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    New Construction - what to include

    After years of doing HA in an old house, and then years of being away from HA, I'm finally close to starting new construction on my retirement home, and have the opportunity to "bake" the HA in from the beginning.

    While I may not be able to do everything, I wanted to get ideas from folks on what they would include if they could, and of course, what they'd avoid!

    Thanks!

    K

    #2
    It might be part of newer code now, but make sure your light switch boxes have a neutral...
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      #3
      Neutral

      Good one! I had already forgotten what a pain in the butt that was in my old house! Thank you!

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        #4
        Originally posted by kwaugh View Post
        After years of doing HA in an old house, and then years of being away from HA, I'm finally close to starting new construction on my retirement home, and have the opportunity to "bake" the HA in from the beginning.

        While I may not be able to do everything, I wanted to get ideas from folks on what they would include if they could, and of course, what they'd avoid!

        Thanks!

        K
        My suggestions:

        Have an alarm system (or at least sensors) for doors/windows installed. This will make monitoring those a lot easier with an alarm panel you can control from HS. If i'm not mistaken, it would be easier to wire and install these during construction (but I could be wrong). It will also be cheaper than using z-wave/Insteon/etc sensors and I think they would be more reliable.

        Make sure they run power to every switch box then to fixtures. This may be code now, but I'm not sure about everywhere. An extreme measure would be to have all your lights/switches home run from a central location (I've seen this and it can be quite impressive, but probably expensive).

        I've seen the central distribution done for water as well. I wish I had that (you can turn off water to just 1 room for repairs instead of the whole house). I think it would make monitoring water usage easier as well since you have 1 place to install the monitoring.

        Obvious: Wire as much as you can (or have it wired). Run as much cable (Cat6/6A/7, RG6, speaker wire,HDMI, etc) as you think you'll need to every where the add some more. As a matter of fact, run more than you might need. I have done this during remodels and hidden the wires in the walls. IF I never need them, fine, but if I do, I know the cables are behind the drywall. I'm not a huge fan of wireless for everything. If it has an ethernet port and doesn't move around, it is hard wired in.

        Edit: When doing the above, also remember to run some kind of conduit for pulling new wires later to those locations. During install, the wires go in DO NOT go in the conduit. That is for later pulls.

        If possible, set a side a "room" for equipment and for all your terminations. This might all be in the basement if you live where there are basements. I would just try and have it all put in 1 location. Mine is 4'x6' and I wish it was bigger (it also houses our Air handler which is 2'x2x, so takes up a lot of it).

        Don't forget outside (Not necessarily HA Related). If you want speakers, power, etc in your landscaping plan for it.

        Another good one is for any driveways, walkways, etc, have them put conduit under them so if you need to run cables later, you can easily get under them wihtout having to pull anything up

        If you are into decorating for holidays (like Xmas), consider having outlets put IN your eaves. Makes putting up lights easier

        If I think of anymore I'll drop back by and give them to you

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          #5
          Wire, wire, wire.

          Wireless communications are improving all the time, but a wire will offer versatility, be more secure, faster and offer (mostly) unshared bandwidth. I'd run two Cat5e/6 to every wall of every room from a central location / wiring closet. Leave most of it in the wall, but take pictures and good notes before closing it in and label the end in the closet. You can use a toner to home in on the other end when and if you need it.
          Mike____________________________________________________________ __________________
          HS3 Pro Edition 3.0.0.548, NUC i3

          HW: Stargate | NX8e | CAV6.6 | Squeezebox | PCS | WGL 800RF | RFXCOM | Vantage Pro | Green-Eye | Edgeport/8 | Way2Call | Ecobee3 | EtherRain | Ubiquiti

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            #6
            Thoughts on IR and temp monitors?

            Thanks to everyone for the input. My list is getting long!

            One of the things I had done at my old house was wire a bunch of 1-wire temp/humidity sensors all over the house. Not that it served much of a purpose, but I had a "dashboard" of temps that updated every 10 seconds or so with all the temps.

            I'd like to have something similar in the new place - is 1-wire sill a viable technology?

            Also, what are folks thoughts on whole house IR? Seems a bit dated in the IoT world?

            Thanks!

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              #7
              I understand while it is old wired technology, it is reasonably priced, not wireless and no batteries are required. I have a drawing / spreadsheet for addresses but don't even recall where they are all at these days as they are maintenance free.

              I still utilize it here. Every room has a temperature or temperature humidity sensor wired to Cat5e in a hub and spoke multiple 1-wire networks fashion. Today you can purchase single 1-wire sensors for pennies each.

              Relating to the RPi2 running Zee-2 Homeseer lite I am testing one small 1-wire network for temperature and humidity in attic and it works fine.

              Many forum users are using the Arduino stuff for their 1-wire networks. Using an ethernet shield you can do a hub and spoke on your home network if you choose.

              Here also using 1-wire multiple counters for water meters, rain guages type of stuff.

              Never really had any issues with 1-wire stuff here.

              Attached / linked are Cocoontech wiring your new home spreadsheets and documentation.

              As stated earlier; wire everything. During construction it is cost effective as spools of cable are not cost prohibitive.

              New construction spreadsheet.

              Cocoontech wiring 101

              Here for one new home (on a farm and took 3 years but no rush to build) wrote my stuff over original architectural drawings. There were changes and updated the drawings post construction doing "as built" drawings and spreadsheets.

              Relating to electrical went granular on the 200 AMP panel some. Using separate circuits for bedrooms et al. Updated a bunch here. Mostly easy because of conduit use. Media room went to separate circuits for lighting, fireplace, outlets and media equipment. I also printed a map of the circuits in the fuse panel and put this on the inside door. Concurrently wired in surge protection with external modular monitoring.

              Helped a friend with a new home basement wiring closet. There I added two new circuits autonomously connected to fuse panel and lighting over the panels with a wall switch, lighting over the HVAC/utility room for maintenance. One lamp for object type of stuff. Two lamps over the media panels.

              In new home construction wired on one side outside for DTV and the other side for cable / cat5e connectivity adding cat5e for garage stuff to the panel. Under driveway wired sensors. It is only wire and it is reasonably priced.

              Plumbing wise you can add recirculation et al. Here shifted 1" copper lines such that all was nice and tidy in one room and not spread out in the basement.
              Last edited by Pete; July 29, 2016, 09:24 AM.
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                #8
                Consider using plastic (vs metal) switch boxes for your Z-Wave switches. Apparently, the signal can travel further from within a plastic box, especially in a multi-gang config, than from a metal box.

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