New Home Construction Project

[ph0n33z]

oh man..............oh man ................

If this could work, I would be so ecstatic!!

Ok, ok......breathe corey......B.R.E.A.T.H.E.

*sighs

Ok............what if.....

I made a small area inside the garage dedicated to the equipment room. This would house the m1, cqc pc, russound cav6.6(if that is what I get), and whatever else I need in there.

Here is the sweet part...........



I could create a "secret" door going from my Closet into the equipment room! This is because a small section of my wall is actually the otherside of the garage! And it is the perfect place for putting a room! B)

Maybe I could even setup a fingerprint scanner or voice recognition or face recognition door lock to keep the "non-techies" from getting access! *starts drooling

What do you guys think?????

 

[Steve]

As long as you don't mind losing that garage space it is certainly an option. You would definitely get a good size space for all your HA needs. The only negatives I see are that it is not really central, but that shouldn't be critical as long as it is not more than a few hundred feet or so to any point. You would also undoubtedly lose some of your closet space to accomodate your secret door. You could also have the cool entry automation, just make sure there is a manual backup method in case things fail. Nothing like being locked out of the HA closet.

The other obstacle I see is - 'What is above the garage'? Looks like maybe a low roof since the theater and gameroom don't seem to extend out that far? That may be an issue in that you have to go up into an attic area then run horizonal for a bit before you can go up. If that is the case make sure to really future proof because even with conduit it could be a bit tricky shoving cable through what may turn out to be a bunch of bends and angles. I think its always easiest when you can go straight up to the second floor.

 

[ph0n33z]

hmmmm.........

Do you think there is a better location for the HA equipment room?
I will find out in 1 hour or less what the pre-wire guy thinks of that location.
I was a little worried about it not being a "central" location. The problem is that I can not find a room that is central which could house all of the stuff.

=(

 

[wuench]

That is one impressive house!

To get you a little off of the whole HA system and back to cabling for a second. Since you have the walls open and are in the planning stages, I would highly suggest you run conduit to all drops. If you have an attic and unfinished basement or crawlspace then you can just run the conduit to those, then LOTS of large conduits to your equipment room. If no basment and/or attic then run 1 inch conduit all the way back to your room. You will also need drops to where your phone service comes in, sattelite dish, antenna location, HVAC, and anywhere else you have equipment (sump pump, water softner, etc.)

1 inch conduit should be large enough to put 2 coax and 2 cat5/6 plus a little room to spare. You can pull speedwrap (bundled cable) all at once. It is much harder to pull individual cables. Run a minimum of 4 Quad shield RG6 to where you are going to put the dish. If you are going to run HDTV to any of your drops, then your choices are pretty slim at this point. Since there is no spec for ethernet over 1Gb on copper some of the solutions are using shielded cat 5. You can go that direction or 3 RG6 for component. But if you run conduit you are future proof. Try to leave 2-3' of cable at each end (service loop), if possible. If not at both ends then at least at one end.

In your room invest in a good structured wiring panel large enough to support all your drops. Futuresmart, Leviton, etc. Make sure you ground this panel. Have an isolated ground run from your house ground to this room. Also, make sure all your grounds are tied together if you have more than 1. (i.e. dish, HA panel, electrical panel.)

If you are running these yourself, then invest in a good Coax compression tool. Snap-n-seal is a good brand, but there are plenty of good knock-offs. Just don't buy the Zenith tools. Also, buy or borrow a good RG6 and Cat5 tester and test all your runs end to end. Pay close attention to the Cat5 lengths, it can't be over 300'. Hopefully that won't be a problem, but you do have a large house. If you are paying someone to do this, then make sure you have them test (certify the runs) and make them deliver the test results to you.

 

[IVB]

so....do we have a blank slate vis-a-vis equipment, or is there stuff that you have already?

 

[ph0n33z]

Sorry bud, I forgot about that question.

We have a blank slate. We are not going to use any old equipment for the theater room. So everything is going to be purchased once we are all moved in etc.... This is to make sure nothing new comes out in the next few months. (And you know it will)

Also, I met with the pre-wire guy last night. In summary, lets just say the guy was arrogant and tried too hard to sell us. He insulted my theater room(said it was way too small, because the theaters HE BUILDS are 30x40 minimum.......yea...I know LOL). He also spoke down to me the whole time, probably thinking I didnt know anything about wiring/tech. I was polite and did not tell him what I knew, but I am certainly not going to be going with him.

Not to mention it was going to be $12,000 just in LABOR for only 4 rooms, security, and 4 room music!!! Yea.........

However, there may be light at the end of the tunnel. My brother use to own an outdoor living company, and is friends with an electrician. I spoke with the electrician, Mike, last night. He said he would be more than willing to take a look at the blueprints and let me know if he thinks he can do it. He said he wanted to do it right, and not just take it on because my brother is his close friend. So he is picking them up tonight, and should get back to me tomorrow or wednesday.

What I like about him, is the fact that he could be my muscle(he and his buddy), while I can be the "supervisor" in instructing him on what to do. This way, I can learn what needs to go where, and also be able to see it done.

What do you guys think? Do you think I can figure out all the wiring specs myself and then show him where to do it?

I was also talking with electron and chakara last night, and they recommended that we do the termination ourselves. What do you guys think?

 

[Dean Roddey]

We have a blank slate. We are not going to use any old equipment for the theater room. So everything is going to be purchased once we are all moved in etc.... This is to make sure nothing new comes out in the next few months. (And you know it will)

If you are looking to a high end system, then working mostly out of things in our supported list, then you could do something like:

1. Lexicon MC-12
2. New Sony Ruby projector
3. Whatever amps you like. If you want serially controlled you could go with a Theta Dreadnaught.
4. Denon 5910 DVD player (serially controlled)
5. One of the upcoming DirecTV boxes that does the new MPEG4 sats

That would just require a driver for the Ruby and the DTV box, the protocol for which is very similar to the existing DTV boxes so it wouldn't be too hard.

If you are looking for something more reasonable, then maybe:

1. Parasound 7100 A/V Proc
2. Runxo VX1000
3. Reasoanble amps with 12V trigger control
4. Denon 3910 DVD player
5. Same as above

That would be a quite nice system, all well controllable.

 

[kwoodrow]

I decided to pull all of my own speedwrap with the help of a friend. I also did all of my own terminations. There are things I would do differently, but I'd probably chose to do it myself again, rather than hire a pro just for the wire. In my case, which was a much smaller job, it was a choice b/n paying an electrician $5,000 for the prewire versus paying about $1,000 in cable and tools to DIY. It took me one long weekend to pull 10 drops.

FWIW,
Ken

 

[ph0n33z]

Dean:

I have not selected any equipment yet, but I was leaning towards the Optoma H79. It has great reviews and beautiful HD. If I were to get "un-supported" hardware, would I still be able to use CQC to control the theater? Would it be possible to get drivers for them?

Kwoodrow:

Thanks for replying! Once I find out about whether Mike is going to do the pre-wire, would it be possible to talk with you about some tips on pre-wire/termination once the project gets underway?

Thanks again guys!

 

[royalj7]

I recently did a remodel of my house were I pull all new network, video, and audio cable. Had 14 drops and did the terminations myself. It took me about a month of working an hour or two after work and one day on the weekend to pull the wire and do all the wall terminations. It took another weekend to do the central wiring panel. I would recommend doing the terminations yourself with a couple caveats. You are going to have some screwups, so practice on spare wire and leave enough cable at each drop so if you have to cut off a bad connector and start again, you’ll have enough. Invest in some decent tools. You will need a good punchdown, compressing, coax and cat5 stripper, and flaring tool. Also, get an inexpensive coax and cat5 tester…$50 should get you something to tell if there are any crossed pairs (very easy to do) or shorts. Also, I know you mentioned you were disabled in a previous post…the terminations require a good bit of standing, squatting, and kneeling. But if you are comfortable with that, have some time to read up on correct technique, then practice, I say you can do a good job and save some money by doing the terminations yourself.

--Jamie

 

[jlehnert]

Looks like royalj7 beat me to the punch.

It sounds like your electrician does not currently know how to do termination, so why pay for him to learn on your dime? Do it yourself. You'll save money, and also be ready to do additional work/upgrades/repairs later on (and YES, you will make changes. IIRC somewhere in this forum it's been mentioned that HA is addictive. You need to keep going back for another fix B) )

And absolutely, spend the money on a good set of tools. I've hear people complain about spending $50-$100 for a good coax compression tool. Let's compare... cost of tool $75, cost of house $450,000.............

 

[johnnynine]

It can control some external intercom system, but it doesn't have any built in mechanisms to implement an intercom system. But, assuming you can find what you want, it can certainly provide control for what zones it's routed into and so forth.

Dean what types of external intercom systems can CQC control? I'll be installing a Greyfox cat5 intercom system soon (not sure if there is anyway to interface with it, or what I would do if I could_.

Just curious,
Thanks

 

[pkoslow]

ph0n33z,

I just returned from Russound training on all the RNET products (CAV6.6, CAM6.6, + source equipment).

If you're still considering the CAV6.6 for your distributed audio and have any specific questions about the gear or pre-wire requirements, please let me know and I'll try to answer.

Cheers,
Paul

 

[ph0n33z]

Thankyou so much pkoslow. You have been highly recommended by everyone, and I would love to talk with you. Would you prefer PM or email?

 

[IVB]

ph0n33z,

I just returned from Russound training on all the RNET products (CAV6.6, CAM6.6, + source equipment).

If you're still considering the CAV6.6 for your distributed audio and have any specific questions about the gear or pre-wire requirements, please let me know and I'll try to answer.

Cheers,
Paul

great website, btw.