Building a new house

J

jms5180

Member
Hey all. I'm building a new house. My main goals for automation are:
- Security
- AV Distribution

Obviously things like lighting controls and temperature are nice, and since they seem to be way cheaper then the AV distribution will be things I will likely add, but my priority is around those two things.

I found a local dealer around here and he gave me a price to wire the whole house (3 story, 2200 sq ft finished) and it was 2800. Only 950 of it was labor he seemed to just crush me with the pricing for wiring. I was planning on getting his price then seeing if its worth it to DIY it. I think I will end up doing this myself, as I'm fairly technical and I think I can handle it. I have no idea what system I want to use, the dealer that I went to uses Control 4. His own setup was very slow and it is also very closed so I am not really interested.

So I guess my questions are, for a low budget system which prioritizes AV/Security/Openness, what should I use? Are the wiring requirements basically the same?

Lastly, where do you all buy your wire from? I was able to find most of it on monoprice.com but couldnt find the speaker/cat5e siamese wire
 
A lot of us start with base systems like an HAI OmniPro or an Elk M1G and expand from there. HAI has some media control stuff built in; Elk not so much... when you exceed what the panels can do, you go to something like CQC, HomeSeer, Elve, or other software packages that can tie things together.

The biggest challenge you'll have is figuring out which master system you want to have; from there it's just a matter of selecting components that are compatible with it.

For the most part, the serial thermostats (RCS, AprilAire, HAI OmniStat) are compatible with most systems; newer ones are starting to show support for Z-Wave as well. If you have a multi-zoned system, in my opinion RCS's communicating zone controllers are the only way to go. Lighting will be either UPB, Z-Wave or Insteon unless you know now that you want to pay for a hardwired system and prepare for that today.

During building, also consider if you'll want motorized drapes and plan for that now.

Peruse the galleries and see if you like anything you see then dig in there too.
 
Copper isn't as cheap as it used to be, very much a commodity item, although the weekly prices haven't been as bad recently, they used to change almost daily.
 
Foresure copper is crazy these days...My cat6 order was just $1300....Just buyer beware of all this crap cca (Copper-clad aluminium) cable.... Monoprice is your friend but ugh no free shipping.
 
Actually, beware of a lot of the foreign cabling, the worst being the Category cables.

As alluded to, CCA, undersizing, underperforming, on top of fake UL listings and ratings are commonplace with a lot of the no-namers.
 
jms5180 said:
Hey all. I'm building a new house. My main goals for automation are:
- Security
- AV Distribution

Obviously things like lighting controls and temperature are nice, and since they seem to be way cheaper then the AV distribution will be things I will likely add, but my priority is around those two things.

I found a local dealer around here and he gave me a price to wire the whole house (3 story, 2200 sq ft finished) and it was 2800. Only 950 of it was labor he seemed to just crush me with the pricing for wiring. I was planning on getting his price then seeing if its worth it to DIY it. I think I will end up doing this myself, as I'm fairly technical and I think I can handle it. I have no idea what system I want to use, the dealer that I went to uses Control 4. His own setup was very slow and it is also very closed so I am not really interested.

So I guess my questions are, for a low budget system which prioritizes AV/Security/Openness, what should I use? Are the wiring requirements basically the same?

Lastly, where do you all buy your wire from? I was able to find most of it on monoprice.com but couldnt find the speaker/cat5e siamese wire
Click to expand...



I'm building a new house too, I got copies of all of these DVD's http://smartflix.com...ning-Department let me know if you have an interest in getting any of these

I bought good high quality in wall wire, on e-bay - yoiu just need to know how wire is rated I got CL3 rated - I bought 5000ft for speaker wire 16ga & for the 12vdc power for CCTV, 4000ft Cat5e 4 diffrent colors, 3000ft RG6 real copper core and brad,

14 - 8in ceiling speakers, 5 IP CCtv cameras, 6 IR & touch control for speaker control in each room

I'm using lots insteon and ISY-99 for automation, I will have an alarm installed, most likely most will be wireless (MAYBE) hooking the alarm system to ELK-M1 just doesn't seem worth it yet to me:)


HEY, jms5180 you can save a lot of money wiring the whole thing, you need to hire the electricians helper to help you run the wires, its not that hard, you don't need a license


Why Structured Wiring?



Structured wiring is a relatively new area for the residential construction industry as a whole.
Having said this, we are placing an additional emphasis on educating end users as to the advantages
and benefits of having a home that is wired in this fashion.

When searching for your next home, you probably wouldn't even consider buying a house without indoor plumbing
or central heating. A few years from now, the same reasoning may apply to homes without structured wiring.

But what is it? Structured wiring provides the ability to interconnect PCs and printers throughout the home which allows file sharing,
and permits information to be sent from a PC in one room, to, say, a printer in another.
It also allows for the distribution of Television, VCR and DVD programming throughout the home, allowing you, for
example, to watch a DVD movie in your bedroom, even though the player is hooked up to the TV in your Family room or Den.
But the importance of structured wiring goes far beyond what it allows you to do now.

If your home already has a structured wiring system in place, there will be no need to re-wire when adding new systems,
services, or other electronic devices. Your home will already be wired to accommodate any additional cameras, telephones,
PCs, televisions, even devices that haven't yet been invented.

Ideally, the best time to install structured wiring is during the construction of a new home.
The benefits are obvious: You will be able to decide where wall ports and wiring should be located.
Even more importantly, though, pre-wiring a home avoids the added expense and hassle of disturbing the dry wall,
base boards, etc. when structured wiring is installed after the home has been finished.
 
I don't think anyone here questions the value of pre-wiring your home - the question that usually comes up is what wires do they need? Ethernet/Cat5 is the easy one; it's the others that get dicey.
 
Work2Play said:
I don't think anyone here questions the value of pre-wiring your home - the question that usually comes up is what wires do they need? Ethernet/Cat5 is the easy one; it's the others that get dicey.
Click to expand...

Too bad this forum doesn't address this type of wiring
 
It does - there's a "Wiring your home 101/102/203" guide, and we help people through these questions all the time right here in the forum.
 
went to another local dealer. This one used RTI for the controller, lustron for lighting/drapes/ Elk for Security. I like Control 4 much better as I liked being able to control a lot from my TV. What other system is similar to control 4 but perhaps more open/compatible.
 
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