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."

Comments

CAT5e

[HoosierPeschke]

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...).

Build Dilbert's Ultimate House

[El Royo]

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.

run "intertubes"

[Original Replica]

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.

Re:Hardwiring is usually silly

[Helix150]

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.

Re:Step one

[bloosqr]

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..

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 .. do you want a media room / den? It could be fun :)

I did this at my parent's house

[uler]

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.

Re:Step one

[hebertrich]

Step one is not getting stuck whatever happens.
Passing wire is nice but when it's time to add
and change things around .. you will cuss :)

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

Re:One word...

[SirKron]

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. :(

Re:Step one

[seanmeister]

Imagine 20 floating houses weighing in at around 20 ton each(or more) gently getting momentum from the wind and current and then crashing into another house.

No need to use your imagination

Re:Step one

[Pharmboy]

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.

Resale flexibility, not just altruism

[billstewart]

Building for the poor doesn't just mean "go build a house for a poor person instead" - it also means "You're going to sell the house some day - build something that somebody in your local market can buy", and in New Orleans, that probably means building something that not only rich people can afford.

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 :-) And just because you've got that conduit there, that doesn't mean you're going to use it for data - wireless is a better choice for everything except your TV cabling and a couple of your phones, and it's dirt cheap and becoming cheaper.

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.

Concrete needs water.

[gnuman99]

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!

Wireless?

[milsoRgen]

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.