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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."
I'd do the networking all as Cat5-e with Gigabit Ethernet...
Its a lot of bandwidth, cheap, and a universal lingua-franca.
I'd also have 802.11whosiwutzit access points, and more specifically cubbies with power so you can upgrade the access points.
Also, don't just string cable, string CONDUIT so you can upgrade the networking should you ever need to.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Since you're trying to future-proof the place, I have one word for you:
Crawlspaces.
If that's not practical, try to have a few key walls with hidden corridors in them so you can run conduit or whatever you might need in the future.
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
And definitely a watertight room for all the fancy toys you plan to buy.
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
State of the art insulation.
Heat exchangers instead of air conditioners.
Solar.
...make sure all the technology you install is fully and easily upgradeable. If you're going to be spending some years to come in this house, you don't want to be saddled with obsolete equipment because of oversight in the construction.
Soo many wannabe geeks try to hardwire their homes with cat5; that's a waste of money considering Wireless N is faster than most cabling methods. So avoid the computer networking wires, IMHO. You would be better to wire for high def between your rooms, but even then a lot of great solutions for wireless highdef exist.
I recommend doing some research on smart homes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Home
Cheers!
I suggest a change in perspective. A good piece of technology is one that doesn't intrude on your life and doesn't have to be maintained. If you start adding all kinds of technical gizmos and gadgets to your house, you will become a slave to maintaining them. Home automation technology just is not to the point yet where you can install and forget. It's constant tweaks and upgrades, failed components, trying to figure out odd configuration files, languages, and protocols to get things to work correctly and with each other. At the end of the day you will spend far more time maintaining it than it will ever give you in improved lifestyle or productivity. Focus the your technical research on the low tech items that will make your house easy to live in, like good electrical wiring, good plumbing, good toiliets, sinks, and energy efficient appliances. You've got hundreds of hours of research to do on that front before you should even think about Star Trek style housing.
My understanding is that at this point cat6 or cat7 is just overpriced hype with no practical use at the time. I'm not sure anything requires it to function properly.
When talking Tech and all, it isn't a real good idea to stock up on unneeded supplies for future use. The industry ends up going other directions to often. Imagine if you stocked up on a bunch of sdram because you thought your wouldn't need to buy memory again. Imagine if you purchased the top of the line P4 in 1999 thinking you would never need a new computer. If you have the money to waist or a need for the stuff, go for it. If your thinking of the future, keeping your options open is more important then top of the line.
I second the point on documentation. I've been in a couple houses where there is a wall full of RCA/Ethernet/phono/etc outlets and built in speakers all through the house but the owners had no idea what connects where or how to use any of it. Thousands of dollars of wiring and technology that is totally useless to the current owners. I had to DJ a gig at a mansion that was decked out with this sort of equipment and had a closet full of connectors and knobs but the owners had absolutely no clue what went where or what controlled what. I played with it for over an hour and couldn't make anything work, so I wound up setting up separate speakers in one room only; it worked fine of course but it would have been great to use the built in system. They had a ton of ethernet connectors in there too; I imagine there was cat-5 throughout the house but again they had no idea what to plug in where so it was useless. Besides, even if you never sell, it's a good idea to document everything in case you forget what goes where.
Invariably if you ask a geek crowd what sorts of custom modifications they would employ for a new house, you get some really mundane solutions, like "Well I'd run cat 7 copper everywhere", or "wifi every floor", et cetera. These are all things you could learn in any 60 second trip to a Radio Shack.
Instead of considering what sorts of technology might create an interesting environment, focus on what you want the house to do. Will you have lots of local friends? Think of the things people do at home. Sleep, relaxing, and entertaining. Try to use available tools to facilitate these activities. Simply filling a new house as a tank to store electronics is pretty boring, and probably a waste of cash, too. Intercoms? Server racks in closets? These are well and good if you're trying to run an ISP or a galaxy class starship, but ditch them otherwise. And don't buy any 400 dollar kitchen-aid appliances just because they "look good on the kitchen counter".
Back to the local friends thing-- Set things up so you can watch some movies, sit people down, and have a nice comfortable flow between the living room and the kitchen. Entertaining friends is 50% food, 50% chat. If you still have the ability to control the layout of the kitchen, do it such that you can prepare food in front of your visitors. This lends incredibly to socializing. It reduces the rush to finish, perhaps even extending the process moreso. The best kitchens I can think of have a center island with plenty of chairs and a nice work area for the host to do all the focused work. Toss all the ranges and ovens on a back wall because they are rarely visited. I know that's not really in line with your question, but I'd personally like to hear someone reply to this particular thought with improvements as it's personally interesting to me.
In the living room, most of your guests won't care if you have the 8 thousand or 15 thousand dollar 7.1 surround. Just drop a reasonable amount of cash on yesterday's receiver, dvd players, and speakers, and get a screen just big enough that everyone can get a good look at. Best Buy and friends wouldn't have you believe that after three beers, you won't be able to tell that the 1500 you spent is roughly enjoyable (I didn't say comparable) to the rest of their stock.
If you just sit back and think things through, maybe you'll decide that some must-have item on your list doesn't actually make a lot of sense, and you'll save some cash... or find something else just as silly, but will get more use.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
The wiring part should be easy. You can go with conduit and pull anything in the future, or probably be safe with a lot of cat5e and coax. But the hard part is knowing what to do with your network. CentraLite has some nice stuff, LCD touch-screens let you control all your lights, HVAC, and virtually anything else you might hook up to the system. You can even have cameras, and view the video on any of the control panels in the house.
The 7.1 speakers in your AV room is good, you can get nice in-wall speakers, which makes things look cleaner. Also consider some additional in wall speakers all over the house, you can pipe music all over for parties. If you have a hottub or deck outdoors, a couple of outdoor speakers are virtually a requirement. Again, with the proper control, you can adjust audio source and volume for any zone from any panel in the house.
As long as you're wiring, also remember that you need power for stuff. Don't skimp on electrical outlets. In fact, consider running a couple of separate circuits all over the house, with a UPS in the basement.
Consider an intercom instead of shouting up the stairs at the kids.
Finally, make sure you don't get too carried away. Some day you'll sell the house, if the neighborhood isn't affluent enough or attacks the wrong kind of buyers to appreciate all the wizz-bang technology, it's a waste. My boss did much of what I described to his summer-house on a lake. But most of the people who moved there were retired folks. The couple that bought the place were totally baffled by virtually everything in the house.
Seriously though, if I was building or renoing a house now I would look first to making it self sustainable as much as possible, and of course tough enough to survive a variety of conditions. Before I install the CAT5 and LCD's I install:
- Solar Panels, home generator, - the goal is that I can supply my own power/ lower my power costs
- UV Water purification system - or something suitably expensive that can clean incoming water to my home - be it from municipal pipes or the river that has become my street.
- depending on climate and region - whatever architectural modifications I can make to make controlling the temperature within the home easy and cheap - that could be insulation, or really good shutters or ?
- a cache of weapons - in case of looters - kidding
The rock, the vulture, and the chain
I speak as an expert on this, if the house was sitting in flood water then its probably useless. saturated wood loses its trueness and is susceptible to dry rot. your looking at warped walls which are a pain in the but to finish. I suggest if the house has a second story you put all of your new hi fi equipment up there as it's usually no good sitting in ten feet of water.
You can use cheap PVC stuff instead of the expensive rigid metal variety, so that you can afford to use larger-sized conduit (although the latter provides some nice shielding if it's properly grounded); and use gentle, sweeping curves instead of tight corners, but make sure that if the signal conduits are parallel to any power, they're several feet apart, to avoid inducing a current in your Ethernet. Since standard AC wiring puts outlets near the floor, and light switches are 3-4 feet from the floor, that means running the signal cables more like 6 feet from the floor, and dropping down to the outlets you wish to install.
Since the cost of pulling cable is generally a lot more than the cable itself, do yourself a favor and put in the Cat6, even though you don't think you need it yet. A centrally-located wiring/server closet isn't a bad idea, provided that you give it good ventilation. Use the upper part of the closet for the electronic gear and patch panel, middle for your AC distribution breakers (if any) and UPS to power the server and network switch, router, etc., and the lower part for storage of things that won't die if they get wet.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
As a guy with several overclocked PCs running various distributed computing projects 24/7, the rooms get hot. I'd want a way to vent PC heat with some conduit without having to run it out a window. I'd also want some pipe fittings in key rooms so I could operate watercooling outside and pipe it into the house seamlessly (to save noise from fans and truly remove the heat from the inside). And of course there is solar power. Don't have to buy now, but at least make allowances for it now.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Then you're ready to start thinking about control gear for all this, so that if a big storm comes when you're not there, shutters close, pumps start if needed, power is cut in wet areas to prevent shorts, gas valves close, water lines are isolated to prevent contamination...
You should run something that will handle any technology that comes along in the future...
conduit!
I agree with the solar panels and the home generator, I think that every house should have these things.
The UV water purifier isn't needed here in New Orleans. Our tap water has been and continues to be some of the cleanest and best tasting in the country. Our tap water comes from the Mississippi and as such is treated and filtered more that just about any other city. The Mississippi has a lot of chemicals that are deposited in it from the more Northern states that we have to filter out. I would say a Brita filter would be sufficient.
Regarding the climate management, I agree. Many of the older houses in New Orleans have very high ceilings and tall attics to accommodate the increased heat during the summer. I would look into some energy efficient windows and do your best to insulate your house to keep heat out and your AC in.
You joke about the cache of weapons, but honestly, it's not a bad idea in any city...
Its the endian issue that is internal ... obviously LDAP/NSF will work the same way on any chip, it was designed for that.. and internet apps have the same endian.. think about it, is it obvious that any internal binary format for one of your apps that now has a binary file format sitting in your home directory will be able to be read by both the intel mac and the power pc mac ? The apple kids were very clever w/ their universal apps trick that goes well beyond a simple recompile.
I am a mac/unix person btw
Cat-6 has come down a lot in price, only slightly above the cost of Cat-5.
Besides, you would want to keep to the specs; Cat-5e wont help once 10Gb networking becomes norm.
Wikipedia doesn't mention such a cable. Do you mean category 5e? category 6? category 6a? The last is what I'd suggest, as apparently it will be needed for 10 Gigabit Ethernet. Seems to be pricey, but probably less than snaking new cables through everywhere or tearing apart walls.
I say put in generous amounts of category 6a anywhere you might want a computer or television (more than one per room, especially to prevent things like patch cables running around doorways) and coax where you might want TVs, but consider also adding fiber. Gigabit Ethernet won't be considered fast forever; soon you'll want 10 GbE, then 100 GbE, and so on. What is the limit of category 5e? category 6? category 6a? What is the limit of multi-mode fiber for your distances? single-mode fiber? How much extra would it cost to put in more/better cable before the walls are finished? How much extra would it cost to put in more/better cable afterward?
Ah, good research, that is the one. Now that you showed me this, I do recall hearing the name Murphy Oil during that news report.
The future isn't what you see today. We started out using coax and token rings, Then one day while some PHB was looking for his token, twisted pair came around to be the norm. (that was a joke playing off a dilbert commic) But seriously, look at what drives out connections. It is typically the Internet and whatever comes with the computer. NICs weren't always on board, I remember a time when you had to buy one. When people connected to other computers by telephone and null cable modems. When networking was primarily saving to disk and walking to another machine or having dumb terminals everywhere and everyone worked form the same computer but on different desktops. This isn't all that long ago either. I think the chances are that other tech will be driving the speeds by the time the speeds are needed and used. It is difficult to future proof anything today. Until on another post where I read about the cost of cat6 going down a lot, by the time you need it, it will likely be obsolete. I couldn't see how anyone could justify the cost outside of bragging rights.
If you have a need, use it. It not, just make sure you can replace the cat5e or whatever later. I think twisted pair as we know it will be gone by the time we see the speeds you are talking about. Fiber, Some hybrid fiber/coax or another type of twisted pair would probably carry it.
OK, what's more expensive? House stilts and dikes or New Orleans flood insurance (if you can even get it).
Agree. If code allows, pull conduit to next to each outlet box or lightswitch box, with a low voltage box installed at the end of the run. (Think about places where you might eventually run some technology, such as near the toilet, behind the fridge, where an alarm panel would go, where a remote control panel would go, etc.) Run some heavy cable-pulling twine out each end of the conduit. Even if you sheetrock over the low voltage box for now, you can always uncover it later when something cool comes about that you want to install, and the first time you have to bust open a wall to run cables, you've already paid for the extra conduit and boxes you can run now. Also, if you're thinking about home automation, i.e. heater control, keyless entry, automatic shutters or blinds, etc., think about running the wiring now and just tack it to the stud nearest where you would install something. Same goes for A/V equipment (including a possible ceiling-mounted projector!)
I think you're talking about http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4852739/ something like this. To me, sounds like a good idea, as long as everyone else in the neighborhood does it too. See the link a few down for the Google Map picture about houses that didn't have a limit on how far they could float.
Someone want to refresh on the worst water level in residential New Orleans during Katrina? Make sure you build your float poles so the house can float a few feet higher than the old flood line if need be, and make sure to put a hard stopper at the top of the poles so the house doesn't float off them. Look into how Venice does their construction in their houses too...
As far as wiring...
Networking: If you're expecting the house to get flooded, I'd suggest a main fiber switch and router at your DSL/Cable demarc, then fiber to each room and a switch there to convert down to gig Ethernet copper. Expensive, but it will avoid rusted copper in the walls in the event of a flood.
Phone: Really nothing you can do here to prevent rusted copper... except to use cordless phones with a multi-handset 5 GHz system, which many people here will naysay because of privacy issues (although with frequency hopping, that's usually not too awful of an issue. If someone wants to spy on you, all they REALLY have to do is open the client side of your outside Customer Access box and put a tap there, which is as easy as a splitter and a normal wired phone if they want to sit there.) Alternately, you could look into a Vonage or similar VOIP system to avoid the box-tap, but same note about the wiring. Regadless of what happens, if you run wire, make it Cat5 (or 6 even).
If you go the old fashioned way of running wire to every room from a central comm closet, I'd suggest the following, which is what I learned from a cable running company that serviced an old business I worked at:
A panel consists of 2 electric, 2 network, 1 phone, and 1 coax, and the panel is recessed in the wall. All cable is run via conduit to the main patch location. The 2 network and 1 phone, run those all as Cat5 or 6. Plenum if you can, but not REALLY necessary unless fire codes really require it.
Each wall in a room gets at least one panel, centered on the wall if possible. Do this only on your major walls... if a wall is a minor wall in a oddly shaped room, don't bother. In your kitchen, make sure outlets are located at least 6 inches above the work counters, and the electrical outlets are kitchen approved with Test/Reset... same with the bathroom ones. Yes, put network and TV in your kitchen... the wife or girlfriend will thank you... and when recessed monitors in counters with a transparent countertop become a reality, you're already set.
If the wall is longer than 6 feet, give it an additional panel, adding an additional one for every additional 6 feet of wall. Make sure panels are at least one foot from the nearest corner. For example, a 6 foot wall would get a panel one foot in from each corner... a 12 foot wall would get a panel each one foot in at each corner, and one in middle of wall.
This allows you to move your computers/TV's/phones easily from one location to another. in a room, along all walls. Yes, its overkill, but its better than stringing those pesky extension cords (of all varieties... phone, Cat5, coax, or electrical) on a semi-permanent basis, which fire inspectors frown on.
I would agree with your recommendation, with one exception. If you have adequate clearance in your attic, don't run the conduit back to the server closet. It costs more, and makes running the wires harder. If you can get around in your attic, just run the conduit from the end point in the wall, up into the attic. Then you don't even need the string to pull the wire. you just drop it down the hole, and it comes out at the base plate, but trying to pull wires through 50 or 60 feet of tubing can be a challenge. This obviously does not apply if you don't have relatively easy attic access. It's always nice when spending less money makes a job better.
You've also got to remember that houses in New Orleans are very very very old, and the construction style is completely different. I live in a suburb outside of NO, and work in the CBD. The construction style differs greatly depending where the house is located. The Garden District has huge houses with odd layouts, many buildings are combination offices and apartments, even my building has apartments in the floors above us. You'll also run into a lot of shotgun houses, which are really odd if you haven't seen them before.
Shotgun houses, because there is no hallway, will make for an interesting problem. Nothing is 'private' in a shotgun house. If you put something important in 1 room, and a bedroom behind it, people have to go through that room to get to the bedroom. Decking a house like that out becomes more difficult because if you concentrate the usage of the room through technology, you restrict the way the home can be used by future owners in combination with your technology.
The more run down and poor areas just tend to have very small properties, 2 bedroom homes with a footprint of no more than 1200sqft. You'd be stupid to do a project like this in those neighborhoods, I get nervous just driving down them, and that's not because of stereotyping. Every time I have been down those streets, I've seen some form of police activity.
As for the insurance and stilts bit. Homes downtown are completely in a flood zone. As the city relies(and there is a severe emphasis on relies) on the water pumps, if anything fails, you may find yourself with water in your home. I'd first look for WHY the home was damaged and gutted. Obviously the hurricanes were the cause, but was it damaged because of rising water, or was it damaged because of wind more, etc. I deal with insurance claims all day at work, you'd be surprised how much the damage style can vary, and how much damage a single thing can cause. Also, I believe there is a requirement to get flood insurance in any are where your home is x feet below sea-level, and if I remember correctly, the highest point in New Orleans is 20ft above, with the lowest being -6ft. If you could, raise the house, but you'll also risk severe wind damage, as your house will be above the area of disrupted airflow, and much more susceptible to high wind speed.
All in all, good luck. If you do go through with it, and end up getting pwned by a Hurricane/flood, drop me a note and I'll give you some tips on how to document your damages so well that your insurance company will hate you. I've taken claims that adjusters put at 19k and tripled them with good documentation. You'd be surprised what you can get money for in an insurance claim.
How do you know he's not building the home he's going to live in for the rest of his life, contributing to the New Orleans community, potentially doing all kinds of service work, laboring to improve the levies and helping kids in the area get educations and jobs?
Don't fucking judge someone you don't know, asshole.
+++ATH0
As humorous as this thread has been, it also makes as much sense as any home renovation advice seen elsewhere up and down the other comment threads.
Given the very real possibility that New Orleans will be washed out again--sooner, rather than later--I'd populate the first few items of my "To Do" list to include items related to redundant shock absorbtion, sea-worthiness, and life support (water, ventilation, heating, etc). Did I mention redundancy? Don't forget the redundant systems.
Once you are certain that your home will not float away (unless designed to do so), spring a leak, or act more as a roasting, oven-like trap than a shelter, you can start worrying about cat5 v. fiber. When it comes down to it, which one is more survivable in flood conditions?
I would also plan the network with redundancy in mind. Spread out and share the storage. See to it that data is as well-protected from environmental disaster as possible. If the kitchen floods, you still save grandma's recipes on the other networked devices.
Which paradigm (wire v. fibre, etc.) draws as little power as possible? How can it be used to better conserve household power?
A home is a huge investment (at least at my end of the pay scale), so I would want to make sure that any home I built in a disaster-prone area can survive the worst mother nature can throw at it in that particular region.
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
I'd say the best add-on is a 12 volt wiring system running through the house, with wall outlets at strategic points. Not replacing the 120 volt service, but adding the option as a parallel system.
Why? 12 volts is the standard for solar powered photovoltaic lighting systems. With LEDs coming down in price and cranking up the lumens, a solar cell system with a 12 volt battery system can light your home at least enough to see by -- and it would be free, free, free as long as the sun shines. Hell, you can use Sears DieHards as your battery bank. Considering the efficiency of LED's maybe just one, if all you're doing is keylighting. Consider it a bulletproof backup to the grid.
Of course, PCs run on 12 volt power supplies. I don't know how that would work out, but just mentioning it. There are 12 volt laptop adapters out there. And I'd think it would be child's play to adapt the outlets to USB power plugs, stepping them down to 5 volts. The painful part is that there are so damned many 12 volt plugs to choose from. The simplest is the cigarette lighter plug (actually sized for a cigar, if you ever noticed).
There are a lot of car accessories that run on 12 volts systems, and a lot of camping gear as well.
Best part is that it's difficult to be electrocuted with a 12 volts and low amps.
Don't feed the troll. He just wants attention.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
The UV water purifier isn't needed here in New Orleans. Our tap water has been and continues to be some of the cleanest and best tasting in the country. Our tap water comes from the Mississippi and as such is treated and filtered more that just about any other city. The Mississippi has a lot of chemicals that are deposited in it from the more Northern states that we have to filter out. I would say a Brita filter would be sufficient.
5
I wouldn't brag too much about having the cleanest water in the country if your city is drawing its water from the Mississippi river. When residents of the cities that are upstream from you flush their toilets, some of that "liquid" eventually becomes your drinking water. Here is an article that discusses how sewage treatment plants are having problems filtering certain medications out of the waste water. The old advice to "flush unused medications down the toilet" now seems like a bad idea.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=61391
I seem to recall a story from a few years back about how much caffeine was detected in the southern end of the Mississippi river as the result of cities dumping their sewage into the river. Caffeine is excreted by humans in the same "form" as when the caffeine was ingested (medical experts or chemists, please feel free to correct me if I have recalled the caffeine story incorrectly).