If you were building a house, what Home automation system would you install?

[hebrewhammer]

 
Ive been lurking around these forum's for a few months now, and im still taking in tons of new information daily. It amazes me how much detail is involved in this business. Im currently in the beginning stages of building a new home (~2500 Sq ft) and in about 2 months we will be ready to put drywall in. The Builder is giving me access to run whatever wiring/smurf tubing that I would like but I still have not decided what system I would like to go with. Im an iPad guy so if I can integrate it into iPad thats a huge plus but not a must. The builder is installing an alarm system and a sprinkler system so im debating if I should pay extra to change it so it will integrate into my home automation... thoughts?
 
If you were to build a home today, what system would you use? What controller? What software? 
 
I plan on running:
 
-Cat 6 to pretty much every wall in the house
-Speaker wiring to every room for in home radio
-RJ6QS for cameras in the main areas inside and around the property
-IR throughout
-LV to common areas
-(not sure what HVAC or lighting to do- wireless or wired)
 
 
 

 

[az1324]

If possible avoid the typical alarm + service contract builder package.  Do the prewire, install either an ELK or other alarm system that has an integration module.  You can do a decent amount of stuff with just ELK, otherwise prioritize your subsystems and choose a controller that has the best support for them.

 

[sic0048]

At this stage, what system you use isn't as important as nailing down your wiring needs.  Part of determining your wiring need does require that you have a basic idea of what hardware you want to use, but more so on the individual hardware systems vs the actual automation system.
 
For example, you mention running speaker wire to every room in the house which is good.  But what type of stereo system are you going to use?  Is it going to be a whole house audio system with keypads for the walls (like the Russound C-systems) or perhaps an A-Bus system, or even just a bunch of regular stereo receivers?  Each option is going to require that you wire your house differently.  These decisions are much more important than what automation system you are going to tie everything together with.
 
What are you doing for video distribution?  Think about what wires you want run to every potential TV location.  Personally my minimum TV location wiring is 3 cat5e, 1 RG6, and 5 mini-coax cable for RGB and stereo sound (add a 6th wire if digital audio is important).  That's 1 cat5e for network, 1 cat5e for control lines (RS-232 and IR signals) and one cat5e for future proofing.  This same wire package is used for non-centrally located video sources (like game consoles or a local DVD player). 
 
You mention RG-6 wiring for security cameras.  What about power to those cameras?  I'd also future proof and run a cat5e wire incase you want to use IP cameras instead.
 
There is a wiring guide on the site here that will start to walk you through a lot of these scenarios.  You only have one shot to wire a house during new construction.  Trying to add wiring after that point is always 1000 times harder and sometimes virtually impossible.  So think through this a lot, run more wire than you think you need, and get it right the first time. 

 

[tmbrown97]

sic0048 summed it up pretty well - although for the camera locations, I'd recommend siamese cable and CatX (5/6) - that gives you ultimate flexibility.  Who knows - some day you may decide to have your security system trip the contacts on the camera to trigger a record/email - extra wire enables that.
 
And also - as said above, it's good to have an overview of the systems and what they require even without knowing the exact system - just plan for something flexible enough for a few of them.  For example, Elk and HAI use slightly different recommended wiring - it's the same for sensors, but with the M1 it's nice to have speakers with the keypads and distributed, etc - or use the local contacts in the keypads.
 
In my last house I had the walls open a few days after I bought it, plus it was single story and raised foundation - so I got to do what I wanted... so every room had jacks on two opposing walls (same as what I routinely spec for commercial) but instead of the usual 3 CatX I ran 3 CatX and 3 RG6 - and over the couple years I was there, I used those all different ways - with baluns, using coax for audio, video over Cat5, etc.   I never needed another wire.  I'll mention one more place I ran a drop was behind the end table in the family room - that was awesome for running a touchscreen computer and I would send video over a VGA over Cat5 adapter to the TV as a second screen - with JRMC - it was pretty fun.
 
Also consider exterior speakers, strobe lights, etc.
 
Lastly - depending on where your sprinkler controls are, you may like to do what I did - I ran a sub-panel off my M1 in the garage with another set of input/output expanders that I can use to control the garage doors, run the sprinklers, run some warning devices (strobes, piezos), interface with an mFi system I'm testing, etc... even put an RF Receiver out there for my biometric remotes to maximize range.

 

[garbled]

I wish I had run empty conduit with string in them next to every other run I made.  You can look today and decide "I need cat 5", but that won't help you tomorrow when they invent some other kind of wire you end up needing.

 

[Neurorad]

+1, Prewire correctly, and it won't matter what hardware you install.

1.5" empty conduit to all potential TV locations (in addition to the usual cables).

I would use cat6 across the board, and skip the cat5e - though it's arguable.

 

[pete_c]

Welcome to the forum hebrewhammer.  Lots of information here and a whole bunch of friendly folks.
 
Yup; here during new contruction ran a lot of cable plus added some chases.  The cost of the cable and preinstallation will offset the cost after the walls are up.
 
I was lucky that the contractor did provide alarm prewiring with the supposition that I would call same said company for an alarm panel after the build.  I did get some bids from same company and others after the build and decided based on the pricing to just DIY the terminations and install my own panel.
 
I also did change the homerun of the cables to a customized closet rather than where they had designated the location for the panel.   They did cover every window and door, multiple keypad wiring and so forth and so on.  I would not probably have done as good of a job.
 
I also ran the combo of RG6/power and cat5e for the cams.  Over the years switched over to utilizing baluns on the cat5e initially to compare the analog video and eventually leaving it that way.  Today using those same cat5e run cables (run some 10 years ago).  I did also install combo cams that are both cam and outdoor pir.  That said 2 catXX could be to your benefit.  The Optex cams have three wired sensors.  Many new IP cams now have terminations for sensors and software built into the cams for the motion detection based on the analog sensor connections.
 
One room I did have a carpenter/woodcrafter build shelving etc for multimedia use after the fact.  Not sure what I was going to use so did add electric to separate partitioned space and many chases under and behind the structure precompletion working with the carpenter / woodcrafter.
 
I hadn't decided on the methodology of the zoned audio at the time.  Just relating to the audio though ran 14-16 guage wires just for the zoned speakers and catXX for the control in wall gang boxes in the zoned audio rooms.  I did pass the paired speaker cables to the gang box where I went to 2 pair wires back to the home run location. 
 
The new build was a one story elevated home.  That in itself was a bit different from the 2 story LV wiring.  On the one story many cables are just run via the attic down; ceilings are high such that the endeavor of prewiring was still a pita.  I also added chases under the floors which were cement and that was also a PITA.  Exteriorly (just one piece of the endeavor) ran cabling to one side of the house for satellite TV stuff and the other side of the house for cable TV, external OTA antenna and telephone plus a bit more as it was a difficult location to post wire.
 
Recheck your electrical too and you might want to change the gang boxes, number of circuits and ways they are run.  Something I missed was the utilization of single ground fault interrupter outlets on same circuits for multiple rooms.  Thinking it might have been a cost savings measure. In another house there they are used everywhere on autonomous circuits. 
 
BTW did add mudplates and take pictures.  I did want the drywallers though to cut for my mudplates.  I put blanks on the mudplates post completion.  The alarm cabling installers though did not use mudplates for any wall stuff such that I had to utilize pictures and a toner to find ends of some of the in the wall cables.  The mud plate thing was always low on the WAF though. 
 
I did also run "extra" cat5x cabling just for environmental sensors (temperature, humidity etc) to every room in the house and even to the outside of the home.  You may want to do this maybe for zoned HVAC or just monitoring stuff.     
 
As stated above best to pre-wire and add even more wiring before deciding on methodologies of automation with the thinking relating to "what if I could do this?" 

 

[sic0048]

+1, Prewire correctly, and it won't matter what hardware you install.

1.5" empty conduit to all potential TV locations (in addition to the usual cables).

I would use cat6 across the board, and skip the cat5e - though it's arguable.

 
 
Yup, I should have emphasised running conduit more in my post.  But to the OP, don't fill your conduit with wires while the walls are open.  Run the wires outside the conduit to save the conduit space for a time in the future when you cannot run new wire.  Also, don't let the fact that you run conduit today make you lazy and not run wires that you know you will need in the future.  Run them now while the walls are open.  Think of conduit as your "get out of jail" card - you don't want to use it until you really need it.  Then you will be very glad that you have it available.

 

[apostolakisl]

I am a very strong proponent of conduit.
 
You just need to get your conduit into an accessible space. . . like an attic or crawl space, it doesn't have to go the whole distance.  And use large conduit to your TV locations.
 
Personally, I really like the grey electrical conduit.  Get a propane torch and you can gently heat it up in a few seconds and make it flex around corners very nicely.  It is dirt cheap, has a smooth interior for easy wire sliding and glues up with elbows and other fittings in a few seconds.  In my house, I didn't pull any LV wires except for the alarm wire contacts prior to sheetrock.  I put conduit everywhere and pulled the wires afterwards.  I don't have a single unused wire in my house.  The conduit is far cheaper than pulling a ton of "just in case" wires.  And, you never have to worry about needing a wire that you didn't put in.  Just make sure you put conduit to all the right places.
 
Also, only kind of related, use spray foam insulation on the bottom of your roof deck.  It opens your whole attic up for putting all kind of equipment up there in a relatively climate controlled situation.  You will be able to move around up there without the mess of insulation and you will be able to see the ceiling and top plates of the walls for future access.  Plus, it is highly energy efficient. 
 
And lastly.  TAKE PICTURES!!!  Take a million pictures prior to putting up the sheetrock so you know where everything is in the future.  Take pictures until you are sure you took twice as many as you need, then take twice as many more.

 

[wuench]

The first thing I do is consider how I will run wire in the future in the house after the walls are closed up.  So create paths with conduit back to your central closed to every possible room and control location, and make sure you have enough empty conduit capacity for the future, bends will take 1/3 to 1/2 of conduits capacity, straight you can squeeze more in it.  And install pull strings in them.  Solid conduit is better than the flexible for capacity. 
 
If you can't run conduit, then run extra Cat5 to all rooms with mechanicals, electrical panels, DMARCs (phone box, cable box, dish locations, antenna locations, garage, sprinkler controller, outdoor lighting controller/transformer) etc.  And I would run Cat5 to your camera locations as well so you can do ethernet based cameras in the future if you choose.  Anywhere you are going to have equipment or control panels of any kind run Cat5 if you can't run conduit.
 
For example, when I moved into my house the first thing I did was run conduit, between my closet and attic, between my split attics, from my closet to all unfinished areas, etc.  Now pulling new wire is a lot simpler.
 
 
Along with LV, consider running HV conduit also from your electrical panel location to connect areas.  I am also a fan of having multiple electrical panels/sub panels in a house.  For example, I would rather have a subpanel (with extra capacity) in my HVAC/mechanical room and garage, than straight runs.  While this will add expense now, you can roll it into your mortgage and it will save a LOT of time and expense later.  
 
I would also make sure the electrician:

• installs the deep and adjustable electrical boxes.  Easier to work in, and you can adjust depth which is safer and more presentable for different wall covering depths.
• use WAGO lever nuts instead of twist nuts if the inspector will allow them.  (This prevents wear on the wires, less likely to break if you replace something)
• Tell them no shared neutrals (this is allowed by code but shouldn't be IMHO, it creates a risk of electrocution to working in boxes in the futue).
• No more than one circuit in a jbox unless there are special circumstances they clear with you first.  I have seen crazy things like my furnace circuit running through one of my smoke detector jboxes just as a junction to save wire.  That made it very hard to determine what circuits to turn off when working in that box. I am willing to pay an extra $20 for wire to prevent something stupid like that.
• Must use insulated staples. I guarantee you there are staples piercing wires in every house built.  Insulated staples make this a lot less likely.  I know of one house that burned down because of this 30 years after it was built.
• Get a wiring plan or make one yourself before the walls go up.  Record exactly which circuit(s) run through each box.  Determine what is the estimated load on each circuit (based on number of lights and outlets).  Record the wire guage and breaker for each circuit.  This will help keep the electricians honest and the inspector will love this as well.  But most importantly it will make any electrical work safer and easier in the future.
• Take lots of pictures and/or video before the walls go up.
• Also, if your attic is accessible and you intend to store stuff there/plan on putting flooring down, make them run the wires high or through joists, not over.  Just tell them ahead of time you plan on putting flooring down in the future.

 

[Big517]

Double up your runs also. Instead of single cat 5 to an area pull 2 to be safe as many things now require 2 runs such as hdmi extenders. A lot easier to do with walls open.

Oh yea, TAKE PICTURES! Of every open wall. You will be thankful later.

 

[apostolakisl]

Personally, I don't put strings in my conduit.  First I just try sliding the wire through.  Most of my runs aren't that long and with the smooth conduit usually it just slides on through.  If it gets stuck, a simple and quick fix is as follows.  I take my kids Barbie fishing pole.  I run the hook through a piece of foam (like a packing peanut) and break it down to a size that just fits in the conduit.  I have my assistant (wife) hold the vacuum cleaner up to the other end of the conduit and let the fishing line out.  When the line comes out the other end, my wife ties a regular pull string which I pull back, then I yell, and she attaches the final wire and I pull it through.  This technique will work on even really long runs.  I used it on a yard line going from the house to the street.  That was about 150' long run with a bend in it.  

 

[pete_c]

A reflection on historicals...I did terminate mostly all of my personal stuff in some sort of timely manner (IE: over the last 10 years) a bit at a time....the helping friends LV pre-wire new construction endeavors sit at maybe 10% or less terminated after 5 years or so....even simpliest "great room" wiring for sound and LCD....today remains uncompleted with only an LCD TV and satellite connectivity.....did notice though while I personally like the whole surround sound theater "experience" my wife only cares about the content on the TV and really nothing about the sound these days....other than being able to hear it...

 

[wuench]

Personally, I don't put strings in my conduit.  First I just try sliding the wire through.  Most of my runs aren't that long and with the smooth conduit usually it just slides on through.  If it gets stuck, a simple and quick fix is as follows.  I take my kids Barbie fishing pole.  I run the hook through a piece of foam (like a packing peanut) and break it down to a size that just fits in the conduit.  I have my assistant (wife) hold the vacuum cleaner up to the other end of the conduit and let the fishing line out.  When the line comes out the other end, my wife ties a regular pull string which I pull back, then I yell, and she attaches the final wire and I pull it through.  This technique will work on even really long runs.  I used it on a yard line going from the house to the street.  That was about 150' long run with a bend in it.  

 
I saw that technique on hometime once where they used a plastic bag and shopvac to suck a pull string through.  Pretty slick.   But yeah, I agree, a string isn't that important on an empty conduit.  Fishtape usually works fine for me.  Once a conduit starts filling up however it is really handy to have a pull string in there... much easier to pull than push.

 

[apostolakisl]

I saw that technique on hometime once where they used a plastic bag and shopvac to suck a pull string through.  Pretty slick.   But yeah, I agree, a string isn't that important on an empty conduit.  Fishtape usually works fine for me.  Once a conduit starts filling up however it is really handy to have a pull string in there... much easier to pull than push.

 
Oh, yeah, you can't do that to a conduit that already has wire in it.  So either leave your pull string in there when you pull your first wire, or you unhook an already present wire at one of the two ends and use that as a "pull string".
 
When I did the outside underground vacuum trick I also used a shop vac.  2 reasons, it was in the garage which was closer to me, and just in case there was water in there I wouldn't want to suck it up with a regular vacuum.  You can't believe how easy it is to do.  It sucks that string in faster than you can let it out.