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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."
Build flood wall/stilts for the house (or more realistically, Flood Insurance).
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
Demolish the property and stick a nice sized Yacht on top of supports right where the house used to be.
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
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
Since the house has been gutted, you can install an entire system of pneumatic tubes, one to each room. Send a sandwich from the kitchen to the garage; send your laundry directly to the laundry room.
Electric trains running from room to room along the crown moulding, and through tunnels in the walls.
Lift-off computer room floor in the living room.
Underfloor fishtanks.
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...
(double)(float) house;
Tsunami -- You can't bring a good wave down!
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.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.