive, has it, to assure that New Orleans won't flood again under the same circumstances? And Katrina wasn't even a bullseye direct hit. So where are these properties available: ebay?
Having just built, here was my list
- Do not use wooden I beams, uses floor trusses.
- Run conduit if you can, otherwise use flexible tubes. I agree with the string idea, it works great. Just make sure to label the strings and run your design by a contractor before cutting holes in 2x4s. A conduit hole sometimes will reduce the structural integrity of the wood and you will not pass inspection. Most holes also have to be fire proofed by packing the outside with caulk.
- 10' ceilings in the basement. It gives you room to finish with drop ceilings or drywall with room for vents. It is normally only about another $3000 - $5000 and adds more value than that upon resale.
- Don't run a single water heater, use two tankless ones on each side of your house for fast, efficient hot water.
- Ask your heating/cooling contractor about zoning your house if it is over 2700 sq. Depending on your climate it is worth the extra payment to have properly heated/cooled rooms.
- A central vacuum system with the unit in the garage. Easy to empty as your trash cans are right there. Also doubles as your car vacuum.
- 4' wide stairways. Especially into the basement (if you do not already have a walk out basement with a patio door). It is much easier to bring up stuff from your shop or move furniture.
- I put in-wall speakers for my surround sound. I wish I had used wall mount. Only use ceiling mounted in-wall speakers. Of course you will have to know EXACTLY where your furniture will be: it makes a big difference.
- I ran a lot of CAT 5e and I use only two of them. Everything else uses wireless. Even my security system is wireless with an internal cellular modem. You can run it, but I doubt you will use all the wires. I can get an "excellent" signal in my whole 1.25 acre property with my single draft-N router.
- Go to a lighting specialist with your plans and make sure you look REALLY hard at where you want your lights. It make a huge difference.
- Do the same with your electrical. Place your furniture and look at placing floor outlets, outlets above your fireplace mantle, above your cabinets, inside tiered crown moulding (rope lights for accent), etc.
Just remember. Pimping out the electronics may makes you and your geek friends happy. Designing lighting, electrical, and convienence items (closet systems, central vac, etc.) makes the other 90% of the world love it. Oh, and don't forget to budget for landscaping. That was another $55K for me.Shop vac. Cotton ball. fishing line. Done.
No need to use your imagination
Also, don't just string cable, string CONDUIT so you can upgrade the networking should you ever need to.
I did our house with flexible blue conduit (smurf tube) to everywhere I thought I might want someting in the future.
To run cable, I vacuum a wad of kleenex tied to a string through a run, then use the string to pull the cable/cat5/whatever.
Not too expensive if you do it yourself. Running the tube goes a lot faster with two people.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
I just did a full gut out of a lake front house starting last July and still have not finished. As much technowiz as I tried to put in, most of my time was still tied up just trying to get stuff done. Here is what I learned.
1. Electricians think that Cat 5 wire can be treated like Romax, bend and crinked all you want. Don't say "terminate", it only confuses them.
2. Electricians think you are supposed to "daisy chain" surround sound speaker wiring.
3. Plumbers think the sink should go one place, electricians think the light should be centered over the sink, in a different place.
4. Usted debe hablar español.
5. Most building inspectors are not as smart as they think they are, and if you let them know this, you are screwed.
6. If you want it to rain, just schedule for a concrete truck to show up at the time you want the rain to start.
Dream big, but reality says you will spend most of your time screaming at contractors, construction workers and/or the bank. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
What are you going to do to the house, renovate/fix or build new? Assuming you are above the FEMA floodline, I would prefer rebuild with Insulated Concrete Form walls. You can get wind rated windows, they absorb a lot of noise as a byproduct of being wind rated. (Wind being hurricanes and what not.)
In the past, houses have not been built with an eye towards eventual renovation. There are some groups looking into this now. A good stop is Pathnet ( http://www.pathnet.org/ ), which is a partnership between the US Housing and Urban Development Commission and the housing industry. One progressive commercial site is Bensonwood Homes ( http://www.bensonwood.com/ ). They are now doing things like planned crawl spaces and chases in walls. If you watch This Old House, Ted Benson did a timber frame in MA. Same guy (as far as I know). A civil engineer from the south, now doing cutting edge housing out of MA is Building Science Corporation ( http://www.buildingscience.com/bsc/ ). Lots of good info on his site. The US DOE has a good site out of Colorado ( http://www.eere.energy.gov/ ). I know New Orleans and Canada are a long way apart, but snoop around the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation site (probably via Google is better http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/ I'm assuming English). All kinds of useful information.
In an incident like Katrina, power can be important. But even in general. Cogeneration is nice. On a per-house basis, you sort of get sucked in to Otto or Diesel cycle prime movers. At some point (micro) gas turbines come into play. What prime mover you choose depends on the work/heat balance, but I really like gas turbines compared to either Otto or Diesel cycle. The ability to burn biodiesel would definitely tilt things towards the Diesel cycle. For fuel independence, nothing beats Stirling cycles, but very little happens on that side. Which is really a pity. There is no reason why your cogen plant can't run your heat pump or air-conditioner, or for that matter your refrigerator (largest power user in a typical house). Finding refrigerators capable of having "off-site" heat transfer is difficult. Marine seems the best place to start looking.
It's bloody difficult to build a nice house on stilts. The Dutch have an approach where "house boats" are anchored to pipes. If a flood happens, the house just floats up. The anchors (big pipes in the pictures I've seen) keep the house in place.
There are LED lights (pucks) which can be inserted in almost any surface (wall, floor, ceiling) that only require about 7mm machining. Supplier I seen is ( http://www.eyeleds.com/ ).
The tornado rooms (steel box inside the house) are probably a good investment.
Mold likes to eat most of modern construction. There are mold resistant lumbers (I prefer concrete, especially the stronger/later curing concretes with fly ash additions) and drywalls available. Don't use fibreglass, it's useless in a fire. Use mineral wool for insulation.
Don't use nails. Use screws, or screws and adhesive. Some acoustic applications might only want adhesive. Go to 5/8 inch, fire rated drywall. It gives straighter/flatter walls, and absorbs more sound. Visit http://greengluecompany.com/ to find out about Green Glue for acoustic uses.
Somebody mentioned poor insulation (cotton based) for wiring, getting good concrete is a problem. You might end up being better to make the stuff yourself in nobody locally will guarantee their concrete.
If the temperature of the outside is precisely what you would want at any time of the day or night, you don't need (thermal) insulation. For any other situation, you need insulation. Use as much insulation as you can afford. (I would prefer
Well, the good news is that what you want is easily within today's technological grasp, and having support for your Macs is a non-issue. Now that I've told you the good news, I'll tell you the bad: It's expensive. There are a lot of guys here who think that running two CAT6 cables to each room is fine. There are a lot of guys here who think you should go wireless. There are a lot of guys here who think you should wig out and get optical and run it everywhere. They are all mostly wrong. What they did get right is that it's easy to pull cable. What's hard is WHERE you want to pull it to, how much, and what it's purpose is. This is not star trek stuff; it's just getting signals from one room to another, and having a central controller to take care of it. You mentioned a 7.1 theater, motion sensing technology, HVAC control etc. etc.etc. There are many companies that do this, from "retrofit" type companies like Control 4, who provide a complete whole-house solution, to companies like AMX which provide greater customizability and capability to interact with a wider range of gear. Ultimately the gear is what's going to hit your pocketbook hard, IF you want to do it RIGHT, with ZERO worries after it's in, AND for the lifetime of your home. Any truck driver can install a cheap-o Sony amp & in-wall speakers, and then program your remote. But, it's not rugged, it's not reliable, and it's not custom to you and your home. If you choose to do this, you need to first be honest with yourself, and spell out in clear writing what it is *exactly* what you want to happen in each room. Open the door: motion sensor/IR sensor sees person, tells controller to recite greeting over house audio Hit "movie" button on remote:lights dim, plasma turns on, DVD turns on, plays DVD. Receiver turns on, goes to pre-set audio mode. Etc. But I digress :)
As for what you should put in your wall, the only thing I can say is that there is no such thing as pulling too much. Conduit is nice, if you plan on only having things at fixed points on your walls, forever, and you never want to upgrade. Where I work, we will run extra runs to likely locations for stuff (as long as the customer requests it). So, if you're not sure you want to put living room speakers in yet, we'll run the speaker wire to locations in the ceiling and/or walls, because when the sheetrock's not up, it's easy and cheap. If you want to do it after that, it gets real expensive.
Same thing with control. Not sure if you want a volume control or touchpanel in a room? We'll run extra wiring to that location, so that if you change your mind down the road, you have the flexibility.
As for WHAT kind of cable to put in, well, it depends :). We used to use a combination cable for our video runs, which was 6 minicoax + 2 22ga shielded twisted pair. With that combination you can run just about any video signal you want for up to 150 feet before needing a repeater or distribution amp. BUT, that cable costs $4 a foot. Not cheap.
Nowadays, BalUns for A/V applications are robust enough, provide a great quality signal, and are inexpensive. They convert RGBHV, YPrPb, Composite, Line Level audio, etc. to CAT5/CAT6. CAT6 is cheap & easy to pull, so it takes less time and labor to run the same amount of lines as compared to the bulkier combo cable.
So, to sum up, you should run two things everywhere in your house: CAT6 wherever you might want to put a display, have gear, or control elements (volume controls, touchpanels, etc.). You should run 16/2 or 14/2 (16ga, 2 conductor) speaker wire everywhere you think you might want to put a speaker.
Combine that with a wireless data network, or Zigbee control network for your A/V and automation, and you'll have an awesome house.
As a ballpark figure, assuming you paid a contractor to do all this for you, you can expect to pay between $50K and $150K for most homes to be fully automated (shades, lighting, HVAC, custom touchpanels, full integration, etc). That's assuming that all the wiring is done be
But adding electronics options to your house doesn't cost much if you've already got the walls torn off. You're designing a system that'll fit behind sheetrock walls, not one that needs to be retrofitted behind plaster with unknown wood pieces and bumpy stuff behind it. The obvious technology to use for wiring hasn't changed in a couple of decades - you're going to run conduit, fat enough to put whatever you really need inside it, and you can probably run straight connections up to an attic or down to a crawlspace if you're luck, and leave some strings in it to pull whatever wiring you need in the future. Plus you're going to run Romex for the electricity and twisted pair for phones, and again it doesn't cost you much extra to homerun it back to somewhere central and accessible. There may some places that are obvious locations for TVs, desks, or washing machines - so make sure the wire's fat enough for whatever you need, and it doesn't cost much to make sure you've got an extra conductor or two in case you want to split things out into two sockets or isolate circuits or whatever.
Make sure you've done diagrams of everything you run - that's really cheap to do up front, and a real pain to do later
Save the high-cash spending for things like kitchens, bathrooms, and other plumbing and HVAC. You'll also want to make that stuff as modular and accessible as possible.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The biggest problem you'll have is getting adequate wiring to all the places that it needs to go to. Your LAN isn't the big issue; wireless works well. But what about an alarm system? You'll want two-pair to every door and window for an alarm; one pair is good enough but there's always one doggoned bad wire somewhere - the second pair is your safety net. What about audio / video? Built-in speakers or wall outlets for speakers? Where should they be located now, and after you rearrange the furniture a couple of times?
The suggestion to install conduits between the rooms and a central location is a good one - but keep in mind that having an outlet in a room doesn't necessarily mean that the outlet is where its needed. Unless you're got built-in furniture that defines where things will be located, choosing wire termination locations is your biggest problem. Attics and crawl spaces work even better - that way you can run a wire down a stud cavity and have it end up in just the right place - even years later.
And always remember that all power cables and outlets stay at least one foot away from any other wiring.
Think long and hard about what you want to accomplish, where the major pieces will be located, where outlets would be handy under all different room configurations. Then put in twice as many wires as you think you'll need and you'll be pretty close to right. Need a coax for video? Run two. Need speaker cable? Run two. This way you aren't stopped by bad wires, and when you get that dual-tuner Tivo or a 5.1 stereo system the wires you need are already there.
True enough. I should also add that if you decide to do go the open attic route cable trays (while expensive) are a very good idea (get the kind that the top pops open and "fingers" stick up, all plastic. Unless you want to spend tons of cash on metal). As to the conduit, make sure you never shoot a 90 degree bend and avoid 45's like the plague. 3 30deg bends spaced apart makes the pulling easiest.
-nB
Obviously the fewer bends the better
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My brother-in-law was a professor at Tulane University. His home was in the garden district that wasn't hit as hard. Nevertheless, his house was flooded and it filled with mold. We went down over Thanksgiving week and I have to tell you it was a very unique experience camping outdoors in a major city that was essentially a ghost town. We did have a proper thanksgiving dinner of Turkey hot dogs and Stove Top Stuffing... :)
:)
Based upon our collective experience, had my Brother-in-law chose to stay, this is my advice to you.
If you're planning on owning a home in New Orleans, you need to PLAN on having to gut & clean the first floor once every 10 years after it floods. It is much like living in Southern Florida where you just plan on getting a new roof after each hurricane season..
Don't bother trying to build a flood wall. We found out the hard way that the water doesn't come in through the walls and windows, it percolates up through the concrete slab itself! So, first thing, if you have a cement 'basement' or first floor, seal up the slab with an epoxy paint, then carpet it or put in linoleum. Paint the exposed 2x4's with a good mold resistant primer, then hang the cement wallboard used for bathrooms on the lower 4' of the walls. The upper 4' you can use mildew resistant wallboard or regular sheet rock. Do not use regular sheetrock mud for taping, use the slow cure mud that is sold as a powder and you add water and it dries (cures) in 60 minutes. Last, go purchase a bucket of 1" swimming pool chlorine tablets and drop them inside the walls ever other stud. This way, if the water rises up, the water in the walls will chlorinate itself and when the water recedes you are guaranteed not to have mold in 'them thar walls'.
Take LOTS of pictures of each step of the process. The reason houses are being sold as gutted is that this is the only way that the new buyer can be sure that there is no mold and the house is clean. You will boost your resale value through the roof if you show how much attention you paid toward preventing future water damage issues.
Alternately, you can skip all this and simply put up mini-blinds for walls and you can just raise them up whenever it floods and airing the place out will be a breeze.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
For concrete to cure properly, you want water. True, you do not want too much water like a down pour, but you are puring concrete on the gravel, you want the gravel wet. Then when the concrete hardens enough that you can stand on it (about 6 hours in normal conditions), keep it wet. Especially on a sunny day. Lots of water. You don't want it to dry out for up to a week. The longer it takes, the stronger it becomes. You should have seen the horror in the contractors eyes when I started pouring water on the gravel before they even started pouring and then I told them to use 1.5 times the water they normally used! But now when I dropped a 5kg (10lb) hammer from 3m (10ft), it landed on the tip and it barely left any mark. It just bounced like a ball.
Also, 99% of contractors are trying to save money by not putting enough steel reinforcement in concrete pads and walls. Then you end up saving $500 on a garage pad that then cracks next year after a frost. A properly built pad will *never* crack. In my garage, there is about 1ton of steel in the pad. In winter when the ground freezes, the ground (clay) can shift so much that one side of the garage is an inch or two out of the ground! The pad bends (door frame changes shape a bit), but doesn't crack. Yet for some reason everyone still believes in North America that concrete pads always crack! Huh?
Of course, the consumer is screwed in the end when the concrete pads crack and foundations fall apart or you gen high humidity in the basements. (ie. concrete not water proofed - no you can't do it from inside the house!)
Anyway, pour concrete in cloudy weather. If there are showers a bit on and off, it is ok. It it sunny - not good. If it is puring down buckets, well, wait! The concrete needs to settle for 6h+ before you can and should pour buckets of water on it!
Power over Ethernet is for ordinary Cat 5e Gigabit Ethernet, it just checks for a magic resistor value and, if so, runs voltage over it.
PoE is a matter of switch choice, not cable choice.
Test your net with Netalyzr
No need. Just move to across the Crescent City Connection bridge to Gretna. The sheriff's deputies will make sure that none of the *cough*black*cough* "looters" will get to you.
I'd love to hear your reasons for stating why wireless is better... Other than that you made very good points. But I have made great pains in order to retrofit an older house to accept CAT5. IMO there are no benifets in going wireless. Less speed, less security, higher cost... Honestly what people see in wireless when it comes to home networks I will never understand. Perhaps it is the american way to go the easiest route regardless of the price to their wallets or privacy.
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
Um, in Holland houses are securely anchored to the ground, and everything is made of brick, brick brick (even some town streets :-P ), simply because it's in a major combined river delta (rhine and maas), and you can get decent quality clay 'most anywhere just by digging a hole. (This is less handy when you're digging a garden, back-breaking work that.)
The traditional dutch method to survive flooding was to locally raise the land by a couple of meters, after which everything else floods first, and you'll probably be ok.
More recently people set up clay walls instead. (Did someone mention plentiful supplies of clay?), which keeps the water away from the houses. Sometimes these walls also have wave-erosion-protection made of (imported(!!!)) rocks. (Yes, The Netherlands imports rocks. Not much rocks to be had in a river delta.)
Of course, once you set up walls so that the rivers and seas can't get in, your next problem is dealing with rainwater that can't get out. So then people install ditches and drainage canals on the land side, and put multiple-redundant pumping stations to put rainwater (back) into the rivers and lakes and seas. Rivers have a tendency to flood, so people leave swaths of land on the river-side of the levee (or dike) which the river may flood. To prevent erosion and mere incidental flooding, this land has its own small wall, usually toughened with extra rock. Rivers have this tendency to raise the land around themselves very slightly by the laying down of sediment, so typically if a dike breaks in a river area, the water will collect in some known low points, where you just have to make sure you didn't build anything beforehand. If your waterschap (water management area) is near the sea, your land will likely be roughly equally high (or low) all over, so you'll need extra dikes to zone your land so that if one section is flooded, the other section will stay safe.
A bit later in time, dutch started to figure they could install similar systems in bits of sea that had never actually been land before. The water mills don't care much, and will just pump the land dry anyway. You then need to terraform the resulting land further to remove salt and make it suitable for agriculture. Then install infrastructure and build houses. (This is how the province of Flevoland was born). Particular skill is needed to make the new land look somewhat natural, and somewhere where people actually want to live. There is a lot more detail to it than this.
The engineering skills can be learned in the Netherlands at several large companies and particular universities (I think Delft is your best bet).
Hadn't heard of the floating houses before. Typically the ground floor is concrete or (ta-da!) brick. If you were smart enough to move all your electric gear and stuff upstairs on time, your house will still be standing just fine after a (nowadays very rare) flood. "Just" wash it down and sweep it out.
12v for anything but signals is very wasteful, what you take away in volts you have to compensate for with amps, which generate heat and require heavy wiring. ex. to run a 400w pc off 12v youd need approx. 33amps. while you wont be electrocuted, fire is a real danger as its hard to protect against weak short circuits.