Broconne's Wiring Adventure

[heffneil]

Earlier you said you rarely will use the room. Not your toes stubbed

Neil

 

[drozwood90]

yeah, but if he pushes for this, he gets to catch the flack when there are toes being stubbed...be it his or not..

--Dan

 

[broconne]

Game/Bonus Room:
Room Purpose - Play area.

H/A Equipment:
Occupancy Sensor

Lighting:
There are 3ALC/OnQ prewires. 1 for the three recessed cans, 1 for the fan light, 1 for the fan. Hopefully, if I keep typing that I am running cat5 for fan control, someone out there will go ahead and make a cat5 controllable fan switch!

Security:
Window Contacts on all windows
Cat5e for a camera.

H/A Goals:
(1) Turn on the lights when occupied
(2) Turn off lights when unoccupied for a duration.


Audio/Video:
(1) Whole home audio pre-wire.
(2) Pipe chase for TV location.



The game room

Edit: Updated diagram with dimensions

 

[Neurorad]

1. 2 Can lights enough?
2. Wire this room for 5.1? Location of subwoofer? Wire 2-3 locations for subwoofer? Will floor-standing speakers be OK for fronts? I see you've positioned the in-ceiling speakers for DA, as well as for rear speakers.

 

[broconne]

1. 2 Can lights enough?
2. Wire this room for 5.1? Location of subwoofer? Wire 2-3 locations for subwoofer? Will floor-standing speakers be OK for fronts? I see you've positioned the in-ceiling speakers for DA, as well as for rear speakers.

1) There are 3, plus the fan light. Not a ton of light. I may need to rethink that. They have 3 in the model and it seems good. I may try to go back there at night some time.

2) Was not going to wire this room for HT. There is a media room that is wired for 5.1 and there will be a dedicated home theater (risers, seats, etc) eventually in the basement. This will just be a play area and a place for kids to watch the wiggles. A 5.1 pre-wire is expensive and just not sure it is worth it here in what will be a secondary TV location. I think by the point that kids care about how TV sounds, they would be old enough to be watching it in the media room or HT.

I should recenter those speakers for home audio however

 

[felixrosbergen]

It may be a bit late, but what is the size of the room? I can't remember the exact dimensions, but if you wanted to put a full size pool table in there there's certain recommended dimensions to maintain. I'm sure they can be found online.

When you show 3 ALC pre-wires, does this mean 3 cat5's?

I am not sure what expeirences of other are, but due to my situation with conduits i had very little cat5e pre-wired (maybe 10 runs). Out of the 10 at least 2 run have problems (shorted wires and breaks) making them unusable. Do people have the LV contractors test the connections before/after drywall? It woudl seem costly to have a LV contractor check this.

My LV guy checked the wires but only to deterine which is which and to label them. For that purpose he just took a few conductors and tried them togethers to ring it out. When i actually put RJ45's on each end and put the LAN tester on it had shorts between pairs in one case and breaks in the other.

Can't remember if you had an unfished basement, but some coduit could be a good idea here...would also give you some flexibility if you wantd a touch screen or thermostat or something there later.

Havent been following the 'occupancy sensor' thread, but is the corner the right place for these things? Though they wanted to be in the ceiling in the middle of the room. Are you wiring separately for occupancy and motion or intending to use one device? Pets woudl set of occupancy but not necesarilly motion.

 

[heffneil]

Dimensions would be good. Be careful that the lighting is not going to be strobed by the fan. It is the WORST thing in the world. They do it in coldstone creamery here and if I didn't like the ice cream so much I wouldn't go back. Also it is happening in my master bedroom because the fans are too far from the ceiling and the lights just aren't push away from the fan enough. What will seating look like in this room. I would suggest you try to plan that out as well to make the lighting decision. Also if this is a wiggles watching room chances are you won't want it bright or they kids will be watching while it is still day light. looks like some big windows in there.

Looking good. How would the occupancy sensors in this room work? My question is if you walk in the room and want to watch a movie and turn down the lights how do you make sure they don't turn back on when you get up a move?

Thanks!

Neil

 

[broconne]

It may be a bit late, but what is the size of the room? I can't remember the exact dimensions, but if you wanted to put a full size pool table in there there's certain recommended dimensions to maintain. I'm sure they can be found online.

I updated the diagram with dimensions. There is space for the pool table in the basement. Post #1 has a diagram of the basement which is unfinished when I move in, but I plan to finish it according to that plan.

When you show 3 ALC pre-wires, does this mean 3 cat5's?

Yes - The budget for LV right now is tight.. So, if push comes to shove I MAY combine some of those where I know I will only have two switches and no scene switches or three ways. However, I do worry that maybe in the future I may want a switch that needs all of the cat5. Could be some great scene switches that come out that are PoE and CAT5 for example. Never know.

I am not sure what expeirences of other are, but due to my situation with conduits i had very little cat5e pre-wired (maybe 10 runs). Out of the 10 at least 2 run have problems (shorted wires and breaks) making them unusable. Do people have the LV contractors test the connections before/after drywall? It woudl seem costly to have a LV contractor check this.

My LV guy checked the wires but only to deterine which is which and to label them. For that purpose he just took a few conductors and tried them togethers to ring it out. When i actually put RJ45's on each end and put the LAN tester on it had shorts between pairs in one case and breaks in the other.

I doubt any of mine will be tested since none of them will be terminated. However, the builder must replace any failed wire within the 1 year warranty period. He has a 50% markup over the LV guy and part of that is warranty. So, It has been made clear (I made it clear when I was denied the option of running my own LV) that when I move in I will test all of these. If any one fails they are responsible for replacing it. If they have to rip down drywall, they have to rip it down and replace it. They are also not allowed to use any of the pipe chases to replace these wires without reimbursing me for the full price of the pipe chase.

Can't remember if you had an unfished basement, but some coduit could be a good idea here...would also give you some flexibility if you wantd a touch screen or thermostat or something there later.

Only that one conduit is run to this room for a touch screen. Not a bad idea, but running out of conduit money at $130 each

Havent been following the 'occupancy sensor' thread, but is the corner the right place for these things? Though they wanted to be in the ceiling in the middle of the room. Are you wiring separately for occupancy and motion or intending to use one device? Pets woudl set of occupancy but not necesarilly motion.

I am trying to shield them from the doorway. Although in this case I think that would be a good idea to pick up the doorway. I will center this sensor. I have not found a combination hardwired motion/occupancy sensor. It was actually a struggle finding any low voltage occupancy sensor. Yeah, we have two cats - not sure how the occupancy sensor will interact with them.

 

[broconne]

Dimensions would be good. Be careful that the lighting is not going to be strobed by the fan. It is the WORST thing in the world. They do it in coldstone creamery here and if I didn't like the ice cream so much I wouldn't go back. Also it is happening in my master bedroom because the fans are too far from the ceiling and the lights just aren't push away from the fan enough. What will seating look like in this room. I would suggest you try to plan that out as well to make the lighting decision. Also if this is a wiggles watching room chances are you won't want it bright or they kids will be watching while it is still day light. looks like some big windows in there.

Looking good. How would the occupancy sensors in this room work? My question is if you walk in the room and want to watch a movie and turn down the lights how do you make sure they don't turn back on when you get up a move?

Thanks!

Neil

(1) Diagram updated with dimensions
(2) Good point on the strobe fans. I will make sure we don't have that.
(3) Seating will probably be mostly floor/bean bag based. This truly is a play room. There is also a window seat which is now on the diagram.

For the occupancy sensor, you could probably get someone close with some rules driven by CQC
(1) If occupied and lights off remain off.
(2) If unoccupied for a duration (30 minutes) and now reoccupied turn lights on.

 

[beelzerob]

In this game room, and where else you have entertainment/media slated, you might give some good thought to if the TV set is across from windows, especially if they're south facing. Glare will become an annoying issue during the day.

Our greatroom is where we watch most of our TV, and it's south facing with windows all along the entire 2-story height of the wall. My TV doesn't face those windows, but it's still in such a place that sun coming in from the upper windows is annoying for a good hour during NFL games in the fall. *shrug* Just something to consider. Of course, drapes/blinds would also take care of the problem, but not for us, since the windows are above the main floor height, and would look dumb with window treatments.

 

[felixrosbergen]

Broconne: for the pipe chases the $130 is for a larger 2" or something right? for a small 3/4" it should be less.

My builder / developer didnt mark up the LV at all...(mayb they got a kickback instead, but i dont think so)...right now i don't know what to do about these 2 dead cat 5's. Only one is annoying since it's in an insulated outside wall. The other one i only needed 4 conductors out of the cat5 (aprilaire T-state) so it didn't trully hurt. They LV guy still needs to come back anyway for something else so i'll porbably tell them to fish the wire then at no charge..

Talking insulation...are you planning any insulation between the bedrooms? i didn't do it but the builder told me is was easy/cheap. Since i need to putting a bunc hor wires in those walls i decided not to. But if you have kids (with music/tv) or a loud misses it may be a good idea.

For the volume controls make sure they're put at eye level like a T-stat and not like a lite switch, at least iof they're intended to be the keypad type (e.g. Russound or Nuvo). If it's a basic volume contorl then light switch level is probably fine, but with eveythign else you're planning i assume you're looking at actual keypads with the cat5e+16/4 pre-wire method.

I havent been around this forum for very long (little bit over a year) but i think your house must be the best planned one out there so far. You are going to have a lot of gear to install after you move in..

I may have already said this, but ask for large faceplates on the switches so that when you cut above the above for the cat5e it gets hidden well.

 

[broconne]

In this game room, and where else you have entertainment/media slated, you might give some good thought to if the TV set is across from windows, especially if they're south facing. Glare will become an annoying issue during the day.

Our greatroom is where we watch most of our TV, and it's south facing with windows all along the entire 2-story height of the wall. My TV doesn't face those windows, but it's still in such a place that sun coming in from the upper windows is annoying for a good hour during NFL games in the fall. *shrug* Just something to consider. Of course, drapes/blinds would also take care of the problem, but not for us, since the windows are above the main floor height, and would look dumb with window treatments.

Good point on the TV. Not sure what the best solution is for the TV in the game room. Light will certainly be coming in through the single window which faces the street and gets afternoon light. Likewise light will probably come in through the other two windows but probably not as much.. Hmm, however, with this room layout.. Not sure of the best option..

Because this is a bonus room the walls are slanted a bit. They have the fake TV placed where I was putting it.. Let me post some pictures and see if it spurns any suggestions.

Picture 1 (Proposed TV Area):

Picture 2 (Window Seat):

Picture 3 (View From Door):

 

[broconne]

Broconne: for the pipe chases the $130 is for a larger 2" or something right? for a small 3/4" it should be less.

My builder just has a "pipe chase price". I can see if the LV guy can cut me a deal on smaller conduit - but I doubt it. I don't think it would be much cheaper. I had asked why it was so much more expensive to install a 2 cat5/2coax cable and he said that costs money. PVC was basically "free". So, 3/4 carlon might cost me more - even with the labor difference.

My builder / developer didnt mark up the LV at all...(mayb they got a kickback instead, but i dont think so)...right now i don't know what to do about these 2 dead cat 5's. Only one is annoying since it's in an insulated outside wall. The other one i only needed 4 conductors out of the cat5 (aprilaire T-state) so it didn't trully hurt. They LV guy still needs to come back anyway for something else so i'll porbably tell them to fish the wire then at no charge..

Go fish sounds like the right response
What CAT5 tester did you use? I will need to buy one. I probably also need to buy a walkie-talkie so I can have someone downstairs at the end of the run when I am testing.

Talking insulation...are you planning any insulation between the bedrooms? i didn't do it but the builder told me is was easy/cheap. Since i need to putting a bunc hor wires in those walls i decided not to. But if you have kids (with music/tv) or a loud misses it may be a good idea.

Doing insulation between the the media room (floor and walls) and the other rooms. Also, insulation between the sunroom and the rest of the house for heat, not noise reasons.

For the volume controls make sure they're put at eye level like a T-stat and not like a lite switch, at least iof they're intended to be the keypad type (e.g. Russound or Nuvo). If it's a basic volume contorl then light switch level is probably fine, but with eveythign else you're planning i assume you're looking at actual keypads with the cat5e+16/4 pre-wire method.

Nuvo is the plan. I had not thought of that! I probably stupidly would have done it at switch level! I need to add that to my "LV meeting notes" in my spreadsheet. Good save!

I havent been around this forum for very long (little bit over a year) but i think your house must be the best planned one out there so far. You are going to have a lot of gear to install after you move in..

Thanks for the comments on planning. I do hope this level of detail helps other future HA people. However, you are wrong on the gear to install comment. I am going to be poor and on the streets begging for HA equipment when I move in . Even though i am trying to ONLY wire the minimum and only wire things I can't wire myself afterwords, the price is really expensive.

I may have already said this, but ask for large faceplates on the switches so that when you cut above the above for the cat5e it gets hidden well.

I am going to have to swap out all faceplates - the house comes with standard toggle.

 

[beelzerob]

Heh...ahh, the bonus room. I remember wanting one of those. Just something about it...maybe the name being "bonus"...or the idea that it's not useful for much else than secluding the kids in... I don't remember, but there certainly was an appeal. We ended up not building one, but I remember the appeal.

Even in the pics of the model there, you see that with the right furniture, there are areas of shade/darkness. For an LCD TV, that's probably more than enough so that watching the TV isn't a problem. You just want for SURE that direct sunlight won't be shining on it, because that's really annoying. The other thing you don't want is for the TV to be directly next to a window, because then on an overcast day when there's lots of ambient light, you'll find yourself squinting at the screen.

I think in that first pic, the TV in the corner would probably be fine.

 

[felixrosbergen]

broconne: if the budget is becoming an issue i woudl seriously consider scalling back a little to allow you to actually get some HA functionality rather then spend all the money on wiring that is useless and doesn't raise WAF when not connected to anything cool.

For not being able to do any pre-wire youself you'll be having a LOT going in.

It would be hard to pick where to scale back if you had to though....

We also had the option for a bonus room...we didnt take it since we already had more space then we needed. So we now have a door from the upstair hall into the unfinished space