New construction, 20k to spend. What would you do?

[jaydubb1]

I originally posted a thread here on HAI vs Control4, thinking that would be the end of it for me.... boy, was I wrong! This whole automation thing is turning into an addiction and I don't even have one wire in my home yet!

I've ruled out Control4, I need to be able to tinker with my home on my own.

HAI still seems like a good choice, but I am starting to feel like I'm paying way too much and getting way too little, simply based on my local installer's markup and more importantly - lack of expertise that many of you Cocooners obviously possess.

Since I'm fairly smart and technically capable, I'm leaning towards a DIY system and that brings me to this site.

I'm committed to running CAT6 throughout the house. Other than that, I am not committed in any way to any one system, and I'm starting from scratch with a bare home - walls are framed, but no drywall is in place yet.

With that said, I want Security, Multi Zone Audio, distributable media to the TVs in the home, Automation (irrigation, hvac, lighting, etc), and the room to upgrade and expand in the future.

I see a lot of people using ELK, but I haven't figured out exactly what that is compared to HAI. A lot of the articles Ive read are for people retrofitting homes, but I'm starting fresh so I don't know if those solutions are necessarily the best for me.

To sum it up: I've got 20k to spend on this, I'm fairly capable, and I want to be able to grow in the future. What would you suggest?

Thanks in advance, and I look forward to sharing my experiences as I grow as a Cocooner

 

[mikeweber3]

Jay,

Assuming this is your home definatly consider geothermal HVAC. Fed tax credit of 30% and awesome reliability and utilities. I would go wireless for internet.
ELK M1 Gold is an awesome system that can automate many things and it is a lot of fun.

Thanks

Mike

 

[jaydubb1]

This is indeed my home, and more importantly - most likely my "forever" home. I'll look into geothermal, thanks!

I have a good feeling about the ELK M1 Gold, hoping to get some crazy in-depth responses on how to get jiggy with it

Thanks for the reply!

 

[rismoney]

I did this - new construction.
I had the house wired up for around $5000 for 3500 sq feet. I didn't want the installer to do anything but wiring. Wiring is the most critical part. Conduit will be your mistake catcher.

I made some decisions some common, some unconventional.
Only wired 1st floor for security.
No keypads for sound. All speakers homerun to head end
Planned where all tv's would go in all bedrooms. Ran HDMI for all short runs to save $ on baluns
Didn't centralize video. Planned to use FIOS, and they have whole house DVR.
Family room used HDMI/Cat5 solution to put cable box/receiver in head end. Cat5/HDMI extenders=$
Cat5 doorbell
Cat5 behind every tv in quantity of at least 5 (IR, TV internet, 2 HDMI/over Cat5, spare)
Read as much as you can on wiring, and choose what you want.
Cat5 on bulkhead gate

If you are prepared to fully DIY, My advice is don't get caught up on the controller. Try to get alot of the other pieces going. I was in a similar situation as you, and spent hours deliberating controller selection. I still haven't bought one. What you don't realize now, is that when you make a decision to use say UPB lighting you will need to learn how to manage this first w/o the controller. I needed to watch TV immediately so I needed to learn everything about IR. Only now after I am nearly done with the building blocks can I think about how I live in the home, and plan to actually automate.

 

[picta]

If you want to go DIY then focus on wiring and put in as much wire as you can afford, as it will save you $$ later. Wired products are less expensive than anything wireless. Like rismoney said above, you can always choose your controller later. Another big decision would be if you want to automate your lights and then you want to decide at the start if you will use a hard-wired system like Centralite, wireless like Lutron or power-line based like UPB. This will determine part of your wiring requirements. Besides lighting you may want to wire for

1. Security sensors (all doors and windows, skylights, motion etc). They will be useful not only for security, but for many automation tasks, so you may consider sensors at the interior doors as well. As part of security wiring you may also want to add smoke sensors, sirens, keypads, water sensors etc.
2. Window coverings (if you want them automated, each will need at least a power wire plus possibly cat5 for control)
3. TVs (the post above has it well described)
4. LV drop (at least 1 cat5 and 1 cat6) in each room, possibly more, for future gadgets
5. Speaker wire (built-in most rooms, speaker center for your main TV(s) wired back to the equipment rack)
6. Thermostats and/or temperature sensors
7. Cameras (cat5 for IP cameras with PoE, or RG59+18/2 for standard)
8. Doorbell/camera/intercom
7. Cat6 to locations you may want wall-mounted touch pads.
8. Consider installing whole house pulse water and gas meters and water shut-off valve (all wired to your sec system)
9. If you want to monitor your energy use, pre-wire at your electric panel for an electricity meter like Brultech

Once you have the wire and the walls are closed you can begin choosing the right controller based on your needs and interests. Both Elk and HAI are excellent controllers for DIY automation. HAI Omnipro is easily expandable and supports a lot more zones than ELK while ELK is less expensive. Good luck!

 

[Neurorad]

Distributed video is a huge expense. If you can get away with the cable or satellite provider's distributed DVR service, you can save a lot of money.

It will take a lot of time to figure out what LV cables you will need, for each subsystem - alarm, LAN, video, distributed audio. And, if you can decide on lighting and shade/drape control now, will save you a lot of future headaches. I agree that the controllers can wait until after move-in, but lighting should be decided now. UPB is one of the most affordable and easiest, so I've read.

You can probably develop a list of the cables you need by posting here at CT.

So, step 1 is deciding on the cables. Step 2 would be the installation of said cables. You can save a HUGE amount of money doing it yourself, but there is a steep learning curve, one that you may not want to tackle. You may screw up something with a prewire DIY - but the pro installer may too.

I suggest all cat6, makes life easier for minimal additional cost.

You can keep cables buried behind drywall until you're ready to use them, e.g. distributed audio keypad cat6.

 

[apostolakisl]

Agree with a lot of above.

I have

Elk m1g. It is a solid system. I have tons of add-ons including the ethernet (xep), and a bunch of extra zone inputs and outpus/relays.
ISY-99i. This is also an excellent tool. It now fully integrates with Elk. It's primary purpose is to control insteon lighting, which it does very well. With the full integration you can now pretty much write all of your programs in the ISY which is a better programming interface.

I would encourage you to run lots of conduit. You don't even need to put wire in the conduit until after the house is done. Conduit is far cheaper than running superfluous wires and protects you against future technologies. I promise you there will be something you forget to wire. Even if you pull everything everywhere, you might later realize you need two of something.

I would alarm every door and every window in the house. No need to home run every window. If you have a grouping of windows, one wire for the group will suffice. Same for double doors. It is not just for burglary, but also just to know that you didn't forget a window open when you leave the house. Thunderstorms can sure let a lot of water in an open window.

Also consider pulling alarm wire to everywhere there might be water leaking. I have leak detectors under every sink, bathtub, fridge, dishwasher, washing machine and so on.

Pull wire to the garage door openers.

Consider pulling wires to put occupancy sensors. Even if you don't install them, tack them up in the wall/ceiling for later use.

Pull speaker wires everywhere. Again, tack them up for future use.

TAKE PICTURES OF EVERYTHING before the drywall goes up. I mean tons and tons of pictures from every possible angle. Get the ceilings and everything. Literally, like 10 pictures or more per room.

Spray foam insulation is the best. Open cell is what I used. Closed cell is probably not worth the extra money.
Geotherm may be a good move depending on where you live. For me it cost $50k extra. I just couldn't justify that. If you have a high water table or lots of soft earth to trench in, it becomes much cheaper.

I did centralize my video. The HDMI cable on ebay comes in 100ft lengths and it does work for pretty cheap.

 

[jaydubb1]

Wow, lots of great information so far!

Conduit sounds like a major "DO IT", so I'm on that one.

Where should I look for a good deal on all the wiring I need? CAT6 CAT5 etc?

 

[Neurorad]

Flexible low voltage conduit is best used for video locations, where technology may evolve in the future. Install the conduit empty, it's for future pulls. Install the current cables outside of the conduit.

Choose the conduit diameter wisely, as HDMI connectors can be quite large. If the conduit is small, you'll have to use HDMI over catx solutions, adding significantly to the cost of distributed video.

 

[apostolakisl]

Flexible low voltage conduit is best used for video locations, where technology may evolve in the future. Install the conduit empty, it's for future pulls. Install the current cables outside of the conduit.

Choose the conduit diameter wisely, as HDMI connectors can be quite large. If the conduit is small, you'll have to use HDMI over catx solutions, adding significantly to the cost of distributed video.

I actually prefer the super cheap 10 ft section 3/4 grey electrical conduit. A propane torch and a few seconds of warming it up and it becomes flex conduit without the ribbing that tends to hang wire up. I use the 45's and 90's for those bends. I focused on getting from wall/ceiling boxes to attic/other accessible space. I don't run conduit all the way home.

And I also prefer to run everything in conduit. That cat6 might need to be changed out for a cat7 (or who knows) in the future. So I didn't run any wire (except my camera wire, which i am now sorry about) outside of conduit. Just to be complete, I did not run my alarm contact wires in conduit, I really don't see that technology changing.

 

[pete_c]

Jay,

Another "thing" with a kind of DIY setup is that you are familiar with everything and where everything is at infrastructure wise.

Also very popular is "smurf" flexible tubing. It's sold in a variety of diameters. Here in the early 2000's wired for everthing and still today only probably utilizing 50% of the wired infrastructure. For just the computer cabling whether utilized for whatever Its all going to patch panels here and there making later changes pretty much plug and play.

In Florida today I have Fios. Historically though have had Direct TV, Broadband cable and DSL. Did a teardown of the old house and wired extra for everything. I like ELK but picked HAI for its smaller do all footprint as I had limited space there and have collasped all the centralized wiring to literally one closet with the wiring coming in fromt the attic. The house is an elevated (to FEMA code) "ranch" of sorts. The garage space is at ground level but the rest of the house is at second floor level. Most difficult though was the pool construction as originally it was at ground level and the entire house kind of surrounded the pool / lanai area. I miss it though because the area was literally the size of the house in square footage. Today the pool/Lanai area is smaller but elevated providing a nice view of Sarasota bay on one side and the gulf of mexico on the other side (but that piece is one block away or so). There is much infrastructure buried somewhat in the cement; but most of the LV stuff is in the attic. Still a pain with catheral ceilings.

Changed the FIOS bits a bit for just the internet piece by bridging the FIOS router to my own firewall allowing some more flexiblity. I also added a post build infrastructure for the FIOS retrofit in the last 3 years or so for redundancy as provided by Verizon for the telephone service. None the less now most of the cabling in the 3 blocks of 50 homes is buried underground with new infrastructure going to the homes. The only issue I have is that the last overhead cabling was the broadband cable. Today it has no cables but only the support and the telephone poles which doesn't look nice and makes for continuous maintainance on the trees around the area of the older support cables. Recently in addition had to rebuild the concrete walls adjacent to the canal. The support structures / metal cables were underground and it was a major endeavor. What was nice though is that all of the work was done via a barge versus through the side yard. Another concern is after 10 years outside metal all rusts or get salt corrision on it and it just ends up crumbling when trying to repair. I've have over the last couple of years replaced much with hopefully corrision free stuff.

One of the rooms is more or less an office with a desk in the middle of it. There I did run much conduit under the floor to two walls for LV/HV wiring and utilizing it all today. I also ran conduit and tubing between shelves underground in the multimedia piece of the "great room" with a center part being for the LCD and the sides with conduit for the MM equipment. Addition though some major wiring between this section of the house and the wiring closet. The speaker pieces were difficult and are basically all in wall ceiling and wall installed. With just the studs in place before drywall it was much easier to cable / put conduit.

 

[pete_c]

I have a friend building a new home in CO. Its actually on the other side of a small mountain (near Estes) from a home he purchased like maybe 20 years ago. He purchased the entire 60 acres to one side of this mountain and had to build zig zag road to the top where he is building his home. Its been now maybe 2 years since the completion of the road; an endeavor itself.

Initially he contracted an architect and sub contracted for the pieces of the infrastructure. He did get a bit tired of the back and forth trips from the midwest; so he started to just do conference calls with updates via the telephone. It really ended up not working for him; as he would pay for a subsection of the infrastructure work; then check it out after the fact finding out that it wasn't completed to the original specfications or not completed at all.

So he went back to the back and forth visits and now subcontracted a responsible do all such that that person is reponsible for the completion of the specfications on the build.

Personally I just continued almost weekly 2-3 day visits for the single purpose of looking and meeting with the main contractor on the build; almost a baby sitting thing.

It wasn't that the builder wasn't reputible; it was just that there were things that I wanted to be done in a certain way and may times came to heated discussions mostly short cuts et al type stuff.

 

[rismoney]

Geotherm may be a good move depending on where you live. For me it cost $50k extra. I just couldn't justify that. If you have a high water table or lots of soft earth to trench in, it becomes much cheaper.

Can you do geotherm if water table is like 1-3 below? I am waterfront on a peninsula.

 

[jaydubb1]

My hvac is running 13,500. Geothermal is 33k.

30% tax credit puts my net at 7000 more out of pocket, which will take about 10 years to recoup.

I think I'm going to pass on that one for now.

 

[mikeweber3]

Jay,

what kind of HVAC are you going with then? Gas, oil, air heat pump, ? Reliability is a huge issue on Geo over some systems, especially air to air heat pump, which I don't like at all. What part of the country do you live in?