CQC is not cheap!

[jarcher]

Well, the conduit idea is officially dead. After hours of poking and prodding, my brother and I could not find a way into the attic from the basement without making a signifigant opening in an upstairs wall. Even then, we could never have fit a very big conduit because of all that is going on in the central wall below it (pocket door frames, blocking to support drywall against the stairs, framing around duct work, blah blah blah.

How about this. When I need to run cable from the basement to the attic, I could use electrical conduit on the outside of the house. I can easily go out through a sill from the basement, up along the edge of the house, and in to the attic. I can foam off any gaps. The electrical conduit will be ugly, but the gray color is not too different than the faded blue siding is. A few years ago, I ran ethernet cables from an upstairs bedroom, outside through a wall, and down behind the siding, then into the basement. That cable still works fine and it's een mostly hidden.

It's not as good as a nice straight, vertical 2 inch pipe in the house, but are there any problems with this approach?

Thanks...

 

[Steve]

What about closets? Many times there is a common closet on both floors and you can run a conduit all the way thru inside the closets? I know they do central vac pipe like that at least between floors.

 

[jarcher]

What about closets? Many times there is a common closet on both floors and you can run a conduit all the way thru inside the closets? I know they do central vac pipe like that at least between floors.

Yeah, the closets are above one another in some cases, but they are not lined up. The conduit would have to go through the middle, or near middle, of the upstairs ones. The people we bought this house from did a lot of the layout work and planning, back in 1962 or something. We now realize why it's not a good idea to design your own house, at least not without help.

 

[samgreco]

What about the plumbing vent stacks? There is usually a place where the plumbing vent goes from the first floor through the roof. Or around the chimney. I've got clear shots through both of those areas in my 50s ranch.

 

[jarcher]

What about the plumbing vent stacks? There is usually a place where the plumbing vent goes from the first floor through the roof. Or around the chimney. I've got clear shots through both of those areas in my 50s ranch.

Hm... We had checked the waste pipe but it's sealed tight and there are no vents. But, you just reminded me that there are pipes from the basement straight up to the bathroom on the second floor! A quick glance shows that the floor looks tight around it, but tomorrow we'll try to see if we can get a snake up there. Great idea, thanks!

 

[sic0048]

What about closets? Many times there is a common closet on both floors and you can run a conduit all the way thru inside the closets? I know they do central vac pipe like that at least between floors.

Yeah, the closets are above one another in some cases, but they are not lined up. The conduit would have to go through the middle, or near middle, of the upstairs ones. The people we bought this house from did a lot of the layout work and planning, back in 1962 or something. We now realize why it's not a good idea to design your own house, at least not without help.

Yeah, self designed houses are usually a disaster. The original designer loves it (and it does fit their needs/wants), but usually there is a tremendous amount of wasted space, inefficiencies, and just plain dumb ideas.

We all know people that have done this, they all rave and boast about how they designed their house and you walk in and wonder if they were smoking crack when they drew it up

 

[CollinR]

We all know people that have done this, they all rave and boast about how they designed their house and you walk in and wonder if they were smoking crack when they drew it up

BWAHAHAHA!

Coffee on keyboard, sinuses still good though.

 

[jarcher]

We all know people that have done this, they all rave and boast about how they designed their house and you walk in and wonder if they were smoking crack when they drew it up

LOL! That was a riot! Yeah, the elderly couple we bought this house from raved about how they designed it themselves. Too bad they have both passed away, because I would really like to ask them just when the hell they were thinking!

 

[liftn]

You can get 2" Carlon Flexible or 1", you just can't buy it at home depot. You can get it from Smarthome, Worthington, etc. I ran 4 2" runs. 2" can easily fit in a standard wall. If you can't run the 2", run as big and as many as you can to compensate.

Is it OK to put a 2 inch hole in a 2X4 header? I thought there was a limit to how big a hole you can make before it affects the strength of the board. Something like 1 1/4 inches for a 4 inch wide board?

A 2x4 header is pretty small. But aside from that, how would you ever run a piper through a header???? A header runs above doors and windows, so you couldn't run run vertically through it because you pipe would run through the door or window, and Horizontally would mean the the pipe would be below the ceiling. If you are referring to a top plate, then that is a different story, most of your plumbing pipes are 2" or greater. You would usually have no problem even in load bearing walls.

 

[jarcher]

It turns out I did find a path to the attic fromt he basement! I ran two long lengths of some older cat5 I had sitting around. I also ran both 7 conductor thermostat wire and cat 5 to two different thermostat locations, on on each floor. With that I should be able to install whatever thermostat system I eventually pick. For now, I'll just use the old one. And, I was even able to install an additional length of Cat5e from the basement to the attic and down into a wall to add a nice wall mounted ethernet jack!

The only disappointment is that I was not able to get the speaker wire I wanted for the upstairs speakers. I had used all I had and no one locally had high quality 14/2 speaker wire in stock. I'll find another way to run it eventually.

The wall is all closed now. As soon as I saw the board up, my thought was "Oh my God, what did I forget!"

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone!

 

[ano]

I looked at CQC and my impression was the same. Very expensive for what you get, even if the $700 price includes all the extras. In addition, I guess my definition of "home automation" is different than what CQC is. CQC doesn't even support UPB or answering the phone, which are pretty basic home automation tasks in my book. Yes CQC is a good "engine" but for $700 I expect more than that.

 

[IVB]

I looked at CQC and my impression was the same. Very expensive for what you get, even if the $700 price includes all the extras. In addition, I guess my definition of "home automation" is different than what CQC is. CQC doesn't even support UPB or answering the phone, which are pretty basic home automation tasks in my book. Yes CQC is a good "engine" but for $700 I expect more than that.

What package do you use?

 

[ano]

What package do you use?

If your asking what home automation software I presently use, its HomeSeer.

 

[Dean Roddey]

I looked at CQC and my impression was the same. Very expensive for what you get, even if the $700 price includes all the extras. In addition, I guess my definition of "home automation" is different than what CQC is. CQC doesn't even support UPB or answering the phone, which are pretty basic home automation tasks in my book. Yes CQC is a good "engine" but for $700 I expect more than that.

Anyone going from one package to another thinks that whatever they were doing before is 'basic' stuff that any other system should support. Of course, anyone going the other way would think the same. In the pro world that CQC is mostly targeting, having phone based control but not having a really strong graphical touch screen interface design system or not having a built in media management system would seem to be very badly reversed priorities, because everyone in that market considers those things to be what make up the most basic requirements.

Phone based support is pretty low on the priority list in that market. I can't think of any potentially new pro installer ever asking if we even support it.. We do support .Net based smart phones, which is probably more of a forward looking way of providing phone based support these days, and more likely to be selling point in the more uppity scale market.

And most pro sysetms will not use CQC directly to control lighting, but will instead use an automation panel like the Elk or Omni. So direct support of UPB is less of a market concern for us than it would be for a mostly DIY product. Not that we won't do it, but other things come out on top and have been done first.

So it's all relative to what you are used to and what market you are in.

 

[IVB]

What package do you use?

If your asking what home automation software I presently use, its HomeSeer.

Ok. Just curious to see if you'd found something that I didn't know about.

I had no issues with the cost, even if I had to purchase it again today at full price. As previously stated, the absolute cheapest alternative I have to accomplishing my goals is $1500, and phone integration isn't even one of the goals.

I suppose we just have different "books" as to what we feel HA is, and in the end, it's good that we have choices. You got to choose a package that works for you, I got to choose a package that works for me.