Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
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
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...
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.