Starting to plan my structured wiring setup

[tomas21]

Title: Starting to plan my structured wiring setup

Hello,

I’m hoping this is a great place to start with my ideas for structure wiring my house. As you will read I'm beginning to brainstorm my ideas for the house. I would like feedback on what wiring is recommended, how I should consider wiring this up, is there anything I should change or consider, etc. I have read that RG6 Quadsheilding is advised for video, CAT5e for voice and data, but still trying to figure out for intercom and audio. In addition I’m also trying to figure out how many wires to send to each location and where to locate the Central Wiring panel. I have read Bob Catanzarite’s site swhowto.com which has some good details. If I’m posting in the wrong forum please advice where I should post….

House: 1955 Ranch Style
Walls: Drywall
Crawlspace: 2.5-4ft
Garage: 2 car
Workshop: attached to garage as separate room
Central Wiring Panel Location: TBD…..
Video Feed: TimeWarner Digital Cable
Internet Feed: TimeWarner Cable
Voice Feed: Verizon

Living Room
Goals: Watch TV, Watch CCTV, phone, internet, get audio from office computer, get video from office computer
Equipment: Sony HDTV, Motorola HD DVR, Pioneer Receiver, Pioneer DVD, Sony VCR, Infinity surround 5.1 Surround Sound

Dining Room
Goals: N/A
Equipment: N/A

Master Bedroom
Goals: Watch TV, Watch CCTV, phone, internet
Equipment: Sony TV, Sony DVD

Guest Bedroom
Goals: Watch TV, Watch CCTV, phone, internet.. streaming video of the baby from this room on CCTV
Equipment: None

Office
Goals: Watch TV, Watch CCTV, phone, internet, send audio to living room, send audio to garage, send video to living room
Equipment: Sony TV, Computers

Kitchen
Goals: Watch TV, Watch CCTV, phone, internet, intercom to communicate to garage/workshop
Equipment: Sony TV

Garage
Goals: Unknown
Equipment: None

Workshop
Goals: Watch TV, Watch CCTV, phone, internet, intercom to communicate to kitchen
Equipment: Sony TV

Thanks

 

[sic0048]

First off, welcome to CT!

The good news is that with a ranch style house, you can probably get to any location from either the attic or crawlspace so wiring should be fairly straightforward. You could easily DIY this and if you forget something the first time, it should be easy to go back and add more wires. That being said, let's try to get it right the first time.

Here are just a couple of generic guidelines that I would recommend following.

Wire all data, phone, intercom and potential HD video distribution drops with Cat5e or better wiring (the HD video takes two cat5e wires).

Wire all cable video feeds with RG-6 (quad shield is fine, but isn't really necessary unless you are close to a transmitter of some sort - ie an airport, cell phone tower, Radar, etc). RG-59 is fine for CCTV (I would also drop a cat5e cable along with power to each camera position incase you ever wanted to switch to IP cameras)

Then you have to decide how many of each wires and to what locations you want to drop them to. I would pull a minimum of 2cat5e and 2 RG-6 cable to each location. Then add more of a certain cable if the situation warrents it. I personally would pull a min. of 4 RG-6 wires to any potential TV location (3 for composite wires and 1 for digital audio). I would add more cat5e to any potential computer location.

For your scenerio, I think you should look into some sort of video matrix switcher which would allow you to put all of your components in one location and run a single set of cables to each TV and view anything in each location.

There is a "How to Wire 101" manual on this site as well. I it is located here.

 

[johnnynine]

Yes definitely take a look through Electron's How to Wire 101 document that sic0048 mentioned, it has a huge number or recommendations and ideas in it.

Warning, after reading it you will have even more questions.

At least I did. h34r:

 

[jlehnert]

quad shield is fine, but isn't really necessary unless you are close to a transmitter

Use care if you plan to connect to cable TV. In the areas that I've had exposure to, Comcast and Adelphia will not connect to existing coax unless it's quad shield. That policy might have changed, but you don't want to finish wiring and then find that the policy is still in effect.

 

[tomas21]

Thanks everyone for your feedback.... I remember a while back reading through 101-103. I guess it is just going to take time, money, and careful planning to make sure I accomplish what I'm after. Choosing the cabling seems straight forward but now I'm trying to figure out what type of special equipment I'm going to need for my video and audio distribution..

For Data and Voice I have 110 blocks, routers, switches, and cable modem.

What type of equipment should I be looking at for the following?

Video feed from cable company to Distribution Panel sent to all rooms
Video feed from any room back to Distribution Panel sent to all rooms

Audio feed from reciever to distribution panel sent to all rooms
Audio feed from computer to distribution panel sent to all rooms

Also I'm looking to upgrade all of my wallplates for my light switches, pwr outlets, and of course my new drops for data, voice, and video. What wall plates does everyone prefer so that they all match? I saw the screwless kind but those have a gap where the two snap etc.

Thx

 

[jlehnert]

upgrade all of my wallplates for

When you say "upgrade", what do you mean? Are you planning on just replacing the plates, or are you also rearranging things? I'm a firm believer in using the Carlon LV add-on brackets to create "multigang" installations. Instead of having mains and LV heading in different directions, they instead all go to a single location, giving a much cleaner installation and look.

As far as the plates and components themselves, as long as you stay with a single manufacturer, you usually will be okay. OnQ used to follow the Leviton color standards, so the two brands could be mixed and matched, but that was prior to the OnQ/Legrand merger. Don't know if they match any more. My kitchen uses Leviton plates, switches, and receptacles, but the GFIs are a different brand. The colors do NOT match, and frankly, it looks like S***. Whenever I get around to redocorating the kitchen, replacing the GFIs is high on the list.

I'm aware of two different screwless wallplates, Leviton and Lutron. The looks are completely different, so if you don't like the look of one, take a look at the other.

 

[tomas21]

upgrade all of my wallplates for

When you say "upgrade", what do you mean? Are you planning on just replacing the plates, or are you also rearranging things? I'm a firm believer in using the Carlon LV add-on brackets to create "multigang" installations. Instead of having mains and LV heading in different directions, they instead all go to a single location, giving a much cleaner installation and look.

As far as the plates and components themselves, as long as you stay with a single manufacturer, you usually will be okay. OnQ used to follow the Leviton color standards, so the two brands could be mixed and matched, but that was prior to the OnQ/Legrand merger. Don't know if they match any more. My kitchen uses Leviton plates, switches, and receptacles, but the GFIs are a different brand. The colors do NOT match, and frankly, it looks like S***. Whenever I get around to redocorating the kitchen, replacing the GFIs is high on the list.

I'm aware of two different screwless wallplates, Leviton and Lutron. The looks are completely different, so if you don't like the look of one, take a look at the other.

I'm planning on replacing all of the light switches, electrical outlets, and wallplates. An then will be adding the structured wiring configuration.

 

[sic0048]

quad shield is fine, but isn't really necessary unless you are close to a transmitter

Use care if you plan to connect to cable TV. In the areas that I've had exposure to, Comcast and Adelphia will not connect to existing coax unless it's quad shield. That policy might have changed, but you don't want to finish wiring and then find that the policy is still in effect.

Good to know. I hadn't run into that problem, but you are right - it pays to be safe than sorry.