Final Check before wiring new house.

[chadspad]

I'm just getting to lock-up stage in my house and I'm going to give it the old college try and wire for some home automation. I live in Northern Canada so there's not a lot of help to be had on this front. Luckily I've had some time to lurk on this site and try to pick up a few tips here and there. I've also read the wiring guide.

My house is 2200 on the main, 1400 up and a full walkout basement. I think I've settled on the following structure, but would appreciate any last minute feedback.

Wiring (homerun to basement)

2 Cat 6, 1 RG6, 1 HDMI

Most of the material I watch will be ripped from DVD or as it becomes more available streamed. I plan on having a projector in the basement, a LCD in the kitchen, a LCD in the master bedroom, a LCD in the kids bonus room and one under our deck by the hottub. I'd like to have two HD PVR boxes with two tuners each, Bell ExpressVu, supplying all TV locations. DVD players will be local as will some form of a NMT like PopcornHour ar maybe a Sage box.. So, as I understand it my issues/requirements are as follows:

Distributed/Local

1) One Cat 6 wire per drop for any ripped/streamed content/internet. (network).
2) One Cat 6 wire per drop for future needs (IR).
3) One RG6 per drop for satellite/I'm guessing I'll need a switch of some sort to allow the 4 tuners to play with 5 TV's?
4) Local HDMI from Blu-Ray that is also home run back to central distribution point. (I think this would allow you to begin watching a movie in one room and then pick it up in another without moving the disc? A little fuzzy on this!)

Security Cameras

Our house design has our kids rooms on a different floor then us. As our kids are quite young we'd like to be able to be able to check up on them without running up the stairs all the time. So, for security cameras we'd like a camera in each bedroom aas well as one at the front door. Something with sound would be nice, not sure if any cameras have built in mic's, but is not essential. We tend to use the intercoms on our phones and are comfortable with this system. My question on this issue is what is the best way to stream the cameras to the various LCD's, what does it require equipment wise (please be detailed!), and does my proposed wiring work? We'd also like to able to view remotely while on holidays.

Sound

Amazing to read how many different ways there are to do this! After much thinking I believe we'll go the Sonos or Squeezebox versus an integrated solution like Nuvo. What can I say we're lazy and probably won't want to get up to use a keypad. Remote on the couch works for us! So, I think to make this work all we need to do is buy the units plug them into our network with an ethernet cable an plug them into some kind of an amp with a pile of channels from which I run the appropriate speaker cable. Sounds good in my head! Can anyone suggest an amp that would handle 6 zones and produces some decnt oomh. Also, what are the better in wall speakers to consider? I have high ceilings so I need something with some muscle behind it.

Lighting

It seems that people like On-Q, but I'm having a hard time grasping how it all works. If anyone can point me to a OnQ for Dummies site I'd appreciate it! I'm assuming that I have to run one cat6 wire for each of the light switches I want to control and that having done so I can program my lighting via a controller. In my area you cannot mix low voltage and high voltage wires in the same gang box ... so not sure if this works for me.

HVAC

We're installing a Geothermal system so I was thinking of looking at the Ecobee thermostat, it is a Canadian company after all!

Security

I'm already over my head so I might just have someone else do this. I'm wondering if it makes sense to have them wire to a system of my choosing. Such as the ELK product.

Extras

I'd like a monitor for flooding (laundry machine, dishwasher). Not sure how this might tie in. I'd also like a way of interrupting our movie if our doorbell is rung as our home theatre will be downstairs.
I should probably run wire to all our appliances for future smart appliances?


Cheers

 

[sic0048]

Just my thoughts here. I'll start by saying there is no right way to wire all this stuff, but there certainly can be a wrong way. This is when you realize you haven't run the right wire to the right spot sometime in the future.

Regarding your RG-6 and Cat6 needs. I would really recommend that you double the number of wires you are planning on running. You are basically wiring for the absolute bare minimum right now and we really don't know what the future holds. You will kick yourself in the future if you run only those wires. That being said, you could easily get by with running cat5e for the other wires if that would make a difference budget wise.

Security Cameras - you don't have to decide on model or even type yet. Simply run a RG-59 wire along with a 18-2 and a cat5e wire to each camera location. This will cover you for basically any camera you might want in the future.

For the On-Q ALC lighting system, check out this On-Q page. That might help you understand it. But basically you connect a cat5e wire from the main control unit (or possible a lighting hub if you decide to use them) to the local switch. The light will turn on/off either when someone turn the switch on/off locally (just like any other local switch) or it gets a signal from the control unit to turn on/off. Pretty simple concept actually.

Security - you should be able to hire a LV installer to come and wire your house for all the security needs. This will be done before drywall is up, but hopefully after all the windows and doors are installed. They should be able to install all the window/door contacts as well as wire for smoke detectors, PIRs, and glassbreaks (but those won't be installed until after drywall goes up). Have them label everything very well (ie every wire coming into the security can is labeled correctly) and simply run the wires back to the security can. You can actually wire the security panel yourself. It really isnn't that hard and it can be done anytime after the house is done.

Water detection - there are several premade solutions like the "Water Cop", but others have made their own. There are several threads here on that subject, so just search for terms like water cop to find them.

Door Bell - ELK makes a nice doorbell detection unit. I'm not sure exactly how it is wired (ie wired to the doorbell button, or the doorbell power supply or ringer, etc), but at the bottom of the page I linked, there is a copy of the instruction manual, so you can look at it and figure out where you need to run wire. EDIT - it looks like it sits between the doorbell unit and the doorbell power supply.

 

[chadspad]

Thanks.

Are you suggesting I pull 4 cat 6's and two rg6? What else would you run off of the second rg6? Also, can someone point me to a good spot to pick up wall plates with a high WAF. Appreciate any additional feedback the tech brains on this forum can provide on my origianl post.

Cheers

 

[sic0048]

You may want to have cable and satellite or OTA, etc. Odds are you'll only use 1, but you just don't know. I personally have an antenna on my house, so I have 1 RG-6 for OTA and then another for cable/satellite.

Wall plates - I use Leviton plates that allows you to use inserts for each wire you terminated. So you would probably have several cat5e inserts as well as the coaxial inserts.

You can get plates with 1 or 2 or 4 or 6 inserts.

I actually use a plate that fits in a decora style cover. This style also come in plates that have up to 6 insert spaces.

 

[charliebarns]

Hey Chad,

Here's what I pulled in my new build.

To every main room I pulled 4 CAT6, 5 RG6, 1 RG59, 1 CAT5 (TEL) 1 CAT5 (IR), 1 22/4 (OCC), 1 1" Carlon conduit for "future

proofing". This includes all bedrooms, washrooms (restrooms for my you es friends ), kitchen, dining den etc., 14 rooms. I

also pulled 2 2" Carlon conduits from the attic to the demarc location for future runs.

I pulled 10 RG6 to the attic for possible SAT, XM etc. None of the wires go through the conduits, I left them empty to make

it easier to pull wire in the future.

For our office I pulled 12 CAT6, 10 RG6, 4 18/2 (LV), 4 22/4 (OCC) 4 CAT5 (TEL), 2 CAT5 (IR). I also pulled 2 RG59 Siamese

with 2 extra CAT6 for cameras.

Whole house audio consists of 22 speaker locations and 8 keypad locations all homerun with 16/4 looped at the kepyad and up

to the speaker locations as well as 2 addition CAT6 from each keypad location to my demark location.

For my touchscreen locations I've pulled 1 CAT6, 1 18/2 and 1 22/4, 5 locations.

I pulled 1 CAT6 and 1 18/2 to each thermostat location. This is in addition to the 18/8 (i think) that the HVAC guy pulled.

For my doorbell interrupt I pulled 1 CAT6 to the doorbell chime location.

For security/HA I pulled 14 22/4 for motion sensors, 4 18/4 for occupancy sensors, 6 18/4 firewire for LV smokes, 2 18/4

firewire for heats, 10 22/4 for glass breaks, 7 22/4 for exterior doors, 24 22/4 for window sensors, 4 22/4 for CO, 1 22/4

for Wine Cooler sensor, 4 22/4 for additional temp sensors, 1 22/4 for exterior strobe, 2 22/4 for interior piezos, 4 22/4 to

stairs for pressure sensors, and 1 22/4 to the safe location.

For the exterior cameras I pulled 1 RG59 Siamese and 1 CAT6 to 8 locations.

I now have a lot of terminating to do, and I still feel I under wired

CB

 

[Neurorad]

wow.

 

[felixrosbergen]

Hi chad,

Please see below my 2 cents worth of input. For reference i will give you my experience level so you can take that into account when reading.

I have just moved into my new house 2 weeks ago and am in the progress of getting things setup and connected. I have however been lurking here for probably a year or so and generally tend to research the hell our of everything before doing it.

I got an ELK M1 and configured it while still at my previous home with intentions to move it over and connected it to all the snesor wirings in the new home and hoepfully be done with it. I found the ELK really easy to set-up and really had no problems with it. Unfortunately when moving it to the new home i did somethign stupid and blew it up. I sent it to ELK and they offered me a refurbished one as a replacement sicne i totallys screwed mine up. The new ELK shoudl be here monday so i start hooking in the alarm, next on the list are thermostats and the first phases of lighting control. I have tentatively selected CQC as the glue to make all the different systems work together. For the time being i am planning to control the ALC lighting via the ELK to ensure a stable solution. If i find that to be too restrictive i may have CQC control it.

During construction i had an LV contractor wire and provide recessed sensors in all ground floor and basement doors and windows and pre-wire for some motion sensors and keypad locations. Getting somebody else to fully setup and configure an ELK for you will probably be pricey, somebody else's hours are much more expensive than your own. If you want an alarm/automation panel I would say it's best to install it yourself so you know all the ins and outs when you go to expand/change things.

So all the alarm is pre-wired in the walls. For the rest i had 2 2" conduits put in from the basement to the attic and i had 3/4" flexible conduits put in from each location where i wanted cable/network/tv up to the attic or down to the basement. The idea is/was (and it has worked out very well for me) that i pull all the wires after i move in, for the upper floor i go up the 2" conduit, across the attic and down the 3/4".

I did this because my house was being built by a developer and i wans't allowed to do any work myself for insurance/liability reasons.

The benefit was also that i didn't have to think too much about what i wanted where since i can run whatever i want through the tubes.

If you follow this method i would say the following:
- get more than 2 2" conduits from basement to the attic. So far i have 4 RG6QS, 4 Cat6 and 8 Cat5 through a 2" conduit and it's starting to get full. If you can pull it all at the same time i'm sure you can do more, but you'd need to premeasure and cut the cable or have a lot of cable spools.
- For 'main tv' locations 3/4" conduit is not enough. For my main living room TV i put a 2" conduit to the basement. this way HDMI connectors or whatever can fit through there.
- a 3/4" conduit will hold up to 2RG6 and 3cat5 OR 2RG6 and 1 cat5 and 1 cat6 OR 1 RG6 and 1 cat6 and 2 cat5's. You must pull all together since adding later through the 3/4" is not easy. Ofcourse you can always unterminate, pull back, add to the bundle and put it back in.

Some other comments below.

I noticed HDMI to many locations. How do you plan to do this. As far i know HDMI cannot be field terminated so you will need large holes to get the connectors through. Also HDMI cable is terribly expensive and there's issues for longer lenghts. I don't have a good alternative to offer except to look into baluns which i am looking into but do not have personal experience with.

For the whole house audio it seems the recommended way to go is run cat5 and speaker wire from wiring room to a potential keypad location, cat5 stops there and speaker wire continues. The allows a large variety of systems. If you go SONOS route you would never put a keypad in and you would just have a blank wall plate (or just leave the cable behind the drywall), if you go Nuvo you can (but don't necesarilly have to since they have remotes as well) put a local keypad in. There's lots of options and you may also change at some point in the future. Wiring as described about would give you lots of flexibility. If at the keypad location (which would be lightswitch level or a bit higher) you may want to have a local source plugged in at some point (like an ipod or whatever) then i would suggest you put some extra loops in the cable at that location so you can tap into the speaker or cat5 wire both at keypad height and at electrical outlet height so you don't have unsightly wires at keypad height later.

OnQ ALC is what i am planning to do as well and i've researched it a lot. I'm pretty confortable/confident i understand how it all works now (but havent actually done it yet). Do a search for it and you'll find that most people run a cat5 to the lightswitch location and make surre there is a neutral in the box. The ways of getting the cat5 there vary, temporarilly attaching it to the top of the box seems to be the most common approach. Some people also recommend running the cat5 as a loop from the wiring room past one or more switch locations and back to the wiring room to protect yourself against any breaks (due to drywall install or other reasons). Keep in mind you only need 2 of the 8 conductors in a cat5 to control the switches, but for aux switches (i.e 3 way or more switch setups) you need 3 conductors for each aux. ALC also has what they call a 'Quad aux' (which BE WARNED does not no go with other switches in a multigang solution and must be separate in a one gang box) which actually needs more than 1 cat5 by itself. From what i understand each aux has 3 wires, but one of the 3 is 'common'. So for a quad aux (essentially 4 aux switches in 1 device) you need 1 common and 4x2 conductors. Sadly enough that is 9 total and thus exceed a singel cat5.

Personally i have taken the following approach/plan:
For the ground floor i make sure i had a neutral in each switch location (this seems to be pretty standard these days especially if you have multiple multiway switches in one location, so this wasnt a big deal and didnt cost anything extra). I generally had the light switches concentrate into 3 gang boxes rather that single switches everywhere. I had the electrican use 4 gang boxes with HV/LV dividers so at each location there is a extra gang which can be HV (when the dividier is removed) or LV (with the divider in place). I had 3/4" conduit run to the LV section of each of those locations. So now i can run as many cat5 as i need and can use the extra gang for a ALC scene switch or something else. Since with the conduit i can get wiring to the switch location i can also easilly add intercom, alarm or whatever to any light switch location. I am also not locked into ALC, recently i began to doubt my ALC selection and started looking into Lutron. Lutron is certainly more expensive but more or less follows the same concept as ALC. They however recommend using their own cable for the LV control rather than cat5. With the conduit i could do that if needed.

For the upper floor i did the same only for 1 location where i knew i would have a scene switch. For all other lichting location I didnt do anything special since it's very easy (at least in my case) to drop cat5 into the walls at the switch location later. Also if you start to add up the cost of the switches you will quickly (unless you are bill gates) realize that this will likely be a phased rollout rather than a big bang.

ok..my rant is over...PM if you need more details on ALC.

 

[chadspad]

Awesome post MavRic. Running the conduit as described will give me time to figure out things without holding up the rest of the house! I think I may just run 2" conduit to each major drop so I don't have a problem pulling cables. 3/4" to light switches. I didn't realize you could get gang boxes that allowed for both HV and LV, anyone know if these fly in Canada? I have an uphill battle to wage if I go with a system like Nuvo unless the keypads are really nice. I'll post pics as I go.

Cheers.

 

[felixrosbergen]

My electrician was initially skeptical but then found boxes that took dividers.

I know Carlon makes them, but my electrician hates carlon, sais their stuff is not professioanl grade. He found a box, showed it to me and that was it..you can put the dividier in where you want to create the HV and LV sections. The inspector seemed ok with it but made him put a firestop on the conduit since the conduit traverses different floors in the house. He just used a PVC cap which is easillyr removable now that inspection is done and i'm ready to run wire.

The boxes were screwed into the studs and the screw plate made it impossible to mount ALC switches or dimmers later. We noticed this after the first one or two (since i purposely went to go see) and instead of the screw plate he screwed them into the studs diffeently so it's all good now. Key thing is to get your hands on these things and order an ALC switch or 2 so you can test fit.

2" is quite big and having that brough to many location will likely cost you dearly.

My electrician charged US$65 for each location where i had a mudring with conduit or where we expanded a lightswitch box and ran a conduit. I thought that was quite reasonable. I got somewhat of a credit for him not putting normal cable/phone in. Ofcourse on move in day i had to make sure we had internet and TV, so you're a bit under the gun to get some of the 'essential services' up and running.

In the end running wire later using my method will cost you more time, but you only need to put in the wire that you need. I keep reading posts about 15,000 ft and counting...I'm at about 5'000'. Ofcourse not running 5 RG59 for component video like many do will make a huge difference. With SageTV extender and baluns i just didnt see the purpose.

For your attic i woudl make sure you don't get the 'blown in' insulation since wading through that stuff isn't fun. My insulation is just matts and it's quite easy to get around. Watch you step because if you slip of you'll may go right through the ceiling (havent tested this yet .

 

[chadspad]

MavRic

I think I'll follow your lead and wire some stuff after the fact. It's too hard to concentrate when the wife is constantly asking which tile goes with which flooring and with what color paint! What the heck is a mudring?

Cheers

 

[Steve]

What the heck is a mudring?

 

[edge]

My electrician was initially skeptical but then found boxes that took dividers.

I know Carlon makes them, but my electrician hates carlon, sais their stuff is not professioanl grade. He found a box, showed it to me and that was it..you can put the dividier in where you want to create the HV and LV sections. The inspector seemed ok with it but made him put a firestop on the conduit since the conduit traverses different floors in the house. He just used a PVC cap which is easillyr removable now that inspection is done and i'm ready to run wire.

The boxes were screwed into the studs and the screw plate made it impossible to mount ALC switches or dimmers later. We noticed this after the first one or two (since i purposely went to go see) and instead of the screw plate he screwed them into the studs diffeently so it's all good now. Key thing is to get your hands on these things and order an ALC switch or 2 so you can test fit.

2" is quite big and having that brough to many location will likely cost you dearly.

My electrician charged US$65 for each location where i had a mudring with conduit or where we expanded a lightswitch box and ran a conduit. I thought that was quite reasonable. I got somewhat of a credit for him not putting normal cable/phone in. Ofcourse on move in day i had to make sure we had internet and TV, so you're a bit under the gun to get some of the 'essential services' up and running.

I

MavRic;
I like the idea of conduit to each box......any pics by chance?

 

[JimS]

On the insulation in the attic and walking around in it on the trusses....

I tacked some cross pieces on the trusses about 18" up from the bottom (above the later added insulation) and put 1/2" osb on it for a walkway down the center of the house. It passes right by the conduits down to the wiring closet and another wiring area on the other end of the house. It really makes adding/changing the wiring, working on the attic antenna, etc a lot easier. No fear of slipping off the truss and going through the drywall. And it provides a place to lay tools while working.

We used blown in insulation. It fills in around things a lot better that bat insulation.

 

[felixrosbergen]

MavRic;
I like the idea of conduit to each box......any pics by chance?

They are all in the walls now, but i have all my pics from before the sheetrock went up. I'll be putting these up in my Showcare forum today or tomorow. Link to the showcase is on my signature.

THE MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL: TAKE LOTS OF PICS/VIDEO OF THE WIRING BEFORE THE SHEETROCK GOES UP.

Not only the LV but also the HV because you will at some point to drilling/cutting into the walls. I moved in 3 weeks ago and have reference my picture and video at least 10 times already, even for something else simply as hanging a picture for the wife it doesnt hurt to check whats in the walls before drilling/nailing.

I took pictures and video and found that they supplement each other. Altogether i have about a 1 hour video walkthough of the house which i narrated while shooting it pointing out exactly what is what (the different between a white 16/4 speaker wire and a white cat5 is not easy to see from pictures or video by itself.

I had very little time to do this since they wanted to put sheetrock up as soon as the electrical roughin was done and inspected. I got it done, but if you have to tell the builder to hold of a day or 2 when you document everything. For the pictutes i labelled each picture with the room name and which wall (north/east/south/west) immediatly after coming home from taking them to ensure i would not forget.

 

[BraveSirRobbin]

THE MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL: TAKE LOTS OF PICS/VIDEO OF THE WIRING BEFORE THE SHEETROCK GOES UP.

Not only the LV but also the HV because you will at some point to drilling/cutting into the walls. I moved in 3 weeks ago and have reference my picture and video at least 10 times already, even for something else simply as hanging a picture for the wife it doesnt hurt to check whats in the walls before drilling/nailing.

This is great advice as I did this as well and also referenced the photos before I drill into any wall...