Central Wiring Panel / Closet location ideas (creativity)

[tomas21]

We just bought a ranch style house built in the 1976 in California and looking to add some structure wiring.

My challenge is trying to find a creative place to locate our central wiring panel / closet to house the following:
- ATT Uverse Equipment
- Network equipment
- Video equipment
- future audio equipment

There is currently no real closet space I can utilize based on limited storage overall. There is an attached garage but no door access from house so having to go outside to configure / work is not ideal. There is a decent crawlspace so all cabling (RG6 & CAT5e) can be hung underneath house and up the walls to the locations within each room.

What kind of ideas have others come up with for a low-pro CWP/Closet to achieve my goals?

 

[wuench]

You will likely need 1-2 stud bays worth of space. Your best bet is to find an indoor, conditioned, secure space that is easiest to get wires to all of the places you want to run wires. You may have to open some walls and if you do, think about running conduit there for future expandability. You will also need power and the best case is having it on it's own circuit 20amps if possible.

In my case I used an unfinished area of my basement. I had to open a wall in the garage to run conduit from there to my attic and ran conduit to all the other unfinished areas of my basement. From the attic I was able to run wires to all of my second floor and from the unfinished areas I was able to hit 75% of my basement. For my core room, I ran raceway all the way around the top of the room that hits all the conduits coming into it and my AV rack.

 

[tomas21]

If I am able to locate an indoor location to open up 1-2 stud bays, what is an reasonable priced cabinet / enclosure solution to store all the equipment? Would be hard to probably rack a A/V Reciever in a stud bay : )

 

[userone]

what I would do(and partially just for the cool factor) is put a trap door in the floor and build an area into the crawl space, say header of one joist and make it 5 feet long so you have plenty of room to move around. line it with shelves either enclosed or open backed depending on the climate in the crawl space. It would give you tons of room and could be probably be located pretty centrally

 

[tomas21]

Sounds intriguing but trying to visualize what you are envisioning.since the crawlspace is only 3 feet or so in height from soil.

 

[homejones]

Our home is 2000 sq ft and it was built in 1960. The house has tons of common space, but has limited closet space. I stuck a 7U wallmount panel in the garage where I have centralized all cable and ethernet connections. Wires from this point were pulled through the attic to our coat closet where a media cart holds my AVR, HTPC, PS3, Wireless Router, and Speaker Distribution box.

My wife isn't too thrilled about me taking over most of the coat closet, but it's the only room we had. I need to figure out some ventilation in there now...

 

[tmbrown97]

In most new-construction homes (especially in places without basements) the homes have all the wiring home-run to a Structured Media Enclosure. There are lots of specially designed systems to go inside these cabinets and can house a basic network switch (with some adaptation) as well as whatever splitters and patch points are needed to distribute standard network/cable/telephone. Check out the Galleries on this site to see some of the extreme examples.

For audio/video equipment, that won't work - you can't exactly stick an amplifier in a space like that! In that case, centrally locating your audio/video equipment in a rack in the top of a closet or just in your livingroom near your TV will probably make the most sense.

In my last two homes, I've gone a little bit less conventional - Here I have the 50" in-wall media enclosure along with the home's original 20" just below it - then I wall-mounted a 12U swing out cabinet. This is all in the Master Bedroom closet and ultimately doesn't consume any otherwise usable space - the structured media cabinet can go behind the clothes so the space is still usable for closet space. The wall-mount cabinet is suitable for a NAS, traditional router & switch, power strip, security camera DVR, etc. The only catch is I don't have all that much running in there right now, and it still keeps the room pretty warm. In the Family room is also a great nook that is the perfect width to do a custom built-in rack w/door, so someday I may do that and run the whole house audio there, along with connections to the rest of the TV's in the house.

In my previous home, the family room was huge and the master closet was tiny - I ended up running all the home's [excessive] wiring to a series of 4-gang boxes behind the TV all in a row. I over-built the entertainment center to have room behind/around it for all the A/V equipment so that's where the network switch, router, etc - all lived. It was a decent design since most anything I'd want to distribute or connect to the internet all lived in this one place, and the flat panel sat on top and in front so it blocked the view. The Elk was in a 28" cabinet in the master closet still but everything else lived right in the family room. Major advantage - not having to worry about cooling.

 

[Kevin L]

what I would do(and partially just for the cool factor) is put a trap door in the floor and build an area into the crawl space, say header of one joist and make it 5 feet long so you have plenty of room to move around. line it with shelves either enclosed or open backed depending on the climate in the crawl space. It would give you tons of room and could be probably be located pretty centrally

I had a waterfront home on Long Island that only had a crawlspace. I didn't have the room to set up my servers and other equipment. The attic was too hot, so the crawlspace was the place. Though it was damp down there, since the equipment was on 24/7, it generated enough heat to keep them moisture-free. Had the equipment there for years without any issues.

My Florida home is built on a slab. I have an air-conditioned closet in the laundry room where I have a 6-ft Middle Atlantic rack that is out of room: File server, (4) DVRs, Blu-Ray, (2) SqueezeBox servers, a Roku and a Popcorn Hour media server, (2) Onkyo AV Receivers, (2) Whole Home audio controller/amp units, a keyboard and monitor for the file server, a 17" laptop, and (4) UPS units. There are also two cabinets in the wall, a 42" and a 28" for Elk M1G and components (all in the 28") and in the 42" the HomeTroller, cable modem, router, patch panel, switches, etc. It was getting too full, so I'm in the process of moving equipment up to the attic. So far, I've moved (2) 4-bay NASes, the wireless router, a Verizon cell phone booster, an NVR for the cameras, Vonage adapter, patch panels, a smart gigabit switch and (2) POE switches, a time server, etc. When I designed the house, I opted for Icynene insulation in the attic without any venting. This keeps the attic no more than 10 degrees warmer than the house; that means the attic never gets warmer that 92F, fine for the equipment I have up there. To give an idea, it's currently 84F and sunny at my home, the AC is set to 82F (we're not home). Here's a snapshot from the Health screen of one NAS:



So I don't have to go up to the attic to see the status of some of the equipment, I have an IP camera up there and a z-wave switch to turn on the attic lighting. Here is a snapshot I just took so you can see the Icynene insulation under the roof. Since I started this move of equipment three weeks ago, things are a bit of a mess. There is more equipment and cabling going up there, then things will be cleaned up.



Kevin

 

[tomas21]

Keep the ideas flowing...

Based on our situation, it is sounding like I may take the following a two media enclosure approach

• Install a media center enclosure either in a closet or garage
  • House Uverse 3800HGV-B Residential Gateway router device (feeds internet, video, voip to all rooms
  • House Video distribution block
  • House Audio distribution block
  • Run wires from ATT demark to this location
  • Run wires from DirecTV to this location
  • Run wire from this location to all rooms
• Install a media rack in living room
  • House audio receiver
  • House Uverse DVR
  • House AppleTV
  • Run HDMI to TV
  • Run wires back to Media Center Enclosure for distributing audio from receiver
  • Run wires back to Media Center Enclosure for distributing video from a video component

 

[Neurorad]

drvnbysound has a nice setup in his laundry room, for his enclosures.

http://img560.images...om25apr2012.jpg

http://cocoontech.co...ck-connections/

Can a closet be added to the garage space, that opens into the house via exterior door? That is, is there a common wall?

 

[Neurorad]

Floor to ceiling, you could probably get away with a single stud bay, like drvnbysound.

 

[Kevin L]

Can a closet be added to the garage space, that opens into the house via exterior door? That is, is there a common wall?

That's a good idea, Neurorad.

Tomas21, you don't even need to make the door full height. If you made the door half-height, you could mount a panel in the wall above the door. Since you wouldn't have to go in there that often, bending down to go through the door wouldn't be bad.

Don't forget to run wiring for IR at all viewing locations to be able to use the remote control. All I have is an IR eye at each TV to control the video equipment in the closet.

Kevin

 

[apostolakisl]

Sounds intriguing but trying to visualize what you are envisioning.since the crawlspace is only 3 feet or so in height from soil.

You can dig out your crawl space (unless you are on rock) provided you stay clear of foundation footers. If you are on relatively soft, dry soil it is quite easy. The main issue is moisture. If it is just a little humid, use a dehumidifier. It is actually a good idea to dehumidify your crawl space in general if it is not naturally that way. Pour some small footers and a pad, then lay concrete blocks to the soil level for retention. I suggest going down deep enough that you don't hit your head when standing up. It would be a full job for one weekend.

While doing some panels between studs is great for structured wiring and security panels, you are never going to get any audio or video stuff in there. Ideally you have your AV stuff mounted on a rack that you can get to both sides.

Going under the middle of your house is going to be an easy place to keep cool as well. Again, as long as you don't get water down there.

 

[tomas21]

I'm in the mountains so the soil is full of granite making digging a chore.

Neurorad - I'm trying to figure out your design in adding a closet in the garage. Frame in a closet on the side of the garage that is attached to the house and then install a door on the inside of the house opening into the closet?

 

[apostolakisl]

I'm in the mountains so the soil is full of granite making digging a chore.

Might be worth checking for sure. They might have used fill to level the crawl space. I saw an entire crawl space dug out in a condo in Silverthorne, CO that was perched on the side of a mountain.