Will be building - What would you do if you could do it again

[Blade]

We are currently selling our house and once we do we will be building.
I now have the opportunity to right some of the wrongs I made when building our current house.

Here are some things I plan on doing:

• Z-Wave will be used for lighting, sensors, HVAC, etc
• Wiring for a CAA66 Russound system for whole house audio
• In-ceiling speakers
• Alarm system rough-in for DSC keypads and door/window sensors
• CAT5 in every room of the house
• RG6 satellite cable in every room in the house

I would love some feedback or ideas

[sparkman]

Hi Bob,

One of the things I would seriously look at if I was building is to do all lighting as low voltage using CAt5e/6. I think this is the future of lighting and is gaining a lot of traction in commercial spaces. Take a look at Commscope's Redwood solution as an example, but there are lots of DIY options too.

Cheers
Al

[Guest]

Like what Blade said.
2 CAT 6 to every TV location and 1 to camera locations.
I' wouldnt do any prewire for house audio. I did, but find sonos more than meets needs and ultimately is cheaper.
I did wire all doors and windows and would again as DSC is great for running events. I would wire more interior motions as they are cheaper and better than zwave - would do at least a dozen and likely never need a light switch again!
I'd wire garage doors to be able to operate.
I would rough in low voltage for under cabinet lights instead of true household 14/2
Wouldn't bother with home runs for blinds. Battery units seem fine.
More quad 4 to "wet" areas for moisture detection.

[Mr_Resistor]

Agreed cat 6/6+ to every room...at least 2 drops to every location, more in tech heavy rooms (media room, home office, home gym, equipment rooms etc(including kitchen/Bathrooms etc)..... Homerun everything to a single closet. Weatherized ones for external IP/POE cams

inwall / inceling speakres can be nice and have a high WAF, but decent sounding ones are spendy.

Deddicated "equipment" room/ with discreet power / power backup/conditioning for HS server, AV servers/ AV equipment, network gear etc.

Isolated hospital grade outlets in equipment/media rooms.

Each room on it's own circuit breaker. (and a properly labeled box)

accessible spaces in ceilings/ crawl spaces for POE WAPs.

Wine cellar (just cuz)

[AgileHumor]

Power for room motion sensors (to automate all lighting) and speakers.

[DevinH]

Pretty much what everyone else has said.

We built, but it was in a neighborhood with assigned builders that didn't let you customize anything other than their list of bullet points for optional upgrades to whichever model you chose.

I knew I'd prefer a traditional whole house audio system over sonos (I prefer recessed speakers and keypads instead of carrying my phone around with me everywhere), so I snuck in with a friend the day before drywall went up and ran speaker wire from the basement to the ceilings of the rooms on the main floor that I'll eventually want as zones for whole house audio. Didn't have time to do the upstairs before it went dark, so we just ran a smurf tube from the attic to the basement to make it easier in the future. Even if do you run wire to the upstairs, I'd still recommend a smurf tube because you never know what wires/cables you'll want to run across floors in the future.

The other thing we didn't have time to do was run ethernet to keypad locations, so that'll probably cost me a bit when it's time to do it. The system I'm looking at can utilize two cat runs from keypad locations (one for a source control / volume control keypad and another for a blue tooth / 3.5mm stereo input keypad at each zone). You might also think about any places you'd like to install a wall mounted display / control zone and run cat and power to those locations. In our house, the kitchen and master bed would've been good locations.

Fortunately, the specs called for two cat5e runs to each major room (one data, one voice) and I've re-purposed some of the voice runs as a second data port. The few locations we didn't have cat runs, that I would've liked, are the kitchen (for an eventual kitchen pc) and a second in the office on the opposite wall where I'd like to eventually mount a TV, and the third to the garage (I don't yet know for what, but I assume I'll eventually wish I had one).

Cat runs from the basement to exterior locations for security cameras ended up costing me $1000 (4 runs at $250ea) to have done by a contractor after the build.

I would have also liked to have power run to the windows for motorized blinds. Fortunately, most of the windows where I'd like motorized blinds are in groups of three, with at least one outlet below so I can eventually daisy chain 3 windows to a single outlet.

There's a couple places on the exterior that I wish I had power outlets in order to mount motion flood lights. By not having them, I'll instead be looking into solar powered flood lights.

I also wish I had smurf tubes from a couple of the tv/media locations to the basement in order to more easily run HDMI and various other cables for video disruption or other stuff.

I've seen some nice recessed ceiling mounted wifi routers that would need ethernet (possibly power, can't remember if they were PoE) to their locations in the ceiling.

I'd look at some of the wall mounted switches in places where you'll have a lot of devices connected, to limit the number of desktop switches sitting around everywhere.

I would've liked to have power run to a couple exterior gates.

A few things that were part of the initial build specs that I wouldn't have thought about myself:

1) floor outlets at locations where you'd put couches/recliners (I guess for motorized recliners and those have usb ports). And a floor outlet in the office where you might put a desk.
2) tubes run behind the wall from where you might mount a TV to the bottom of the wall to conceal cables.
3) a solar conduit in case we decide to do panels in the future.

I chose not finish the basement at build time so I could think about this exact stuff more.

[Blade]

Great ideas ... Keep them coming

[S-F]

I suggest more runs of CAT 6 than you think you need. Maybe as much as 3x more. But the biggest thing I can recommend is to create access ceilings so any wires you want to run later are a breeze.

See: http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/...-layered-house

[lhfarm]

We did a down to the studs remodel/2nd store addition in 1996. I put in over 9000 feet of Cat5, low voltage wire and speaker wire. Did multiple outlets in every room with duel RJ45 and RG6 cable, plus speaker connections all "home-run" to my media closet in the basement. One Cat5 was wired to a phone patch panel for phone. I used deep boxes to accommodate the X-10 I was using at the time and made sure there was a neutral wire in every box. I installed one wall-mount push-button control setup for audio. All wiring was in 1" or 1 1/2" conduit

After all these years I would only make a few changes -
1. I over-killed on the number of outlets in some rooms. I had outlets on every wall in the living room and really only use 1 and that is for speakers. WiFi and the demise of the wired phone made the others unnecessary.

2. I under-estimated the need for Cat5 in other areas. The kitchen has two outlets, but I could have used more, although I have used WiFi successful there. The major failure was to run Cat5 to external locations. For security cameras, I ran RG6 and low voltage cable for power but no Cat5. Now I would run CatX(where X is the latest standard) and use PoE for power. I have also been able to use the phone Cat5 cables in some of my additional needs, moving them from the phone punch-down panel to my RJ45 patch panel.

3. I wouldn't have installed the IR control box. I may replace it with a tablet, but it isn't in a prime location. All the music control is done through HSTouch.

4. I'd use larger size conduit. Cost isn't that much different. I've moved some wires and my bundles with Cat5, cable, low voltage and speaker wires filled the conduit and getting one cable out wasn't easy.

5. I've had to add a couple of electrical circuits to my media closet. I should have done more planing there. And if you are going to have a standby generator, make sure your media closet is covered.

Otherwise, I am every happy I went with what was called "future-proofing" for the wiring.

Barry

[collegeboyslive]

WIRE. speakers, lights, if you have a choice of wire or wireless wire has always proved more reliable.

and and DOUBLE cat6 runs. if your pulling 1 wire its no bigger effort to pull 2 at the same time, you never know down the road when you will need that 2nd run wither to expand or if the 1st run breaks

[collegeboyslive]

Run a string INside any conduit and leave it there. that way if you need to add later another run of anything simply attach it to the string and pull

[Pete]

Relating to just the alarm wiring personally I would recommend using real wire and not make wireless assumptions.

Assume wires for everything even if you do not use this when you move in. (speaker-16/2 & 16/4, alarm 22/4 & 22/2, catXX, on and on with this).

Build a communications closet. Wire everything to the closet using chases then add more chases if you fill up the used for wiring chases.

Make your electrical infrastructure automation friendly. Here I utilize a "smart" TVSS in my panel.

Make your water feeds automation friendly.

Make your home tight (insulation and the such). Automating your thermostat doesn't fix a home that is not insulated right.

Old HVAC friend told me that your goals should be to heat your home with one candle and cool it with one ice cube.

Have a read here:

Wiring your new house 101

[TeleFragger]

No one has recommended a kegerator in the HA Closet????

hah..

wow wish i could build!!!!!

I have always thought if I could build... would I go with an Elk M1-Gold system????

[Raptor]

consider running power(12v) and control(cat5/6) to the windows for powered blinds or curtains

+1 for the conduit and string

Add cat5/6 for Ir distribution to the tv's

Prewire coax,power (12/24v) cat5/6 for camera drops.

terminate connections to a patch panel.

Centralize power for the 12/24 stuff and consider UPS backups.

Consider any RGB leds or other LEDS you may want to add.

Consider solar

[conepuppy]

This is making me want to build a new house! haha
Amazing ideas all!

Good luck with the new build Blade!