Ask Slashdot: Ideas For a Geek Remodel?

An anonymous reader writes "What would you do to 'go geek' if you had a major remodel on your hands? My wife and I are re-modeling my in-law's 3000 sq foot single-level house, and we're both very wired, tech-savvy individuals. We will both have offices, as well as TVs in the bedroom and dining room. My question to the community is: What would you do if you had 10-20,000 to spend for this kind of remodel project? What kind of hardware/firmware would you install? I'd love to have a digital 'command center' to run an LCD wall-calendar for the family, and be able to play my PS3 from anywhere in the house (ie, if everyone wants to watch Netflix while I'm in the middle of some Borderlands). What else have geeks done/planned to do? This is a test run for a much, much nicer house down the road, so don't be overly afraid of cost concerns for really great ideas. We will be taking most of the house down to studs, so don't factor demolition into costs. For culinary-minded geeks, I'd love any ideas you have to surprise my wife with cool kitchen gadgets or designs."

Comments

System under glass

[drinkypoo]

The #1 thing I've always wanted to do is put the whole entertainment system behind glass and give it muffled fans and intake filters. I'd really like to eliminate every little bit of noise finally, even the TV has a hum to it. And then there's the dust, which could be all but eliminated by using the right materials for building the enclosure, and the use of the aforementioned filters. I'd give it its own system for control of temp and humidity too, since that's relatively easy if you have all the other parts.

Re:System under glass

[TWX]

That's fairly easy to do with a simple closet off to one side with a tinted glass or plexi door. I actually use a 5' telecom cabinet that was designed with some fairly nice wood paneled sides. Friends of ours have a pseudo wine fridge for their large collection of reds in the form of a closet with an AC duct into it. You could combine these, add a baffle to close it off in the winter from the heat, and have such.

I would suggest multiple Cat6a ethernet cables to each room. Two per wall, and if a wall is particularly long, possibly more sets. I would pull four into each entertainment center, and pull them in behind where each of the kitchen appliances goes, into every curio cabinet, where the laundry is, where the hot water heaters and air conditioning units are, and even to where the doorbell is, though that last one might remain unterminated in the wall. The beautiful thing about four-pair twisted pair wiring is that it can be used for not only ethernet and computers/appliances, but for telephones, intercom systems, security cameras, and all other manner of low voltage devices. Pick a nice closet as the concentration point and be sure to label everything so that you can figure out what it all is later. If you're feeling adventurous, put in conduit for all of this ethernet cable so that it can be upgraded or added to later. Probably 3/4" or bigger given the size of Cat6a. Yes, I know that everyone carries on about wireless, but wired really is the way to go for anything high bandwidth, like when all of the TVs are on and streaming different content at the same time.

Consider putting single-mode fiber in too. That could be a bit pricier though, and my guess is that it would be less essential than the copper.

In each room that will have any chance of having an entertainment center, put 2" conduit from the entertainment center location to the rough middle of the ceiling, terminate the conduit in doublegang boxes. That'll be for video signal cables. Or use a triplegang box at the entertainment center end and run eight speaker wires- front left, front center, front right, rear left, rear center, rear right, side left and side right. That way you can use a 4 way, a 5 way, a 6 way, or an 8 way surround sound system without having to change the cabling.

Lighting automation

[beernutmark]

As soon as we moved into our new house I replaced all the switches with an Insteon system and an ISY-99 controller. I absolutely love it. Being able to turn off all the lights in the house from the bedroom is great. I can put the kids lights on timers, see if any lights are on, have the sprinkler system turn on per water need (connected to weatherbug), setback the thermostat automatically when we leave the house, have a night kitchen run scene, etc....

A DIY friendly system and the programming language on the ISY is easy to use and quite flexible.

I have been very happy and wish I had done it on the old house.

#2 favorite thing (actually probably #1 but it is not really a remodel item) is a whole house Sonos system. The perfect audio sync and ease of listening to anything anywhere in the house is great. I used to be a developer for GiantDisc (which still has the best cataloging system available anywhere) but the Sonos ease of use and perfect audio sync won me over.

Wainscotting and conduit

[MickLinux]

I would have easily removable wainscotting for access to the walls, and lots of conduit allowing whatever room-to-room connections I might need later. I'd model it on hospital setups, but go cheaper:I'd use luann paneling for the wainscotting, for example.

Secret passage

[c 0xFF]

Since you're going down to the studs anyway, find some place to put in a simple secret passageway. You know, for the kids and grandkids.

Look for dead spaces in the walls. It can be as simple as going from one closet to another. Try to connect to the crawlspace, maybe.

Re:This is the in-law's house right?

[geoskd]

As a former builder I can tell you, we don't do that. Telling someone it will take longer is a great way to lose a bid... and thus never get a chance to even start the job. The "Scotty Principle" works only if you have a nice safe government paycheck.

I have to second that. Home owners never believe contractors who tell them a realistic (much less padded) estimate for how long a project will take. For some reason most homeowners think you can Drywall, Spackle and sand 2000 Square feet in a day...

I just finished a 2000 square foot renovation project. Complete teardown (to the frame, and in some instances even that had to go). The project took two of us working on it part time: 5 years to complete. The original budget for the project was $75,000. Final expenses ended up around $180,000. We definitely went overkill. Individual thermostat control for each room, Radiant floor heating, and Silent Valance cooling. Whole house Gbit Ether, CATV / phone to every room. Satellite hookup on the roof (even though we don't use it, the box is there and properly wired). 15 New skylights with motorized remote controls. Heat Pump heat and cool with Natural Gas backup. I skipped the Geothermal, but I highly recommend it for the long run. I can still switch the heat pump for a geothermal unit, and will probably do so when the heat pump eventually dies.

Additional items that are definitely worth the money, but don't have any geek shininess to them: Spray foam insulation. If you have the walls open anyway, put in spray foam. at 7.5 inches thick (exterior wall), the stuff has an R value of around 50, and unlike all other forms of insulation, it wont degrade over time. I have several rooms in my house that you can heat with a candle. My total heating bill is less than the cost of running the household appliances, even in the dead of winter.

You'll also want to make sure you have 500 AMP mains. This will ensure you have adequate power for everything in the future. Along with this, run at least two separate strings of 20 Amp outlets to every room. You never appreciate how much power modern equipment can draw until you try to run your mini-fridge, microwave, and 1000 watt stereo, only to discover that all the outlets in the house share a single 15 amp breaker... I have 2 20 amp circuits for every room. I can run most of a normal persons household on the power handling ability of half my living room, but I'm pretty sure My house is ready to handle tomorrows do-hickeys. I would also recommend getting some LED accent lighting for common areas like kitchens and baths. This stuff can be very dim, but provide enough light to act as a night light. Very cool to have instead of turning on bright lights to go the bathroom in the middle of the night and waking up the whole house.

-=Geoskd

Cameras to monitor the house infrastructure

[MinistryOfTruthiness]

In light of the approaching hurricane, and during heavy rain in general, I like to make sure my sump pump is keeping up (I live in an older house). Rather than continually going down to check on it, I installed a WiFi IP Camera in the room pointed at the pump. That way I can check on it periodically from my phone without actually going in there. Of course, infra-red LEDs are a must on such a setup, but they come with most cameras anyway. To generalize, cameras wherever you might want to monitor the state of the house. This would be separate from security cameras.