Central Wiring Panel / Closet location ideas (creativity)

[tmbrown97]

The crawlspace option is certainly inventive. I have a family member who's into wine and wine-making and they've now come up with an extremely complex setup under their house including train tracks to transport barrels; stainless aging tanks, and racks to store probably a couple thousand bottles - all lit with custom LED strips and extremely functional - if you're a midget or don't mind working on your knees most of the time. With the custom-built train and trolley's it's one of the more impressive things I've seen built lately.

That said, for an application such as this, I'd go with a good sized structured media enclosure in a closet, hopefully not too far from the entertainment center that can house the rest of the A/V equipment. Keeps it all serviceable and clean.

 

[apostolakisl]

I used to live in a house that was built in 1880. I know what it means to not have storage space (or a server room)! In 1880 people didn't own but like 3 pieces of clothing. This was in Columbus, OH. In fact, when the house was built there was no electricity, running water, or central heat. About 50 years prior to me owning the house, the owners dug out the crawl space to about a 6 foot ceiling height. They left about 18 inch ledge all around the edge for the foundation. Without it, there would have been nowhere for laundry, furnace, AC, hot water heater, or storage. It worked quite well. The condo in Colorado did something very similar. They created a huge space for their laundry and a great storage system for their ski equipment.

Spaces like this are free space. If you are limited in storage, it can be painful to cut 15sf out of your garage. Add to that the issues with temperature control that undoubtedly will plague a garage installation and the amount of framing and finish carpentry that adding a room like that takes, the cost will be high and the hours of construction will be high. You can't just slap something together like that, you have to make it look nice since it is part of the "real" house. You think a small closet is an easy one, but building rooms tends to be all about the corners and the trim work. And a 4x4 room has almost as much of that stuff as a 20x20 room. Now, if indeed the soil is solid granite, forget it. But digging out 8 or 9 yards of soil is two guys, a shovel, and a few hours time. And you just spread the soil around in the rest of the crawl space, no need to haul it outside. Plus you get a central location, and your wires get to go unobstructed directly to the underside of every wall in the house. And it will always be cool without any fancy ventilation system. Even if you can't get a 6 foot ceiling, if you can get 4 or 5 feet you can sit down on a chair and work away nice and comfortable.

Just saying, it really isn't that crazy to do this. In the 2 cases I have direct experience with, it really was a tremendous asset.

 

[video321]

I commandeered space out of a closet in a bedroom for all of my A/V gear. It worked perfectly as the closet was 8' long and built into the room. I cut open the side and installed a louvered door and a fully adjustable custom rack - floor to ceiling. If I ever pulled the equipment out I would leave everything and put a matching solid door on - it makes excellent use of closet space! Even better, the closet backs up to my main LR TV so all video runs are straight through the wall. My alarm and automation equipment is mounted high on a wall in enclosures in the laundry closet. I chose to put it there because I know I would never pull that equipment.

 

[DIYHO]

I put all my stuff in the garage on the wall in a custom made cabinet and a couple of wall mount racks. I also had an attached garage with no door to the house, and almost no storage space in the house. The issue of having to go outside to get into the garage got solved by adding a door from the house to the garage.

Personally I would shy away from any crawlspace install unless you have a super reliable dehumidifier.

 

[Neurorad]

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?

Yeah, that's the idea. Or you could access it from the garage, and just connected to the house via vents to keep it conditioned. I really don't expect you to need access often, once it's built.

 

[Neurorad]

Depending on your level of motivation, time, and talent, you could have a nice looking rack behind a plexiglass door, with access from the front, in the house, and back, from the garage. If the new closet is large enough, you could mount an enclosure or 2 in there as well, next to the rack. Some components, e.g. alarm, work best in an enclosure, but you could probably get away with all rack-mount. But I wouldn't put a rack in an unconditioned space.

 

[Neurorad]

If you're the kind of person that will continually change and tweak components, and keep expanding over the years, a solid front door might be a better option. Hard to get that 'finished', impressive look, without a lot of experience, IMHO. When you move, it could become a nice coat closet or extra pantry for the next owners, if the closet is finished normally.

Edit - though a walk-through closet isn't ideal for coats. I'd make sure I have access to the front and rear of the rack, either with front and rear doors, or a pull-out rack on casters. 2 doors is much, much easier.

 

[tomas21]

A location has be determined... found a closet that I can utilize in the house to install the Leviton 42" enclosure in the wall and install a rack above for components.

I need to run 2 RG6's and 2 CAT5e cables from the demarc to this location. What does everyone recommend to protect the wiring? I was thinking of installing some EMT from garage to crawlspace. Then open from crawlspace routed under joist up bottom sill plate and into Enclosure.

 

[Neurorad]

If the garage is drywalled, I'd put the cables behind the drywall. Drywall soffit is another consideration, near the ceiling. ENT (gray PVC) might be cheaper and easier than metal conduit, if surface mounting.

I have to retrofit a coax to my demarc, for a new satellite dish. I actually should be extending a proper ground to the dish (10 AWG copper), but I'm going with a 17AWG messenger wire (coax with messenger). Retrofit to my demarc will be painful, behind the garage drywall.

I don't know if you'll ever have a satellite dish located far from your service entrance, but you may want to consider running a coax with messenger wire, for futureproofing. I don't think this is done very commonly - just thinking out loud.

 

[tomas21]

The two walls that I will be using in the garage to route the demarc to the enclosure in the house are NOT drywalled. Also, the service that I am now getting is Uverse for Internet & Television. CAT5e will be used but I'm just running extra wires for future use.

Knowing that the walls inside the garage are exposed what is the best way to protect and run the wiring from exterior stucco demarc point to inside the garage on the exposed walls, down to the crawlspace, along the crawlspace joist, and then up through the bottom sill plate into the wall cavity where the Leviton 42 enclosure will be installed?

 

[tmbrown97]

Either PVC conduit or just well placed and tacked cables even.

 

[wuench]

If you can run a larger conduit than you need. 2Cat5+2RG6 will fit in a 1inch you might consider larger for future runs and don't forget to put a pull string in there too... I agree PVC is easiest to work with...

 

[tomas21]

Something like this - should I mount it on the edge of the veritcal 2x4's in the garage or drill holes in each 2x4 and feed the pvc through it?

 

[Del91574]

You're not going to get sched 40 PVC to go easily through studs without taking a huge amount of meat out of them. You're allowed to remove up to 60% of the depth of the framing member, however anything closer than 1 1/4" from the face is supposed to have a nail plate unless you run a metallic raceway.

If you can see finishing off the walls, then you're going to have to drill. If simply exposed, then leave as is. Your sweep is not going to be able to fit within a wall cavity at an inside or outside corner, so full concealed isn't going to be such.

Keep in mind, while code allows up to 4 90* bends in a run, it becomes more and more difficult to run that many in practice with any amount of cabling. Pull boxes and pull fittings are typically going to end up having to be put in if there's any amount of sweeps installed.

While a pull string is a nice item to have, the downside is many times it will wrap around the cables you are pulling in making it impossible to pull new cabling in without damage to the existing, essentially acting like a noose, not good for cable integrity on a category cable.

 

[tomas21]

I don't plan on sealed up the walls so how should i run the demarc wires from outside the garage wall, along the inside, and down through the wall into the crawlspace? Trying to find a good way to protect the wiring that is running through the garage and into the crawlspace