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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)
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
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.