Creating a Clever Home?

eKto1 asks: "We've recently purchased an older, dated home which we are in the process of gutting and restructuring. While there are no walls, we are obviously running the standard Cat5, and speaker cable to each and every room, however we would also like to modernize the house even more by making it intelligent, as in 'Smart'. I'd like to install touch screens in the majority of the rooms, to control things such as media (separate audio and video to each wall unit), lighting, temperature, etc. For those of you on Slashdot who have done this, what has your experience been? Are there guides for doing this easily and effectively, without having to sell the farm? Is there a way to allow distributed content to head units while keeping servers down to one or 2 units?"

only worry about infrastructure now

[bmwm3nut]

this is a project that should be done it at least two steps. the only thing you really want to worry about now is getting the wires into the walls. so plan on things like (as you say) cat-5 (i suggest cat-6 incase gigabit become affordable in the future), speaker wire, and don't forget enough electrical sockets. i honestly don't think it's too much to ask for one electrical socket on each stud. make sure they're on different circuit breakers, and if possible maybe set up some of them to be uninterruptable. my ideal wall would have a socket on each stud. 2 out of every three would be regular sockets - but on different circuits, and 1 out of three would be on an uninterruptable circuit that's managed elsewhere in the house. you could even look into the new standard 12VDC power that's starting to be popular for some lightning. it wouldnt hurt to put a line of 12VDC in the wall too.

once you have all the wires in the wall, then you can worry about hardware. the nice thing is that you don't need to worry about it now. you can just put in a cheap thermostat now and later when you say, "hey, i'd like to control the thermostat with my webserver" you can then put in a new thermostat and you'll already have the wires in the wall and you can set up the webserver to control the thermostat. likewise with anything else, you can add touch screens later. the benefit to going with normal stuff now and upgrading later is that it forces you to think modularly. if you put in touch screens now and set everything up with those screens, you'll probably be mad next year when newer less buggy hardware is out there and it's impossible for you to upgrade. if you think modularly, then you can upgrade the hardware however you want.

the same goes for your server room. don't worry now about how many servers it's going to take to run your house. just make sure you have a room wired properly that you can put servers in. then when you start putting more services online and you need more computing power, it'll be easy to upgrade as necessary. for example after you get bored having the lights and heat controlled by the computers, you can later upgrade and write your own security system that monitors the windows and doors at night. if some one breaks in, it'll wake you up, auto dial 911, automatically unlock the gun cabinet and give you a lighted path from your bed to the gun cabinet (or at least that's my dream for my comptuer controlled house).

Re:don't use Microsoft Windows. But use Doors.

[MindStalker]

HAHA, that video was funny. Only in Japan I guess. I would never imagine creating a marketing video when my product half works. Watch it, many of the slits don't go far enough, and it seems like once they do move, they won't go farther if nessesary to accomidate. As well the sensors should have a wider range, as the tops of peoples heads didn't always trigger the sensor for the slit that you would bump your head into if you actually used it. Cool, but this thing would quickly get destroyed in real usage. I guess in Japan people are willing to work around technology like that and duck.

Re:Conduit

[wowbagger]

You forgot to tie another string onto the first, so that when you are done, you have both the new cable, and a string in the conduit.

ALWAYS pull a second string.

CAT6e

[Omega1045]

Someone if going to tell you to go wireless, someone is going to say fiber. With more and more WEPs going up in my neighborhood, I am having problems with my setup now and really wish I had wall jacks everywhere. And fiber is just overkill, but this is Slashdot and someone will mention it.

I say make sure to run CAT6e, which will nicely handle Gigabit over Copper. You may want to stream some sort of HD video or other high bandwidth signal in the future over the network, so go with a cabling that will work. I would also run at least two RJ45 ports into each room, more in the large rooms. Don't worry about phone lines, you can always wire up from the patch panel a traditional line into one of your feeds, and RJ11 (phone) plugs into RJ45.

Power! People overlook this. Make sure to put in enough outlets. I don't even know how many extension cords and power strips I am running now. I wish my house had twice as many outlets, and it was built in 1999!

Be very, very careful

[Fished]

We were doing much the same thing until we discovered that our infant child had high blood lead levels. I had always thought that the issue was kids eating paint chips--well, that's bad, but what's worse is kids (and adults) breathing the dust kicked up by renovations in homes with lead paint. It is very difficult to avoid kicking up dust from plaster walls and paint, so you need to make sure that you are taking steps to protect yourself and your children! I mean it! This is double-plus-un-good.

The older the home, the more dangerous it may be, as paint manufacturers steadily cut the lead content of their paints from the turn of the century on. Don't guess, get it checked. And, if you have children, walk away and bleed money if you have to rather than expose them to lead.

That's what we did, and I now own a home built in 2003, and am very grateful that I don't need to worry about my kids' being poisoned by it.

2 choices: Reliable (hardwired) or cheap (PLC)

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Reliable or cheap. That's your major choice here. If you want reliable, what you want is an extra run of CAT 5e to every outlet and switch in the house, so that you can choose from a variety of hardwired remote control switches. If you want cheap- you'll want to go with X10, A10, or one of it's variants, in which case you'll want 3-wire power to every switch, including ground, and while you're rewiring all the electric anyway you'll want to install a signal bridge in the switch panel, so that the electirical phases are linked.

For software, well, that depends on your favorite operating system and programming language: HAL or HomeSeer for Windows, Mr. House for Linux, all three of these choices have a variety of dynamic libraries that allow them to control most whole-house controllers.

I personally went cheap- but still ran out of money about $1200 into my system. So I've got PLC, in a house that doesn't have 3 wire to every outlet, with only the incandescents and only 2 flourescents actually computer controlled. I also never got my infrared breakout boxes done to control my A/V equipment- and PLC turned out to be rather non-secure in my neighborhood for controling garage door opener and the like (in that it would leave my garage door open and illegal immigrant meth adicts would steal from me in the middle of the night). So if you have the money, you're much better off with a hardwired system. And go for a discount wholesaler like http://www.worthdist.com/ [worthdist.com] as opposed to somebody like http://www.smarthouse.com/>.

Re:only worry about infrastructure now

[Neil Blender]

how are three circuit per room more dangerous than one?

Aside from kitchens and dining rooms, you might have two in a room at most but they would be grouped and the second circuit would only be there because it is dedicated for a known purpose. Also, that circuit would most likely feed those specific outlets only and not any in other rooms. By dangerous, I meant having your recepticles round-robined on three different circuits so that three outlets within 36 inches of each other are going to be on three different breakers. Besides all that, what are you going to be doing in a room that requires 60 amps all at once?

Also, any room which is technically considered a bedroom (regardless of what you are using it for) will require three 20 amp AFCI breakers which aren't cheap. On top of that, your plan would probably require three or four sub-panels because of how many breakers you want to install. Plus, you'd probably have to upgrade your service to 320 or 400 amps.

Account for time

[knightPhlight]

I do high end low voltage installations for a living. And while most of the hardware is insanely expensive, the same results can be achieved with commondity equipment and open source solutions.

That being said, pre-wiring is the most important aspect of what you will be doing. Depending on your budget you will want to wire CAT5 (or 6e) into all light switch and telephone locations. At a minimum you will need CAT5 to every video location.

Wireless technology is too dependant on outside factors to be reliable. Good old copper gets the 1s and 0s to the correct place much more efficently. Plus, if it's called for, power over ethernet doesn't work very well wirelessly :) CAT5 isn't just for bits and bytes any more. It works great for remote thermostat sensors, infrared transmission, etc..

While we install touch panels by AMX Corp. [amx.com] the same thing can be done with a cheap touch overlay'ed display, PXE, and VNC. I would recommend staying away from X10 products. If you don't want to spend the time to write your own control software, the NetLinx programming language (used on AMX products) is easier than learning QBasic. Some of their controllers show up on Ebay for reasonable amounts.

The single most preventative aspect of this project is the amount of time involved. We will spend months in design, prewire, install, and programming on even relatively small systems. But if your wiring is not in place, no amount of time spent will be as productive.

Took a while to find it...

[Anonymous Coward]

But you could save yourself a lot of time by checking out Pluto [plutohome.com]

http://homephonewiring.com/

[lizrd]

http://homephonewiring.com/ [homephonewiring.com] is a really good website for understanding the whats and whys about installing proper cabling in your house. The site was a big help to me when I redid all the phone/data cable in my house last year. The guy does sell some stuff on the website, but the information is excellent whether you decide to buy from him or elsewhere. I did end up buying a punchdown block from him and it was a fair price and shipped quickly. Other stuff I got either locally or on Ebay.

False

[bluGill]

Not true. Ground source heat pumps work just fine in the far north. However you must go deeper. If you live in the south you can get by with pipes in a trench just a few feet below ground. In Canada you need to drill a well, as a shallow trench will freeze up and produce nothing. (A 24 foot deep trench might work, a 10 foot deep trench will not) If you have the land a shallow trench is much cheaper than a well.

Maybe when you get to permafrost to very deep a ground source heat pump won't work even with wells, but most of Canada is isn't that cold.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:only worry about infrastructure now

[thegrassyknowl]

new standard 12VDC power that's starting to be popular for some lightning

Um... even a 12W fixture chews a solid 1A... multiply this by 20 fixtures (not unthinkable to get a decent amount of light in a few rooms) and you have a nice solid 20A...

Now add on the heat losses from the current (in the wire, alone). We can assume about 1/2 Ohm resistance in the wire if it's a long run back to a central transformer... I won't even get into the losses in the transformer (which only runs at ~85% efficiency).

P = 20^2 * 1/2 = 200W of copper losses for 240W of light...

You should see the reason why mains power is distributed and generally used at high voltages...

Re:Conduit

[nytes]

I've never heard of using baby powder to make wires slide easier.

When I used to work for my dad (an electrical contractor) we used to keep a chunk of parafin (wax) in the truck for pulling wire.

Re:anecdote about a canuckistani heat pump

[sporktoast]

The important difference there being that you are talking about a heat pump, and the earlier post is referring to a ground source heat pump (sometimes referred to as a geothermal heat pump). The principle is the same, where the heat is pumped to/from is completely different.

Google [google.com] is your friend [google.com]

Re:anecdote about a canuckistani heat pump

[jesup]

As someone else stated, that's a plain air-source heat pump in all likelyhood (though even with ground-source, it may be more efficient/cost-effective to not size it for the coldest possible days of the winter, and use an auxilliary to supplement on the coldest 5% of days).

Note that when a heat pump (air or ground source) can't keep up, it still produces a lot of heat, just not as much as the structure loses. The controller then calls for Aux heat, which can be electric (most common), propane/oil/nat.gas boiler via a heat-exchange coil, etc. Or it can be manual (wood stove).

Typical modern air-source heatpumps have an efficiency ratio at 17 degrees of around 2.1-2.5 - i.e., they produce 210 to 250% of the heat you'd get by running the same electricity into a resistive heater (100% efficient). They're usually over 300% (even 350%) at 45 degrees.

Ground-source heatpumps are more efficient because the source is a fairly constant 45-60 degrees, depending on where you live. In the mid-atlantic, 50-55 is the norm. New Hampshire is around 45-50. Texas is probably 60-65. (Bush has a ground-source heatpump (for cooling)). Thus in heating mode, they run at 300-400% efficiency regardless of outside temps (minus some pumping/etc losses). In cooling mode, they're also more efficient since they're dumping heat into a 45-60 degree heat sink, instead of trying to dump it into 90+ degree outside air. They also usually last longer (20-25+ years, as opposed to circa 13-15 for air conditioners and air-source heatpumps) since they're not exposed to the elements. Downside: considerably higher installation costs for trenching or drilling; hard to find local installers (this may change).

We have 3 heat pumps (air-source, 2 dual-speed) with electric auxilliary (3 sections of the house with no way to duct between them). When outside temps get below 20-25ish, the aux's will occasionally turn on. We run a wood stove pretty much all winter, especially when it's very cold. With a small woodstove in the main section, it rarely if ever calls for aux if the outside temp is above 10, and not often when it's below 10.

Re:worry about energy costs first

[jesup]

As stated in comments to other replies to this message, ground source heat pumps work fine even into the far north. Even air-source heat pumps (with appropriate auxilliaries) are efficient into the northern tier of states. And natural gas is no longer cheap.

Geothermal cost comparisons: http://tristate.apogee.net/geo/minneap.asp [apogee.net]
(NOTE: those are based on 6/ kWh; 60/ ccf gas; $1.00/gal oil). In most places, it's 8-10 cents/kWh, well over $1/ccf, and $1/gal oil? Ha! Try $2-2.50 at least. Even at the prices they list, in MN (not exactly a warm place), air-source is on a par with oil and better than propane, though behind natural gas. Ground-source beats them all be a significant margin; if you update the figures for current fuel/electric prices, even air-source heatpumps probably beat natural gas, and ground source beats oil by a 2x factor (circa $1000-1500/year), and beats natural gas probably by at least $500-800, maybe more.

A good energy costs calculator (for relative costs):
http://www.hearth.com/articles/47_0_1_0_M7.html [hearth.com]. Note: for heat pumps, use electric and put in an efficiency value of around 250. That will be a pessimistic guess for year-round efficiency unless you live very far north; year-round average is probably more like 275, perhaps 300 in middle to southern states. Ground-source heatpumps - use a value of 350 to 400. And don't forget to update the local costs of different fuels and efficiencies for furnaces!

Re:As Michael Eisner would say

[stanmann]

To elaborate on this post and add my opinion. Figure out how much you can afford to spend, Then SPEND ALL OF IT. 5 years down the road, you will either want upgrades or not, and it may be cheaper for components or not, but don't cut corners. If you can afford to put cat5/6 x 4 in each room, do it because adding wiring later won't be any cheaper. and having the wiring already in means you can upgrade the wall plugable components. Don't cut corners on connectivity within the house. As others have suggested go as wild as you can afford(and is safe) on power. Unless you are personally running every conduit for power, coax and cat5/6, and pulling every cable; the wire is the cheap part.

Re:Conduit

[grimarr]

That's hard to understand. Conduit between walls,
especially through fire walls, is common, almost universal. Even if you wanted to use a big 4 inch conduit, and only have a couple Cat 5s in it, it should be OK. The important thing is to seal it, to prevent the flow of flame/smoke/hot air through the tube. My inspector recommended packing it tightly with fiberglass insulation (after the wires were pulled), but putty and other things work, too. Fiberglass is easy to remove and replace, handly when you're adding wires later.