To late?

So I have been in networking for many years and am acclimated to conforming with the ever changing technology. So I am in the process of building(We are in the framing stage) and I guess I am behind the 8 ball as far as home automation. But the options and configurations are endless and hard to settle on one vendor or technology....The only thing I have ordered is Ethernet cable haha and im 2 weeks until drywall.....I figured I would wing it....lol maybe not


I feel like the new kid in school

Quick...run to your Home Depot or Lowes and buy the cable for the following to run into your central automation location:

22/2 security to each window/door sensor
22/4 security for each room motion sensor
16/2 + cat5 to each window for drapes/blinds
speaker cable to room speakers
cat5 to each wall near interior door and any other place you may want a touch/keypad for control
hdmi cable + 2 cat6 to each TV
cat5 to each thermostat

and maybe you can still make it, such a nice looking house got to be automated

I would suggest a few changes:

There are limits on how long a passive HDMI cable can be - I think that 25' is often mentioned although I have gone 50'.

If you plan on having cable or sat boxes located at the TVs then you will want to include runs of RG6 (solid copper core) to those locations - I always install 4 runs.

For possible TV locations I install 4 runs of CAT6.

For computer locations I install 2 runs of CAT6.

Installing empty conduit allows for easy future additions/changes.

While there is no actual limit on HDMI, the theoretical limit is around the 45-50' range; quality cables can compensate, but don't ever try to join two cables - you must use one continuous cable.

What Pete said about Coax - I did 3 runs to each TV in the last house; although the advent of DTV's SWM has made my life SO much easier; even still I'd want 2 so you can run cameras or other sources using a modulator.

And I don't run 2 runs of Cat6 for just computer locations - I run them to every location. In each room, I do it to two opposing walls as well. For instance, most bedrooms have a bed & nightstand on one wall, and a TV on the opposite wall. I put a couple RG6's and a couple Cat5's to the TV wall, and two more Cat5's on the "Bed" wall for a nightstand internet clock radio or phone (VOIP or analog), or whatever.

AND any place you might want a security system keypad (each entry to the house and in the master bedroom) I install a Cat5 and an 18/4 - that'll support a speaker (great with an M1) or even other alarm panels entirely. It's good to have both.

It's doable - My brother-in-law and I did a 2500sq ft' house - a couple miles of cable - in a few nights after work. Granted, near the end, he slipped and crashed through my ceiling and vowed to never enter another attic again for the rest of his life, leaving me to repair the ceiling, finish the wiring, and reinstall the can light he took with him... but that's a different story .

And conduit is king - any place you can, run it! And don't run your wires through it now - run them along side leaving the conduit empty for future use.

2 weeks? I'd try to change it.

Call a local LV installer, or use the one your builder recommends.

To each video location, I would install HDMI from BlueJeans (if less than 50 feet), RG6 x 2, and cat6 x 4. And empty conduit, if you have the time and money, to add the successor to HDMI, in 10 years.

If distributed video (centralized components) is never in your future, skip the HDMI and run 2 coax and 2 cat cables.

I buy my category cable from Monoprice.

If that's how the house is now, then I'd say you're more than a couple of weeks out for drywall.

That pic was taken middle of last week.....According to their construction schedule they will be dry walling the week of sept 3rd which means I am pulling cable not this weekend but next.
So I guess I lied a little....I already did buy 18/4 for the keypads/horns and 16/4 for speakers. My plan was to use cat6 since it's 23ga for all the motion's, contact,s, etc.

How do you guys pre-wire to motions,IR or anywhere you don't want to install a LV single gang box? If I leave cable hanging will the drywaller's poke a hole through for me?

I am doing a timelapse of the build. http://live.gotbalz.com you can see where they are at today.

Whatever you do, take LOTS of pictures of the walls, ceilings, etc just before the drywall goes up. Pictures of under the slab plumbing and such like are good too. You will have to add something sometime and it can save a lot of questions and work to be able to look up the pictures and see where the wires and plumbing are.

glitchen said:

How do you guys pre-wire to motions,IR or anywhere you don't want to install a LV single gang box? If I leave cable hanging will the drywaller's poke a hole through for me?

Click to expand...

Just create a loop of wire and use a twist tie to attach it to a nail that is in the center of a stud near the location you want. You will have to create a small hole in the drywall to retrieve the wiring, but the sensor should cover it. Just make sure the twist tie is loose so you can pull the wire loop from the nail.

BraveSirRobbin said:

Just create a loop of wire and use a twist tie to attach it to a nail that is in the center of a stud near the location you want. You will have to create a small hole in the drywall to retrieve the wiring, but the sensor should cover it. Just make sure the twist tie is loose so you can pull the wire loop from the nail.

Click to expand...

That's a good way to ensure a buried wire and a lot of extra work. Loops are also not condusive to being pulled out a small (3/8" or similar) hole....trust me, I've had to deal with hundreds of prewires and plenty of buried wires (even boxes).

Easy is "stubbing" it out of the wall in the location you want it. If you're really worried about a specific location, a nail in the location sticking into the room with the wire wrapped around it generally lets the rockers know where to bring it out. Leave the buried wires to an absolute minimum and keep the potential for such the same.

Whatever...I've done this with ALL of my sensors, glass breaks, keypads, motions, never had a problem. Of course it did depend on knowing the exact location of the loop which was documented with pics and sometimes measurements from an outer stud.

Your method is fool proof, but relies on the sheet rockers actually stubbing the wiring out of the drywall...

BSR, since you're getting uppity,
I speak of first hand trade experience as I do this as a daily affair and my trade, not a tinkerer or hobbyist. What may have been lucky in your personal install at your residence or a friend's house does not consistently make for a best practice.

The goal is to get your wire stubbed out of the wall so you don't get involved with finished surfaces, drilling or snaking. Part of the reason for prewiring, besides getting wires in locations not possible by a retrofit or construction, is to avoid the potential damages to finished surfaces by snakes, sheetrock saws, drills, etc.

I stated to avoid the coils and things that buindle wire because if attempting to snake out of a small hole, the little twist tie can easily cut through a jacket or a bundle is likely to end up as a jumbled, knotted mess, since the item of contention is items that do not (or really shouldn't be) get wired to a mud ring, gang box or enclosure.

When my home was in the construction phase I was able to do the wiring myself as well...

In the cases of my door and window sensors, I simply drilled into the studs, which left the wire exactly where I planned to mount the sensors. For my motions and the location I wanted to install my AC transformer I simply attached the wire to the side of the stud with a staple and left the wire hanging out enough that the drywall guys couldnt miss it. I also wrote notes on the studs where I felt necessary - this made it easy for them to understand anything that wasn't necessarily straightforward. They did exactly what I wanted them to do and I didn't have any issues.

There were a couple of instances where I did what BSR mentioned above, but that was only done for locations where I was mounting in-wall speakers and they would be cutting out holes for the speakers anyway. I was easily able to reach into the openings for my in-wall and in-ceiling speakers and locate the wires were I left them.

For me, I simply realized that these guys do this for a living and they see similar work often. I felt that as long as I made it easy for them they would accommodate my wiring as best as possible - and they did.

Not "uppity", just stating a lot depends on the drywallers... I know the ones that did this house (not a custom home) would not take the time to do what Del described above.

IF you could speak with them (drywallers) and give them specific instructions on how to finish the wire, then yea, Del's idea would work fine.

In all honesty, I think the drywallers who did my home were probably upset and asked for more money for the builder...

My home was a spec home in an already existing housing community. We just happened to walk into the home when it was being built, liked the floor plan, and made an offer. Once the builder accepted our offer, I asked him if he would allow me to run my own cabling for networking and home audio. At that time (a Friday afternoon), he told me that the drywall guys would be starting a week from Monday... which gave me 10 days to complete all the wiring I wanted to do. The problem was that I had to go out of town for work M-F of that week and was only left with the Saturday and Sunday before they started drywall. While I was out of town I was ordering cables and realized that I might as well do alarm (and CCTV) as well... So I (and a friend) wired my home (~1500 sq. ft) in 2 days. After the drywall guys were done, the builder let me know that I did a lot more wiring that he was expecting... which is the reason I suspect the drywall guys said something to him about it - but I'm not sure, I never got a chance to talk to them.

Here is a picture that my wife took while we were in the process of wiring... (still need to put some wires into the gang boxes)


... another as we were moving in (and while I was finishing my entertainment stand - waited to see the tables to match stain):

Note: You don't see a cutout for the center channel speaker b/c I planned to center it between my TV and the top of my entertainment stand... and I wasn't sure where that would fall while we were wiring.

Completed:


... unfortunately, I don't have any progressive pictures of the security wiring. Just finished work