Best way to Diagram Your LV?

[broconne]

Have others here diagrammed the LV in there house?

Doing new construction, I have a spreadsheet of everything I want, but I think it might be better to have a diagram showing where I want the pipe chases, the speaker pre-wires, volume control, etc.

I was considering using sketchup - but not sure 3D would help here. Visio, I guess would be an option. What have others done in the past?

Examples would be great.

 

[PaulD]

I fought this same issue when I started building my new house. Tried many different approaches and combinations of spreadsheets, vision, etc. In the end, I settled on the following.
My documentation is a combination of a spreadsheet, some visio diagrams and pictures of the finished walls. Every wire can be found on a spreadsheet noting wire number, type, color, etc along with a general description of where the wire ends. I found that it was really difficult to capture all the information in the spreadsheet about what device/location/etc was at each end of the wire so that is where the pictures come in. I took a picture of every wall and ceiling in my house and then used visio to add notes about what each device was and what wire number it was connected to.
As a result, I need to look at 2 different documents to get the full story about any combination of wire and devices. The pictures provide a great way to document what is happening at each device (type device, model, hook up info, wire number and other usefull info). Meanwhile, the spreadsheet has all the info on the wire and what wall map to look at for the details on the devices at the end of the wire.

Have you already closed up the walls? If not, take some pictures of the wire after installation and before they close the walls. I had several situations where the sheetrock guys covered up some wire that was supposed to poke thru the wall and even complete gang boxes. Took some detective work and holes in my walls to find the wires.

 

[AceCannon]

Make sure you take tons of pictures, as noted above. Specifically, make sure the pictures include the floor and/or ceilings in the same pics as the wall. You want to be able to compare the locations of 120v plugs or other landmarks to know where your wires are. I've got tons of pics and they are helpful as hell. It would definitely not hurt if I had more!

 

[beelzerob]

Ya, I do wish I'd taken more too. Be sure and take pics of EVERY wall too, not just where your wiring is. You'll someday be wondering "hmmm, what goes through this wall", and it'll be good to know there's a sewer pipe before you drive that nail through it.

If you have the means to store it, a movie is also a good archive. That lets you sweep through the whole area and get a feel for how the information flows, and you can also talk through it describing things to take note of.

 

[broconne]

I fought this same issue when I started building my new house. Tried many different approaches and combinations of spreadsheets, vision, etc. In the end, I settled on the following.
My documentation is a combination of a spreadsheet, some visio diagrams and pictures of the finished walls. Every wire can be found on a spreadsheet noting wire number, type, color, etc along with a general description of where the wire ends. I found that it was really difficult to capture all the information in the spreadsheet about what device/location/etc was at each end of the wire so that is where the pictures come in. I took a picture of every wall and ceiling in my house and then used visio to add notes about what each device was and what wire number it was connected to.
As a result, I need to look at 2 different documents to get the full story about any combination of wire and devices. The pictures provide a great way to document what is happening at each device (type device, model, hook up info, wire number and other usefull info). Meanwhile, the spreadsheet has all the info on the wire and what wall map to look at for the details on the devices at the end of the wire.

Have you already closed up the walls? If not, take some pictures of the wire after installation and before they close the walls. I had several situations where the sheetrock guys covered up some wire that was supposed to poke thru the wall and even complete gang boxes. Took some detective work and holes in my walls to find the wires.

Nope, I have not closed up the walls. I actually just went to contract on Tuesday - so a while now until even permits show up.

I have a full spreadsheet already, will take tons of pictures and some video as well. Thanks for the advice!

 

[broconne]

Ya, I do wish I'd taken more too. Be sure and take pics of EVERY wall too, not just where your wiring is. You'll someday be wondering "hmmm, what goes through this wall", and it'll be good to know there's a sewer pipe before you drive that nail through it.

If you have the means to store it, a movie is also a good archive. That lets you sweep through the whole area and get a feel for how the information flows, and you can also talk through it describing things to take note of.

Good plan. I had figured every wall should have pictures. This is a basement home and I am also wondering if I should number every wall cavity in each room, take a picture of it, and then number it again from the basement? Otherwise, you need to find an HV run or some other indicator and try and reference that from the basement and hope you have the correct one. Has anyone tried that scheme before? Would that be useful?

 

[broconne]

These are all great tips. Keep em coming. Does anyone have any visio's to share? It looks like CEDIA has a set of visio templates for industry wide LV, but they oddly don't seem free..


I think I have two goals for my visios:

1) Be able to show on paper to the LV sub - where every pipe chase, speaker, and 22/4 sensor wire should be.
2) I think I will start a build thread here to capture my endeavors into HA - and I think if I had visio's of room layouts I would get some great feedback or "oh you missed this sensor here" or "I really wouldn't put the temp sensor in that location.

Hopefully, that would help future people too!

 

[beelzerob]

The keys to taking the pics are:

1) For each room, start at the door of the room, then follow the wall all the way around the room (including any subwalls), then ceiling pics, then go to the next room. Or basically, whatever you do, establish a pattern. That way when you're browsing the photos later (and they usually end up being in the order you took them), you can easily just browse through the room to find the spot you want. That's helpful because the thumbnail pics don't usually help a whole lot...one open studded wall looks like another.

2) As soon as you're done taking the pics, go home, download them, and sort them into folders. I have my pics broken up by floor, then by room. Makes finding the desired place very easy. If a particular pic encompasses 2 rooms...then copy it to each.

3) BURN THEM TO A CD.

 

[felixrosbergen]

Exactly what Beelzerob said.

There is never enough pictures or video. I was under a time crunch and have about 100 pictures of the upstairs and only video for the downstairs....I strongly suggest you do both.

Just the lower floor of the house resulted in a 1 hour video where i enter each room, work around in a clockwise direction. For tight configuration I use my finger to point out what is what while is narrate the whole thing on video.

Initially you think you can remember stuff....but it goes away very fast. Use window frames and outlets as references. Make sure the pictures overlap a bit with one of these references in them.

As beelzerob said....when done, go home, sort and label the pics. I named each picture by room and wall direction (E.g. Bedroom1_EastWall_1)...

For interior walls i would take the shoot from both the front and the rear. Makes it easier than trying to mirror the whole thing in your head.

Also look for potential future problems...if you know you may at some point want to extend a switchbox but there's already a stud in thw way, see if they can relocated the switchbox.

Not sure how this is normally done, but i walked through with the electrician and he marked up on all the studs where the outlets and switches were going. Then they come through and nail on all the boxes....i went back to check that it did it right and to see if i wanted to change anything. After that they started running the wires.

It shoudl be no problem to tell your builder to hold off for a day or 2 to allow you to record everything. I ended up rushing because the drywall and isulation was going up and i should have told them to stop. We were however in mad rush to finish the house before the winter. If you tell them agead of time it should be no problem since they can schedule it in. If you walk on site when they just started and they have to send the drywall/insulation crew home then it will likely cost you.

GET CONDUITS FROM BASEMENT TO YOUR ATTIC.......just wanted to capitalize that one since it is supper important......!!!!!!! Get at least 2 2" pipes or more.

 

[dutchyn]

As beelzerob said....when done, go home, sort and label the pics. I named each picture by room and wall direction (E.g. Bedroom1_EastWall_1)...

I'm thinking about using one of those panoramic photo-stitchers to assemble the overlapping pictures into a larger mosaic that shows whole walls.

GET CONDUITS FROM BASEMENT TO YOUR ATTIC.......just wanted to capitalize that one since it is supper important......!!!!!!! Get at least 2 2" pipes or more.

I did ... four 1 1/2" ones; they're full -- I had to pull another four 22/4 in for the garage; only 12/2 romex was stiff enough to navigate the straight 12' distance.

Chris D.

 

[beelzerob]

Hehe..well, if they're full, then you've missed the point. MavRic means SPARE conduits. I ran all my wire up the HVAC chase, but it's just hanging freely. Next to it is a 3" pipe, though, for future, and there ain't nothing in there.

So maybe I didn't understand, but otherwise, make sure you have plenty of future capacity to run wire from the basement to attic.

The photo stitching...meh. I don't think it'll work for you, and here's why. Photo stitching requires the camera to stay in relatively the same position as you rotate around. For your wall photos, however, you should be standing directly in front of the wall section being shot. That way you'll see any wires that are stapled to the studs. Also when you get to corners, you'll be standing next to one wall while shooting the wall in front of you, and then you'll move so you're standing near the other wall while shooting the new wall section.

All of that to say that photo stitching probably won't work, but that's ok because you don't really need it. Just make sure you use a pretty high megapixel camera, as you will be zooming in to see just what that wire is hanging down, or where it comes into the wall, etc.

TAKE MORE PICTURES THAN YOU THINK YOU NEED. I wish I'd taken more. Even worse, we hung some sound dampening insulation before I took the pics...that was a mistake.

 

[broconne]

Well, I hope to have enough conduits. I spec'd out 6 2 inch conduits. I hope I don't need more than that!