Quote:
Originally Posted by IVB /forum/post/0
run all the wiring now, then later you can focus on equipment brands. The site in my sig has a few starter wiring diagrams, but is by no means complete.
Here some random thoughts about what you could need wire. I know its far more than your list, but better to list it now and have you conciously choose not to run wiring than tell you after the walls are up. Also keep in mind that the question isn't "what do you want to do now", rather "what might you want to do later and will be sad if you realize you're out of wires".
It's a little disorganized as I kept realizing I remembering different stuff i've run. I'll look to my colleagues to see if any of the wiring suggestions are wrong.
1) Occupancy: Motion sensors for every room, run 18/4 for that.
2) Usage: Door sensors for every closet door in case you want to do auto-lighting-on, run 22/2 (or CAT5 to a central location) for that.
3) Security: Siren/CO/Smoke/Heat/Glassbreak sensors, most of them use 18/4, heat may use 22/2.
4) Driveway and or/fence gates for open/close status: 22/2 or CAT5.
5) Window sensors: 22/2, or if you have multiple together you could do CAT5 to the middle one and 22/2 to each window.
6) HA Speakers: Due to it being irritating to have audio pause to hear HA announcements/etc, I personally chose to mount a 2nd set of speakers just for HA (doorbell/phone/HA announcements/intruder alerts), and got the single-gang Elk $7 speakers. I ran CAT5 to the Elk, and put each of them on a relay so I can turn each of them on/off. Don't forget outside speakers too, such as patio and front door.
7) Doorbell: If you get an Elk panel, you could use CAT5 for the doorbell and have an Elk-based doorbell rather than a generic chime. Plus that way you'd be setup in the future to automatically pop up a frontdoor camera on doorbell ring, and not rely on the doorbell detector.
8) HVAC: 2 CAT5 to your thermo (one for integration with PC or Elk, one in case you want remote thermos)
9) 1 CAT5 to irrigation
10) Temp: 1 22/2 or CAT5 to any room where you want to mount a temp sensor to get temps in each room
11) HDTV Antenna: 1 RG6 for external antenna on roof
12) XM: 1 RG6 for XM signal cable to an external antenna
13) DirecTV: 1 RG6 per concurrent tuner you want, only one for digital cable I believe.
14) Safety/Elk:Water Sensors near hot water heater or other flood-prone locations. CAT5 I think.
15) Security Keypad, prox sensors, pin readers. CAT5.
16) Local device control. (ie, TV or local receiver control via serial) - CAT5
17) Russound/NuVo Keypads. Route speaker wiring via this location and also run CAT5.
18) Touchscreens. 2 CAT5 (should only need 1, but if you get a touchscreen only you'll need one for video, one for serial touchscreen control). You could merge this with above if you think you'll start with keypads and move on to TS's.
19) IR receivers. Run 1 CAT5 to any location you want an IR receiver. I ran one to 3 different rooms where I wanted an in-room IR eye, not an RF retransmitter.
20) Telephones. Yeah, I know, not HA related, but may as well list all random things that could need wiring together so you don't forget.
21) Video distribution. 1 CAT5 can handle component distro (if you use baluns) or 3RG6 (without baluns). I'd recommend baluns as you can stick with just running CAT5. 2 CAT5 if you'll want to be sadomasochistic to distribute HDMI. Plus, if you run back to a central wiring closet, you can just connect the cat5 patch panel to your network if you want a local SageTV HD-200 box.
22) In-Wall speakers. Run speaker wire to EVERY room, including bathrooms. You may think its nutty now (as my wife did), but once everything else is done and you have the spare whole-house-amp connections, real Whole-Home-Audio will be freaky deaky cool (as my wife now thinks).
