Hello World - Greetings from Europe, moving to the Sarasota area

Hi guys, 
 
We’re (for lack of a better term) “career expats” and have been living in various countries for the last 15 years. We’re currently in Europe on our final assignment. In anticipation of our repatriation back to the States, we started a new construction in the Sarasota / Bradenton area.  
 
We have some major HA decisions ahead of us (lighting, security, A/V, HVAC, pool, irrigation ) - a bit overwhelming when you’re trying to do it all at the same time, within a 9 month horizon AND from “across the pond”. Additionally, technology has changed A LOT since we last lived in the States and our 3rd world country postings have left us a bit behind in our knowledge base of what’s out there. Lots of catching up to do. 
 
I’ve been lurking on this site for a few months and the information here has been invaluable in helping narrow down our HA options. So, thanks! 
 
Just wanted to drop by and say a formal hello. If any of you are in the Sarasota / Bradenton area please let me know. Would love to buy you a beer and pick your brains in person when we’re next in the States.

Welcome to the forum lst9r.
 
Wondering what has attracted you to the area?  Here been going there since the 80's. 
 
Where are you building your home?
 
Have a home there which we installed / wired a Leviton OmniPro II in the early 2000's. Working fine today.
 
We did a tear down on a home built in the 1950's.  Contractor did the alarm prewire and we did the rest of the LV wiring during construction.  2-3 days and very low on the WAF (so mostly it was me).

Hi Pete, 
 
We're building on Anna Maria. Our friends bought a place in Holmes Beach & had been encouraging us to visit. We showed up for a 4 day weekend back in 2012 and somehow walked away with a mortgage. Construction finally started this year - we hope to be done by early next summer. 
 
We had consulted with some home integration professionals in the area (which would certainly make a remote project easier) but the price tag & proprietary nature of their controllers (a lighting scene change shouldn't require a service call) have made me start looking at DIY solutions. 
 
By the way, have you used an alarm monitoring service out there? Or can you recommend one? We need to get a monitored security solution but that usually comes with specific hardware / panels (not always easy to integrate with a HA system from what I hear) and long-term service contracts. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks. 

Good news!  Are you doing a tear down and building new?
 
Many years ago used to frequent a restaurant on Anna Maria Island.  It was on the water at the end of s. Bay Blvd.  Little bar and boat docks were there.  I don't see it there anymore via google maps.
 
There on LBK.  Small subdivision (50 houses) and eclectic mixture of folks.  Thinking two neighbors are from the UK.  Next door neighbor is from Germany.  Home was purchased in the 80's; not really used a bunch; then we did a tear down in the late 1990's and started from scratch there.
 
I DIY'd the installation of a Leviton HAI OmniPro 2. 
 
It was easy.  Initially did call the original alarm wiring company for a quote.  It was a bit excessive and I didn't get anything.
 
The above noted the same alarm company prewired the house for an alarm panel and they did better than I would have done.
 
I would suggest that if you can get that done either subcontracted or a direct subcontract then it will be easy to DIY your panel.
 
That said during construction had weekly visits with the contractor; sometimes flying in early morning and leaving late at night. 
 
It was a PITA to have to have to watch and push.
 
I did build a closet in a closet in the middle of the house which I home runned all of the cabling.
 
I did modify the original drawings for construction relating to the LV stuff and the contractor was great relating to my changes.
 
The original home sat at sea level and the new home is elevated. 
 
A neighbor there liked my setup so much I did one for her (she lives by herself there).
 
I am using NextAlarm.  (many years now).  It is not local.  I pay for it by the year.  Its reasonable.

Thanks for all the helpful information! We'll be heading to SRQ in 2 weeks to check in on the build. Hopefully we'll have a chance to sit down with the electrician this time around to ensure we're on the same page. 
 
Ours is a new construction - which in some ways is great... but having a world of endless possibilities can also be a bit overwhelming too. 
 
I believe the restaurant you're talking about on S. Bay at the Bimini Bay marina was Rotten Ralphs. They renovated the entire dock, Ralph's moved to somewhere in Bradenton & Ocean Star (Japanese / sushi) moved in. It's been doing quite well - you should check it out the next time you're down there. 
 
LBK was the other location we looked at - beautiful and peaceful. If we hadn't stumbled upon our empty AMI lot, we'd most likely have bought there. 

Yup; Rotten Ralphs visits was the 80's-90's; very simple and nothing really fancy; food was very good and it was quiet there; never really that busy back then.
 
Kept the low voltage stuff relatively simple.  Late 1990's and used whatever I knew of back then.  (well airline/bank stuff) Security, lighting, HVAC and sound.  The original plans had put the security wiring in the master bedroom closet.  I moved that to the center of the house and built a closet inside of the laundry room; kind of layered such as to utilize the space better.  I also changed all of the contractor provided LV runs to single runs to the closet (originally telco and RG6 cabling was just daisy chaining from room to room).  HVAC thermostat was just adding a cat5e to wiring closet. (plus the wiring to the furnace - heat pump set up).
 
For LV adds initially did a tour of other homes that the contractor was building and saw he was non LV centric at the time such that I asked for a window of time of a week or so before walls went up to LV wire.  The subcontracted local alarm company did do an excellent job with their wiring.  All doors, windows, et al were covered.  The building contract did call for an alarm pre-wire.  Outside electric put lighting (spots) in each corner of the house along with more LV cabling.  Put an outdoor shower (plumbing was an endeavor) to one side of the lanai running hot and cold water.  Drainage was done around the area in sort of channels.  The Lanai also connects to one aux bathroom / shower room.  It was another plumbing endeavor as most of the shower is glass and we didn't want to see the plumbing.  (did do in wall speakers in the all of the bathrooms).  I do have an LCD TV in master bathroom today and had to post wire the antenna stuff which was a real PITA. 
 
I added (3 days) multiple runs of cat5e, more RG6 cable, more alarm cable and speaker wiring.  I like music such that I ran 16/4==> 16/2 for a pair of in wall speakers in just about every room of the house. (and outside to the pool lanai).  Relating to audio also ran cat5e to one single box in each room for audio control.  The inwall speaker wires are 16/2 and run to the 16/4 wires then on to the wiring closet.
 
There is a media center of sorts in the "great room" such that I ran multiple cabling from said area to the wiring closet. 
 
Most of the wiring is going from the attic areas up and down to the rooms.  The house is elevated on cement such that there are LV PVC chases for a few wires.  (Irrigation for one).  Built an office with a desk in the middle of the room.  Here there are LV / HV chases running to the middle of the room for the desk which I am using today.
 
Pool is elevated and pool pumps and filters are at ground level.  This has caused some issues over the years.  HVAC is elevated and near the ceiling of the garage (~ > 12 feet).  This is a PITA to service as CS has to climb a ladder to get to it.  AC outdoor compressor sits on a cement platform with cement wall which is large enough to service the compressor.  It is elevated some 6-7 feet such that you need a ladder to service it.  (it was all of the FEMA codes for reconstruction around late 1990's). 
 
Here is a picture of the subdivision / house in the late 1950's and what it looks like today.  3/4 of the 50 homes are still the original homes built in the 1950's at sea level.  They are/were all ranch style homes built out of wood.   The subdivision is unique because it is on the "thin" part of LBK with the Gulf at the end of block and Sarasota Bay on the other side. (home view is Sarasota bay).
 
I've been told that the house was the 2nd one built in the little subdivision.  Next door neighbor there (retired today) father built the original home next door in the 1950's.  Funny too met a family that would rent the home back in the 90's.  Daughter today works for the BBC (well now years).  We have kept in touch and she has visited me here in the Midwest and I have visited her in London when I have stayed there for work.
 
The newer neighbor to one side (EU-Germany) put cameras everywhere outside and typically has little construction jobs (updates to the older home) and monitors them from the EU cuz he is not there all year round.
 
Over the years the utilities have been moved underground (electric, phone et al).  Today we have the choice of broadband cable or fiber via Verizon FIOS.  I am using FIOS there.  Only concern is that there is that the telephone poles have been left in place with nothing on them and they are are bit of an eyesore (well and have to trim the older palm trees sitting closet to them).
 

Thanks for sharing - sounds like you've put a lot of work into the set-up. Quite impressive! 
 
We're dealing with a lot of unforeseen FEMA & local code issues ourselves. The ground floor basically has no electrical under the 6' mark, which will be a PITA when it comes to any grounded outlets on the front deck, in the garage, etc. Hurricane rated doors & windows are required. Etc. etc. This house would have cost us 1/3 to build elsewhere, but hopefully it will be the home we stay in for a while :fingerscrossed:. 
 
By the way, Pete, I know you said you're happy with the OMNI setup, but can you tell me how much "customization" you can do on it?  My husband is a front-end gadget freak and has converted our household into an Steve Jobs museum (something I'm not happy about). I'm a former IT girl and now have an entirely Mac based life. We've had a few discussions with local "home automation integrators" but the proprietary nature of their controllers (Crestron, Elan, etc.) put me off. I don't want to be calling someone for a simple lighting scene change, something I can easily accomplish. It would most likely kill me, knowing all that data is there to be tapped into but I can't have access to it!
 
I used to design web pages so the idea of making my own (integrated) iPad/iPhone controller pages has me intrigued. I'm currently leaning towards an Insteon (for lighting) and z-wave hybrid set up. I've been playing around with the demo Indigo software and I'm pretty sure I can easily marry those to come up with customized control pages for all our (Steve Jobs museum) devices. Does the OMNI allow any of that (re-scripting / designing of pages)? Just curious. 
 
Thanks for all your advice so far. I'll PM you with my contact info to see if we can meet up when we're both in town. 

Yup; I would suggest to concentrate on the infrastructure and its relation to your automation needs.

Curious if you are utilizing a contracting company that is willing to work with you on your automation needs; well even letting you subcontract or DIY your own stuff?

During the tear down and rebuild in Florida (some 2-3 year process) did mention my proficiencies and needs to the contractor before the contract to build was signed.

I did really didn't say I wanted automation rather I said I wanted this and that relative to infrastructure and reviewed contractors proficiencies with other local home builds while concurrently and subtily changing my home drawing prior to construction. Got a bit picky sometimes stopping an endeavor mid stream being sort of blunt which sometimes was a PITA to do during my short visits. I did not really have the time nor inclination to micromanage; but to get what I wanted I needed to. (best bang for the buck stuff).

With a base infrastructure you can do anything and it will be your least costly methodology of providing you with automation.

Today you can automate anything.

That said the "base" can be stuff like wiring your electric with an "automation cap" on; from the outlet, placement of lighting, switch and fuse panel.

Your HVAC; well a design relative to getting the best bang for your buck; not really relating to automation but rather efficiency. (cooling your home with one ice cube or heating it with one candle analogy).

Remote control is a nice to have and will provide you will some mechanism of watching over / management your system. 
 
Today much new automation; quick and easy; uses a sort of touch less hand free thing putting the automation application(s) in the "cloud".  Most folks are carrying cell phones with same said always on connectivity to the cloud making this even an easier methodology relating to the quick and easy.  That said; my personal choice is to keep the automation home with me being privy to do what I want to do with it when I want to do it. (guessing that human piece of interaction to my automation).  Automation isn't one size fits all and it's really up to you and your personal choices.

Just stating with a good solid "automation" infrastructure you can open a window that will provide you will more time to decide on topologies of transport, et al type stuff.

Personal familiarity / preferred choice relative to software (or OS) provides that "warm and fuzzy" means of how you talk to your automation; IE: console connectivity to your automation; physical (analog) hardware piece to the management of same said stuff.

Both Leviton / Elk are mentioned much here by the users of the forum. Both companies introduced combination security and automation control in firmware many many years ago. The forum here is made up of many DIYers that have utilized said panels. There are differences and many similarities between the two panels. There are users here on the forum using HAI/Elk stuff from the 90's and automating their homes just fine today. Here purchased an early security / automation panel in the 80's which provided base security features, text to speech and talked X10. Geez even paid international phone rates to remote a home outside of the US in the late 70's (the phone call let me have a bit remote control).

I use the Leviton HAI OPII panel and Homeseer software in one home and just the panel in Florida today. The software feeds my automation hobby playing while the panel keeps the heatbeat of the home running with little interaction from me. There is an iOS means of connectivity and management of the Leviton HAI OPII panel mentioned here on the forum. The application is called Haiku. Homeseer software has an iOS means of console access.

Whatever you decide to use should fit a "bill of materials" for your own personal needs.

Its your home and your automation. Today (just in the last couple of years) there has been a logarithmic increase in the means and mechanisms of automation to the home. There are patent wars right now relating to who / whom did or is doing what first relative to "automation". Have a look see.

Relating to lighting control transport you mention Insteon. Insteon uses the powerline and wireless.

Quote
how much "customization" you can do on it?

Click to expand...

It will do whatever fits my needs. It doesn't talk to Insteon today. I have a sandbox of automation in the midwest and rely on utilizing UPB for my light switches. (while still having X10, Insteon, Z-Wave and now Zigbee switches and "do whats".)

House in Florida is not a sandbox of sorts and only use one transport technology for my lighting.

Relating to your automation needs and wants.....

Read the various threads here on the forums relating to the evolution of automation. The "obi wan" DIYers here that have been automating their stuff for many years.

With a solid automation infrastructure base; you will have time to decide what technologies you want to utilize and means of use.
 
BTW most of the major FEMA = > building code changes happened in the late 90's.  Such that today some 15 years later there really is no cost increase justification based on said codes as new construction has been similar now for 15 years.  It has only had very minor tweaks.
 
Weather there other than a couple of "gotchas" hasn't changed much in the last 100 years; you already know that.
 
Serenity for me has been just walking and hearing but not listening to the ocean and soaking in the tropical climate.
 
Relating to home owners insurance; preference is to take that off line.

You have come to the right place.