Broconne's Wiring Adventure

[hucker]

On the occupancy sensing... a regular motion will defintely not do the trick unless you're willing to wildly waves your arms every x minutes to keep the lights on.

I was surprise at how insensitive my Bosch bluelight pet imune motions were, but as insensitive as they were there was still not way for me to pass through the room without it seeing me. So i guess that makes for system with low false alarm probability but still good protection. I have 2 cats (1 18 lbs and 1 14 lbs) and in 2 months time haven't had a single false alarm except when my dumb ass walked downstairs without turning the alarm off.

A search for occupancy sensors will yield you quite an array of products, but i haven't found any ELK/Automation ready ones out of the box. Most seem to be switching HB directly so you'd have to play with relays to make that all work.

MavRic:

Motion sensors are pretty easy to 'defeat'...sort of. After I installed my motions I challenged my 3/5/7 year olds to sneak by them. I'd give them a buck each time they did...thinking of course it would keep them busy. I came back an hour later and all three kids could crawl by no problem (not pet immunne), they could run through really fast most of the time and they laid down a blanket and snuck under the blanket easily. I was out 9 bucks. I thought my Bosch motions were supposed to be really good....

 

[broconne]

broconne,

What are the dimensions of your porch?

I'm going to be adding on to mine, and really like that you have the fans there.

Thanks!

--Dan

The porch is 31 feet wide, 6 feet deep on the short side and 7.5 feet deep on the other side.
Glad you like it!

 

[broconne]

Bedroom -
Second verse, just like the first... but with a walk in closet.

H/A Equipment:
Occupancy Sensor
Door Contact in Closet
Occupancy sensor in closet
... I really need to find some 22/4 occupancy sensors.. Help please!


Security/Safety:
(1) Smoke Pre-Wire


Lighting:
There are 4 ALC/OnQ prewires. 1 for the closet light, 1 to control to the light, 1 for the fan, one to control the bottom half of outlets in the room.


H/A Goals:
(1) Turn on the lights when occupied
(2) Turn off lights when unoccupied for a duration.
(3) Turn on closet light when door opened
(4) Turn off closet light when door closed and no occupancy
(5) Turn off closet light if door left open for a duration and no occupancy.
(6) Turn on closet light if occupied.


The bedroom layout

 

[broconne]

Bedroom -
Last boring bedroom. But it has me thinking about something.

H/A Equipment:
Occupancy Sensor
Door Contact in Closet


Security/Safety:
(1) Smoke Pre-Wire
(2) Window Sensors



Lighting:
There are 4 ALC/OnQ prewires. 1 for the closet light, 1 to control to the light in the fan, one to control the bottom half of outlets in the room.


H/A Goals:
(1) Turn on the lights when occupied
(2) Turn off lights when unoccupied for a duration.
(3) Turn on closet light when door opened
(4) Turn off closet light when door closed


I am starting to think about removing occupancy sensors in the bedrooms.... Not sure I am seeing the value at the moment. Does anyone have occupancy sensors in the secondary bedrooms? If so are they useful?


The bedroom layout

 

[felixrosbergen]

Not sure if this has been brought up before, but apparently it's nto legal to use a dimmer for controlling outlets. You'd have to use the relay module.

Are you planning on phasing in all the ALC stuff yourself or having sparky put it all in from day one?

Make sure you get some switches as a sample and have the sparky give you a sample of the electrical boxes that he intends to do. Ask for this several weeks before he starts the wiring so there's time to change plans or find a new box if it turns out not to work.

If you plan to do the ALC install yourself you can just have him wiring the house as normal using simple/cheap toggle switches or you can ask for decora style toggles. If you do decora style toggeles (which are slightly more expensive) then you can replace switches one by one. In my case i had regular toggles and when i switch to ALC in a box i have to replace all switches with either ALC or a decora toggle (if i don't want to automate a certain switch). Switching a normal toggle to a decora is a piece of cake though and it's likely you're replace all switches with ALC at the same time when you have the box open. So i wouldnt recommend paying for decora style switches. In my home (2800sqf) he wanted $600 to change everything (switches and outlets) to decora which i didn't think was worth it.

 

[broconne]

Not sure if this has been brought up before, but apparently it's nto legal to use a dimmer for controlling outlets. You'd have to use the relay module.

Yep, will use a relay. Although, perhaps for the master I will use those special lutron outlets that permit dimming from an outlet and are still to code. Lutron Dimmable Outlet

Are you planning on phasing in all the ALC stuff yourself or having sparky put it all in from day one?

Phasing. Slowly over time when funds allow. I will have a lot of other projects that will demand money.. Materials to finish the basement, furniture, etc.

Make sure you get some switches as a sample and have the sparky give you a sample of the electrical boxes that he intends to do. Ask for this several weeks before he starts the wiring so there's time to change plans or find a new box if it turns out not to work.

Very good point. I have that on my todo list, but have not done it yet.

If you plan to do the ALC install yourself you can just have him wiring the house as normal using simple/cheap toggle switches or you can ask for decora style toggles. If you do decora style toggeles (which are slightly more expensive) then you can replace switches one by one. In my case i had regular toggles and when i switch to ALC in a box i have to replace all switches with either ALC or a decora toggle (if i don't want to automate a certain switch). Switching a normal toggle to a decora is a piece of cake though and it's likely you're replace all switches with ALC at the same time when you have the box open. So i wouldnt recommend paying for decora style switches. In my home (2800sqf) he wanted $600 to change everything (switches and outlets) to decora which i didn't think was worth it.

The cost to replace with decora style was about $1000. So I will pass on that and do it when I replace with ALC.. The cooper style at HD are only $2ish. I can probably do better with a bulk internet order. I also plan to do custom faceplates as I slowly phase these in. Custom Faceplates

 

[drozwood90]

I should also ask, what software are you using to produce the pictures?

It looks like JUST the right amount of detail that I want.

I tried Autocad's Architectural Desktop...too much...although I 3-d modeled my last house...which was REALLY cool.

This house, I think maybe something that won't take a 4 month period to get all the details in, that would be nice.

--Dan

 

[royalj7]

I believe Bronconne had mentioned using Visio for the room drawings.

 

[broconne]

I am using Microsoft Visio 2003 with the stock templates.

It took me a bit to make the first couple rooms.. But after that it is pretty straight forward. I would like to get the plans into sketchup at some point for furniture placement - but my sketchup skills aren't great.

 

[broconne]

Media Room -
Post 100 in this thread! Thanks everyone for the comments and questions that helped me think this through so far.

The all important media room. Yes - I know there are a lot of speaker pre-wires in this room.... but you got diagonal tile everywhere! If I am going to be living in an MC Escher drawing at least let me have some speakers! Stop nagging me, I have already had this conversation


H/A Equipment:
Occupancy Sensor
Temperature Sensor


Security/Safety:
(1) Window Contacts


Lighting:
There are 3 ALC/OnQ prewires. 1 for the recessed lights, 1 to control to the light in the fan, one to control the future fan that is controllable by cat5 (Ya know, I am not asking for flying cars or jet packs here - I just want a cat5 controllable fan module).

A/V
Lots going on here.
(1) Room is wired for 7.1. However, due to door and window positions I may back that down to 5.1. The room will be wired so I can do in-wall speakers or face plates. The bigger speaker is the sub, I have an AV123 MFW-15. This thing is a monster.
(2) The room is also wired for whole home audio. This might be overkill since I should be able to access all my music from an A/V device (Sage, XBMC, etc). But this room may at some point be an office when I finish the basement home theater. Theater Pre-Build Thread Still I am on the fence about the whole home audio for this room - may not be worth the expense at $260 per room.
(3) The house comes with 5 2 coax/2 cat5 runs. I have one placed in this room. Since I am running pipe chases everywhere I am trying to get these things remove and a credit applied towards my other LV wiring.
(4) I have one dedicated 20 amp outlet for the A/V Rack location. The diagram says 2, but just like the cake - that is a lie. The one on the ceiling for a projector is 15 amp shared - I couldn't find two different visio shapes for outlets.
(5) 3 Pipe chases. 1 to the A/V Rack, 1 to the TV location, 1 to the projector location. I will use the pipe chases to get input to the AV rack and take outputs from the AV rack to the displays (TV or projector)


H/A Goals:
(1) Turn on the lights when occupied
(2) Turn off lights when unoccupied for a duration.
(3) Turn off television equipment (through serial) if unoccupied for a long duration.


The Media Room layout

 

[Neurorad]

Will the fan block the projector?

Switches behind the door are a pain - make sure they're close enough to the corner so the open door doesn't block them. Similarly, your side surround speaker may be blocked - position it above the open door, near the ceiling?

Do you need to run electrical to the screen? Or is it fixed? Might be nice to have it retract up toward the ceiling, at some point.

Might be nice to have 2 switches for the recessed lights - front and rear - dim the fronts for a better picture, if viewing while working.

Will you ever have any touch screens? Pre-wiring for those may be easiest now, in those areas where you will lose your easy basement access (once those areas of the basement are finished).

 

[broconne]

As always, lots of good questions from Neurorad.

Will the fan block the projector?

Yes, yes it would. This is a future projector. Currently, I will have a 56 inch DLP in this room. Putting a projector in this room is a long way away - like 10 years. I would put a projector in here if I ever replaced the projector in the basement HT - which hasn't even been purchased yet.. So long way off.. but very good point.

Switches behind the door are a pain - make sure they're close enough to the corner so the open door doesn't block them. Similarly, your side surround speaker may be blocked - position it above the open door, near the ceiling?

Good point on the switches. I will move that speaker up.. Honestly, with the windows and the plans to build a HT in the basement.. I may just go to 5.1 in this room. It just isn't optimized for 7 speakers.

Do you need to run electrical to the screen? Or is it fixed? Might be nice to have it retract up toward the ceiling, at some point.

Hmm, I didn't even think of that. Do I just need to run 18/2?

Might be nice to have 2 switches for the recessed lights - front and rear - dim the fronts for a better picture, if viewing while working.

You are on fire. Very good idea. I have it noted in my lighting spreadsheet.

Will you ever have any touch screens? Pre-wiring for those may be easiest now, in those areas where you will lose your easy basement access (once those areas of the basement are finished).

Yes, I will. I plan for one in the downstairs hallway. I have plans for several upstairs in the master, hallway, bedroom closet. I don't see the need for a fixed one in the media room. I think that might be best served by a nokia 770 or a Q1 rather than on a wall. Thoughts?

 

[Neurorad]

I've never owned a projector, or a screen.

But I'd think you would need 2 wires for power, and 2 for control.

I don't know if 22/4 is acceptable, or if you could get by with 1 catx or 2.

The 2 switches for the recessed lights sounds like a good idea at first, but that means you'll have to turn on 2 switches every time. You'll probably want all the lights off/on 50 times for every 1 time you'll want it half on/off.

When I walk into my MBa, I usually turn on 4 switches, 2 on each side of the entrance. 2 sets of vanity lights and 2 sets of can lights. My wife prefers only to turn on 1 switch, but not always the same 1. So who wins? Who do you think.

If you could use 1 ALC switch to somehow control 2 sets of lights, it would be ideal. I think a scene switch could be useful here, for you. I don't know much about ALC scene switches (or any other brand), so you'll have to do some research.

 

[AceCannon]

If you could use 1 ALC switch to somehow control 2 sets of lights, it would be ideal. I think a scene switch could be useful here, for you. I don't know much about ALC scene switches (or any other brand), so you'll have to do some research.

A scene switch would easily do the job. Or, you could use CQC to trap the event of a single ALC switch being turned on, then have CQC tell the ALC controller to turn on the other appropriate switches.

There are probably several other equally viable ways of perpetrating this.

 

[broconne]

If you could use 1 ALC switch to somehow control 2 sets of lights, it would be ideal. I think a scene switch could be useful here, for you. I don't know much about ALC scene switches (or any other brand), so you'll have to do some research.

A scene switch would easily do the job. Or, you could use CQC to trap the event of a single ALC switch being turned on, then have CQC tell the ALC controller to turn on the other appropriate switches.

There are probably several other equally viable ways of perpetrating this.

Added another run for a scene switch. Also, I added another pipe chase for behind the sofa. I may want a cat5 there for my laptop for moving large files around, etc.