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

[mbdirtfarmer]

Forget about limiting yourself to a closet for your HA. Claim the area of a small bedroom. 4x8 plywood backboards on walls. room for a 2 post communications rack or server cabinet so you can stand and work around all the gear and room to keep it tidy with cable trays etc. As mentioned by others, lots of wire and conduit. Always leave a pull string in the conduits and replace with each pull.

Suspended ceiling in the basement to keep the main floor accessible for all repairs.

I'm so jealous of people doing new builds. I'll be stuck financing my kids university which will keep any housing upgrades spent, for some time to come.

[sparkman]

Rather than pull-strings or ropes, I highly recommend a product called "Mule Tape" manufactured by Neptco (in Hickory, NC). It's more expensive, but so much better to work with. It comes in different sizes/strengths, but for home use, something in the 400 lb range is typically sufficient.

Cheers
Al

[jogentry]

I concur with the cabling recommendations. Be sure to put in a patch panel or two. I would put in a nice gigabit switch. I'm partial to Cisco switches but there are cheaper alternatives. I LOVE my Cisco Meraki gear that is cloud managed and lifetime warranty on the hardware. I have PoE and think it's worth the extra upfront cost.

I built a small 4-post rack roughly based on this and I am really happy with it.
http://thehomeserverblog.com/home-se...xi-vmware-lab/

[DSteiNeuro]

Great discussions. For HDMI, I agree run at least 2 Cat6 or Cat5e) to each TV. This way you can use a Matrix switch with HDBaseT or newer technology over the Cat6. I would also plan for 4K TV as this has some nuances on the HDBaseT and source equipment.

Probably would keep a Coax for Local TV but I really never use mine.
You can have a fantastic whole house AV setup using Russound, HDMI Matrix using your Russound and speech plugins along with an IP or RS232 controlled HDMI matrix switcher.

Have Fun!

[Pete]

Over the years here have migrated to Gb from 100Mb and most recently have gone to managed Gb switches. The newer ones are very power efficient. Poe today is just about a stock build for home automation these days. I use it today to power a few things on my network. I have my network separated out a bit here using a multiple network box running a software firewall (in firmware called PFSense (also using a failover ISP connection), a Motorola modem and a dedicated POE wireless access point. Originally the coaxial cable was utilized for OTA and DTV STBs. Now mostly using the network with KODI boxes as STBs for live and recorded and streaming a la cart internet video stuff. Using the coaxial cable still for OTA with in home video stuff mixed in. Way back also installed shielded audio cable for inter audio source sharing. I have since purchased cat5e stereo audio baluns which work very well for this kind of stuff.

With the Verizon FIOS box kept the Motorola HDMI STB's on MoCA while concurrently using the network cabling. I did bridge the ethernet internet on the FIOS box to another firewall and access point rather than to utilize the combination box for internet.

[S-F]

Not sure where your new house will be located, but before you build be sure to consider things like solar and/or geothermal heating/cooling. Putting in a ground loop system is way cheaper if you do it while the house is being built.

Also, if I were rebuilding, I would make some plumbing changes to handle grey water reuse for gardening, etc.

Also, I would add a hot water recirculation pump and the needed plumbing to provide instant hot water to the master bathroom.

Steve Q



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In a residential setting ground source heat pumps make next to no sense financially at all. At least in the United States. This isn't a climate thing. It's a cost thing. Here a ground source system for a single family house with code minimum insulation and air tightness will run somewhere between $30,000 - $45,000 after the absurdly huge rebates, tax incentives and so on. For a similarly sized system comprised of mini splits you'd be paying under $10,000. So for example, my system of two mini splits was around $5,000. The same size system in a ground source heat pump would have been $28,000. Probably more since I don't make enough money for the tax breaks to make any difference to me. The ground source systems ARE more efficient. I did the math. I would have saved on average $15 a year in heating costs by going ground source. So the return on investment by spending the extra $20,000 or so is over 1,000 years!

I recommend that people skip ground source systems, spend an extra $10,000 (or less even!) on insulation and air sealing, end up more comfortable no matter what type of HVAC they have and then walk away $10,000 less poor or in debt. I haven't worked on any job that's used a ground source system in over 6 years now. Mini splits are getting so efficient in cold weather that they are effectively eviscerating the ground source market.

Ground source heat pumps still make sense in larger buildings though where the space is so large that it just isn't reasonable to heat and cool with mini splits. Think 20,000 + Sq. Ft. Once buildings get too large, then again, it makes no sense because the amount of wells that need to be dug and the space needed between them are enormous. Can't put the wells too close together or too close to a foundation. Ever seen a foundation frozen solid because the ground source ground loop was too close or wasn't large enough or a combination? I have. I have installed mini splits for people throwing fits because their 4 year old "geothermal" system was costing them more to run that their previous line gas boiler and to top it off there is ice forming on the inside of their basement wall. They just wanted the systems OUT of their lives.

Oh, and one more thing about these systems. They use electric resistance heat to make a quick rise in temperature. So if you use thermostat setbacks you're screwed. You need to keep your house at the same temperature all the time or else you get electric baseboards all over the house firing up and driving utility costs through the roof.

On the plus side...... they are making inverter ground source heat pumps now....... Way to get with the times WaterFurnace...........


Financially? Use line gas if you can.

[Steve Q]

Financially? Use line gas if you can.

I don't have natural gas. Yes, I have a water furnace!

Steve Q


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[S-F]

have a water furnace!

[Blade]

I am planning to use all LED lighting in the house.
Which z-wave switches are the best to use to allow dimming?

I currently have some zwave switches on some LED and CFL bulbs and they seem to stay on dim when the switch is off. I want to avoid this with the LED lighting in the new house.

[Automated]

Electronic Low Voltage dimmers will generally work the best, but the lights and switches should really be tested together first. Most traditional dimmers are Magnetic Low Voltage, so as the LED industry advances more, the LED driver circuits (power supply inside the lights) are being made more and more compatible with the Magnetic Low Voltage dimmers. MLV dimmers are cheaper than ELV. I have a long post somewhere around here from some years ago on the topic.

[travisdh]

If I had a chance to do it again, there is not too much I would do that different, other than running more cables to the external areas for camera's (e.g. POE),

One of the biggest things I wish I had of done is run a ring of Cat5 around the house, instead of to a central point, that way I could add 1-wire sensors to the ring and not terminate one end, and add the other to an arduino or 1-wire receiver.

[Malosa]

my new project the next year is searching a old big home what i can strip, than i use cat5 cat 6 cables and russound 6 zone system with all audiocables , shutdown gas and get rid of it , i want a gass free home (to expensive in the EU), gonna buy much solar panels and everything on electric.
I want to make everything that is possible to be automated.
even the kitchen ( i have seen a whole kitchen its fully automated and readable trough zwave / and plugwise, so homeseer proof.

so much to do , when i find a home that suits me and my wife , i will make a new topic with everything in there.

and also if that project is finished , i start in my home @ italy .

kind regards !