Ask Slashdot: Shortcuts To a High Tech House

First time accepted submitter phaedrus9779 writes "I'm a recently married man about to take on the next big adventure: home ownership! I came across a great house in a great community but I need a little bit extra: a high tech house. The problem: money, I'm on a budget. I'd love to have home theaters, super high tech weather stations and iPads seamlessly installed in all the walls — but this just isn't possible. So my question to the Slashdot community is: how can I build a high tech house that will be the envy of my friends, provide lots of useful gadgets, and not break the bank? Also, as always, the cooler the better!"

Comments

Nest & Tankless heater

[Tronster]

Two items I can recommend that cost a bit upfront but do indeed save money down the road:
- Nest Thermostat ( http://www.nest.com/ )
- Tankless water heater

A good tankless water heater will cost a few K (with installation, etc...) so perhaps just start with the Nest. There is currently a waiting list for them, but I was able to get mine about 3 months after waiting. It looks cool, and if used properly, will continually save you money over the life of the house.

Re:Nest & Tankless heater

[BLKMGK]

I have a gas fired tankless water heater, so long as I don't run the larger pipes that go to the spa tub wide open in Winter I get endless HOT water. In Winter the incoming water temp drops enough that it cannot keep up with the larger pipes that run to that spigot, turning them back 1/4 turn is enough to solve this. My shower regulator in the shower is temp sensitive so any variations in pressure from flushing toilets etc. result in no temp change. The newest best tankless sense the issue of overrun and slow water flow but my unit is about 5 years old now and this didn't exist then. Mine also requires electricity to fire off the gas, some of the new ones don't as they generate their own spark. Being able to adjust hot water temp with a digital temp meter vs using a screwdriver on a hidden potentiometer is nice.

I compared the efficiency stickers on the outgoing tank vs the tankless. The tank was actually only a year old but my renovation meant it had to go. The tank had a rating in the middle, the tankless on the FAR left which was more efficient. Then I noticed, much to my shock, that the scales didn't even overlap! My tankless kicks the snot out of the tank unit it replaced to say the least. My gas bills in Summer when only hot water is being used used to be maybe $20 or so, they have dropped just about in HALF. Winter it's impossible to tell but I think it's clear the thing is saving me money and the fact that I can run the shower for an hour and still have HOT water simply rocks. I can also fill a damn big Jacuzzi spa tub to the brim with scalding hot water which is damn nice, I'd have had to upsize my previous tank to do this and driven costs up even more storing the water.

One thing to bear in mind with tankless though is that you MUST have soft water, I have a softener for this purpose that also filters. If you do not have soft water they will scale badly as the water boils going through. In my area code REQUIRES a softener, it's those that don't have this that may cause these to "die faster". I know that when my previous tank unit died it was so full of sediment and minerals that it couldn't be drained... The softer water makes for a nice shower experience and the clothes clean better, the addition of a filter is nice as well so it was win win all around.

Solar hot water is the ONLY thing that could beat this but the maintenance and install costs just wouldn't be worth it for me compared to the savings I already enjoy. This thing might not ever pay itself off I'll admit but the convenience I have is well worth it and I AM saving money vs a tank month to month. The heat pump tank units are also worth looking at but frankly the cost, space issues, and what to do with the wasted cold air make me pause. The space I needed to put my tankless in was small so a tank wouldn't have worked anyway, mine is the size of a small piece of luggage fit for carry-on!

Re:Nest & Tankless heater

[Technician]

The 20 year TV went away with the introduction of the inventory tax. Parts are not kept to support the service industry any more.

http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/industries/article/0,,id=100355,00.html

This tax ensures slow moving inventory is disposed of as it is not profitable to have replacement parts in stock for 10 year old TV sets. You can get generic caps, CFL lamps, etc, but a replacement custom video decoder/driver chip will be unobtainable. A broken VCR idler arm unless generic to fit many brands are unavailable. This is when I changed careers. Parts for older stuff no longer exists.

Flood wire early on.

[Gordonjcp]

If you have to rip apart walls - or even just skim them before you paint or paper - take the time to run in plenty of cabling. You can get audio and video baluns for running over CAT5 these days fairly cheaply, although the hifi purists will throw their hands up in horror.

CAT6 is cheap enough, might as well start ahead of the curve.

Re:Aren't you supposed to ...

[Tom]

c) find a better wife

Seriously, I've never understood all the horror stories, not before and not after my own marriage.

Why for your friends, and not for you?

[Neil_Brown]

I guess it depends on what your friends like, and why you want to impress them. I enjoy tinkering, and have been gradually adding bits and pieces, but nothing designed to impress anyone other than me.

Playing on the Wii — four player Mario Kart, in particular — with the image projected across the lounge, is something which people seem to enjoy, though; pretty cheap (a bog standard, non-HD projector cost me about £220 about five years ago), and great fun. Just find some games which are easy enough to pick up and play, and get everyone involved, and you're off... I wouldn't put that together just to impress others, though, but it is quite good fun all the same.

The bought-broken-on-eBay-but-fixed-with-a-screwdriver Roomba is quite cool, but doesn't get as much use as I'd like, as my girlfriend is not a great fan of it. It doesn't save me much time either, to be honest, as, when I run it, I tend to stand marveling at it...

Personally, the things I find the coolest are music streamed into which ever room I want, controllable via my phone (AirTunes... nothing fancy here), and being able to select any movie and have it streamed through the projector (Apple TV and iTunes on server currently, although previously via a PS3 and a share on the server). Again, neither is fancy, but they both work a treat.

The remotely-controlled lighting was relatively inexpensive, but my setup is not free of bugs yet — I'm using HomeEasy switches, and a small RF dongle (TellStick) plugged in the back of a Linux machine, and, whilst it means I can easily control the lighting from a web browser, and easily automate when I'm away from home, I have not yet managed to get one transmission controlling just one light. Switching off the lounge lighting via the console / interface switches off the light in the kitchen and so on. A real nuisance, and one which I need to spend more time trying to resolve.

(Cameras around the house were the only things that raised objections, although agreeing on placement solved that problem.)

Main Considerations

[az1324]

If you DIY you can probably accomplish a lot for under $10k and the pros would probably charge you 10x that for similar functionality. The following categories should represent the major considerations:

Infrastructure - How are you going to connect everything?
- WiFi Everywhere
- Server box for storage & to run some home automation software & scripts (small embedded linux or more powerful)
- Main equipment location & as much distributed wiring as you can do cheaply & easily yourself

Entertainment - From where will your source content & how will you present it?
- LCD/Plasma Monitors
- Multiroom audio
- Rokus or other cheap streaming boxes?
- Whole House DVR systems from cable/satellite? (Dish Hopper/Joey, etc...)
- HDHomeRun or other DVR capture cards?
- A/V matrix switches & distribution? (monoprice)
- Programmable remotes (ipads, cheap android tablets, logitech harmony, etc...)

Comfort & Convenience
- Lighting (X10, Z-Wave, Insteon, UPB, etc..)
- HVAC (thermostats)
- In-house communications (intercoms, pbx)
- Misc automation (window shading, garage doors, locks, etc...)
- Weather/Environmental sensors (oregon scientific, lacrosse)
- Programmable remotes (ipads, cheap android tablets, logitech harmony, etc...)

Security
- Alarm system (2gig, honeywell, etc..)
- Cameras & DVR

The wow factor usually comes from complex actions resulting from simple inputs (scripting) so plan ahead for how everything is going to work together & communicate (sticking to fewer protocols will be easier, though maybe not always cheaper). Have a controller/server you can program yourself and don't get locked in to a proprietary system.

IMHO, a bunch of ipads plastered into the walls really aren't that useful or impressive so skip that.

Re:Shortcuts To A...

[HornWumpus]

Don't listen to him about the electric mowers. Get an old 2 stroke Toro. (Mine has a Yamaha motor).

They last forever and your friends _will_ be a little jealous of your mowers power. Like mowing your lawn with an old Transam. Sure the hippies sneer, that's part of the point.

Before automating any mower listen to 'my dead dog rover' 100 times without a break.

Figure out what trees you want where and do it. For example I put off cutting down a false maple, which was a mistake. Spiky balls made half the back yard not barefoot safe. Also the tree sucked water etc out of the ground. Making any replacements I tried to establish before cutting it down fail.

Plant a vegetable garden. Store bought tomatoes suck. I should be planting right now, but my back aches. Hence goofing off here.

Seriously examine your priorities. The house is not that different from the rental you moved out of. Granting you can now modify all you want. Start with the things like new trees that have built in clocks/delays. Then bigger mods like fixing the acoustics of a media room (assuming you are bringing decent enough, for you, audio with you). This is a project management problem. I believe that most of your 'critical path' items will be 'get tree to grow to produce shade' type. Not 'run cat-6 to medicine grow room automation server closet'.

You don't want to be the dude with the entire house automation built around, and locked into, his palm pilot.

I cannot overemphasize getting on the landscaping etc. It's spring or will be soon where you are. Get a copy of the Garden handbook for your region. Figure out what you (or your wife) really want and start with the slowest growing bits.

Get a chainsaw. Again 2 stroke is the way to go. Electric ones suck. Chainsaws are nerdy in a different kind of way. Don't go crazy or you will get hurt. Your first saw should run 0% nitromethane fuel. Be skeptical of advice from anyone who tells you otherwise.

Install your HAM radio tower and antenna ASAP. It helps put the HOA in it's place (if you have one, sympathies). The FCC has claimed exclusive domain over regulating radio towers, so installing one is a trap for any overzealous HOA assholes.

The first task is assign reasonable priorities. Is 'Geek out the house' really #1?

I think you should throw a 'show your neighbors who is boss' party. Invite your worst reprobate friends from your single days. Have your wife invite her sluttiest friends from her single days. Invite me, I'll bring 'medicine'.