"Best Practice" questions for 2 things

[IVB]

Is there a "best practice" for the following?

A) Location of Main Elk board.
I have 2 options.
1) (Current plan) on main floor, in the media closet. Currently also has 2 PCs, a 3805, Denon3805, ZPR68, EXP9 zone expander, 5 amps, and 1 DirecTV STB(soon to be 2). Not a secured location, but it is inside the house.
2) Current location of expander cabinet, in the crawlspace. Semi-accessible from the outside, but I can put locks and sensors up to detect intrusion.


B ) Wiring Location for Smoke/Heat Detectors

2 options are:
1) Run wiring to mainzone, but as you see above there's already a lot of wires there.
2) (current plan) run wiring to secondary zone, which is what i've been trying to do.

At this point, i'm going to make sure I can get at least 1 smoke working on each of my expander boards, so that I understand how the wiring/etc is supposed to work. Then I'll make changes if need be.

Thanks for any opinions.

 

[bfisher]

I am far from an expert - but for question A - I would lean towards option 1. To me it's more logical when all controls are in 1 location. It may not be a secured location, but if it's in the house - it should be secure (the alarm should sound before someone could get into your closet and disable it... if they even knew where your closet was!

Can't help with question B.

 

[Steve]

I would definitely stay out of the attic or anywhere hot. My sisters panel was in the attic and did not look too good let alone fried. I'd stick to an indoor location. You can always put a sensor on the HA closet door and set it for instant as a backup.