How big is your...

How big is your wiring closet?

  • where it fits

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • standard coat closet

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • standard br closet

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • walk in closet(<25 sq. ft.)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • small room (25-80 sq. ft.)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • commercial grade server room(>80 sq. ft.)

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0

noone289

New Member
I'm trying to decide where to put my structured wiring and distributed a/v components and thought a poll might start me in the right direction. If you like, mark what you have but comment on what you would want. Location (i.e. basement, living floors, attic) and equipment (i.e. security, htpc, a/v equipment, lighting, etc.) might be helpful, too if you feel like it. Either way, thanks for playing.
 
Mine is one wall (about 5 feet long) in the furnace room, another small 6 sq ft wall area (no floor space) in an unfinished room in the basement for the alarm system, and a 6 sq foot area under the stairs for phone system/network gear, UPS, etc. A real dedicated area is just a dream...
 
So it looks like 'where it fits' is the front runner from the comments. Come on guys, I'm counting on you to convince my wife to give up the 'storage closet' in the basement for something more important. IOW her junk vs my junk :)
 
upstatemike said:
But he is starting from scratch. He could have an entire outbuilding dedicated to automation gear if he wants to!

Not quite, we do have that ever famous (infamous?) WAF to worry about. Not to mention a little thing called money ;)

automatedoutlet said:
Ah, you should have phased your poll something like "where should it be?" - not, "where is it?"

As I mentioned in my initial post, you are more than welcome to mention your ideal, but I'm pretty sure the wife would say something like:
"I'm sure. They'd probably all drive Porches too. But what did their wives let them actually HAVE?" :)
 
I use the closet under my basement steps for all my networking equipment. It is mounted on the inside of that wall. I mounted a half sheet of MDF board to the studs and then mounted my cable modem, router, and Vonage phone boxes to that. Then I use my laundry room wall for all of my Elk alarm panel equipment because that is where the old alarm was mounted. I also have a network hub mounted in the attic to reduce the amount of wiring I had to run from the basement to the attic.

This is not my ideal way of doing things but it is what I could do really fast so that I could start playing with my toys. If I could start from scratch I would have a 4 x 8 room or larger to house everything in a central location.
 
I've found the best way to slip it past the wife was to spread out the equipment. Security and HA server are in the garage, sprinkler control in the laundry room, AV in back of hall closet underneath second story staircase. I've found TWO great reasons to spread it out...
1) They don't calculate how much cummulative space you're actually taking for your toys
2) More important, they don't try to calculate the total cost for all the components. When everything is in one place it's too easy to say "Look at all this tech stuff, this much cost a fortune!"
 
Mine's a closet in the basement, but I'm getting close to putting in a raised floor, about 20-25 Sq Ft, just for the coolness factor!
 
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