Building a home....

C

C-rizzle

Gawd
Joined
Jun 16, 2009
Messages
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So I'll be breaking ground on a new home build in a few weeks.

I already have the plans for the house. I plan on wiring Cat 5 wires all over the place. In fact, I think I'm going to have at least a pair to every room. I can use one for phone & one for Ethernet.

My main area of concern is the den. And how to set up my home theater system.
Where to run wires and try to make things "future proof" for expandability, etc.
I have this huge opportunity to make everything customized and nearly perfect.

See below:
den.jpg


I wanted to get all kinds of input now, so I can plan properly a couple of months from now when the frame is up, before sheetrock, so all wiring can be done to my specifications.

The red line is VERY IMPORTANT. This line will be run in the slab for a junction box, and this will happen SOON. Probably 2 boxes.
One for power. One for a Cat 5 + 3 pairs of heavy speaker wire. (2 rear channels and a subwoofer) The sub will probably go between the 2 (blue) sofas, under the (brown) coffee table.

I'm concerned with 11' ceiling in this room, so I don't think ceiling mounted rear speakers would be optimal. I'm kind of at a loss for where to put the rear speakers. I'll have wiring in between the sofas but I don't really like those floor pole speakers which could get the speakers to the perfect location.

I will have 2-4 pairs of speaker wires and a Cat 5 (lime green) run to the backporch.

I'm basically wide open for suggestions. I'm going to buy all new stereo equipment.

I currently don't have an HTPC.

Currently, the only "smart" (streaming) thing I use is Netflix on my Samsung 55" Smart TV... and a Roku in my outside workout room.

Its kind of ashame. I have 100mbps download speeds, 700Gb cap, and I'm not even utilizing it properly!!
 
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If you haven't got the cable already i'd suggest running cat6a instead - 10GBE nic/switches are definitely expensive at the moment but the price can only come down over time.

Another thing to consider is where you will be placing the router/switch and how many cables to that point - although you can expand ports in other rooms with switches of course (we ended up needing 3 extra at my place, soon to be replaced with a 24port switch once we get around to re-cabling).
 
Conduit. It's the only way to come close to future-proofing. Put it in (most) every wall in every room. If a room has a long wall, strongly consider giving it two conduit drops. You may want/need two conduit runs behind the entertainment center, as things can really add up there between ethernet (plan for one per device and then some, try to avoid satellite switches), coax, speaker wire, etc. Put conduit in the slab for the sub run. I'd terminate the conduit for the sub run under the couch instead of the table, so it's hidden a little better.

Reconsider mounting the surrounds to the ceiling. It should be fine. Going by the blueprint it looks like they wouldn't be any further away from the listening position than the L/C/R.

Cat. 5e is just fine. You don't need Cat. 6/6a. It's more expensive and much more difficult to properly run and terminate (especially 6a). 1 Gb Ethernet is more than adequate for any common home application. If things do change in the future and somehow Cat. 5e is no longer sufficient, then the conduit will make it much easier to upgrade.
 
Like Blue said, run conduit now while everything is open. It will make any future wire pulls painless and easy.

Honestly the best thing to do for a proper setup is to consult a reputable A/V company in your area who specializes in HT installs. Yes, it is more money up front but you will reap rewards in the end. Proper in wall wiring, sound proofing, floor and wall substrates will all make a huge difference and it is best to do it right up front rather than diy and end up redoing it piecemeal over the years.
 
Spend some time on the AVS forums. There is so much useful info on there when planning a dedicated media or theater space. It's a bit overwhelming at first but it is well worth the investment in time to make sure you do things right the first time.
 
Just a quick note to make sure that putting in your own wires / conduit, etc is ok with the builders. My cousin built a house in a new development a while ago and he helped his neighbor with something similar when his house was being built. They went in after work one day and ran a bunch of speaker wires and coax in the living room and basement family room. The next day the builders came back and took all that wiring and coax out because it wasn't something they did and they didn't want to close the walls up with someone else's work behind it. I sort of see the builders point, but I would have been really upset if I came back the next day and the walls were closed up and all the wires and coax I put in were taken out.

Just something to keep in mind as you're going forward.
 
dar124 said:
Just a quick note to make sure that putting in your own wires / conduit, etc is ok with the builders. My cousin built a house in a new development a while ago and he helped his neighbor with something similar when his house was being built. They went in after work one day and ran a bunch of speaker wires and coax in the living room and basement family room. The next day the builders came back and took all that wiring and coax out because it wasn't something they did and they didn't want to close the walls up with someone else's work behind it. I sort of see the builders point, but I would have been really upset if I came back the next day and the walls were closed up and all the wires and coax I put in were taken out.

Just something to keep in mind as you're going forward.
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Most builders will do this (remove work they haven't done), and yes, it can get you in trouble depending upon how far the builder wishes to push the issue. If you ask the overwhelming vast majority of contractors will run it for you for a minimal fee, mostly a 12 pack of their favorite beer will do the trick, especially if you have purchased the cable. Most of it should be labeled properly on the outside sheath of wire so they can see if it is rated for in-wall use.
 
Oh and just because I read your diagram a bit more, I wouldn't recommend your subwoofer where you want to place it. I'd actually do two subwoofers, either in the north and south west corners or directly to the sides of your central seating area. Also I'd consider doing an Atmos setup since you are building this from the ground up. Here is a great article from Crutchfield on Speaker Placement. With your ceiling height I'd still recommend the speakers in the ceiling, especially if you do an Atmos setup.
 
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For what it is worth....When I build our custom home in 2012 we went with 5 cat 6 cables to the den/media center area, then 3 cat 6/ 1 coaxial to each room, garage, and patio. The biggest regret I have is not doing two drops per room on opposite sides instead of 3 at 1 location in the rooms. I have a link somewhere with a picture, its awfully close to your den setup, open entertainment/media room paired to the kitchen. I believe our island is about the same size as well.

Same dimensions for the media area, 20ft x 15ft, open to kitchen / dining room(not visible). I opted to have a drop down thingamabob for the projector and speakers from the 12' ceilings as I didn't want the projector pole going down 4'.

The subwoofer is hiding under the vase, most confuse the Rythmik Subwoofer for a black table :p.

Sorry for the bad phone photos :(.

IMG_20141124_143508.jpg

IMG_20141124_143620.jpg

IMG_20141124_150629.jpg
 
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Very cool set up.

Yeah I was already planning on doing two Cat5 drops per room on different sides. Though I was probably only planning 1 coax per room. I figured going forward most cable boxes will probably be Cat 5, like U-verse.


And now (after the recommendation) I plan on running conduits in 3+ key locations for upgradeability:
1. a simple drop from attic to "server closet"
2. a horizontal and vertical conduit behind media area in the main living space.
the horizontal will go to the backyard/porch for expandability to porch/pool area.
the vertical will go to the attic
3. maybe a drop from attic to the center of the house 1st floor in case I need to run some wires from attic I can get it through the 2nd story to the 1st floor easily.

I don't think I'll need a projector as once I'm in the new house, I'm going to upgrade from a 55" Samsung Smart 3D 240hz TV to an 80" TV (will wait to see what's the best out in about 10 months from now.... should be right around Black Friday).
 
I'm just curious how old are you two guys and what do you do for a living?

(nice to have a baseline / idea of where I stand etc)

Based on my projections, I'm about 4 years away from a project like this myself....
 
horrorshow said:
I'm just curious how old are you two guys and what do you do for a living?

(nice to have a baseline / idea of where I stand etc)

Based on my projections, I'm about 4 years away from a project like this myself....
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I am a 32 year old compute programmer turned teacher/head soccer coach. I got married at 23 so it helped having two full incomes from an early age and saving up a little bit lvingin in the parents rental home.
 
I have Yamaha NSIC800WH in-ceiling speakers in my living room and they're great. I have fronts and rears in, but I would really only recommend putting them in for rear speakers.
You can adjust the tweeter direction, but it only adjusts so far and the angle isn't perfect going all the way from the TV to the couch. Floor standing speakers work much better for front speakers, or you could mount the speakers in the wall to get a better angle.

You definitely should upgrade from plain cat 5 cable. Ideally you should use 6a, but at the very least I would use cat 5e cable.

I also highly recommend recessed LED lighting.
 
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horrorshow said:
I'm just curious how old are you two guys and what do you do for a living?

(nice to have a baseline / idea of where I stand etc)

Based on my projections, I'm about 4 years away from a project like this myself....
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wife & I about 41 y/o - dual income - (combined about $250-300k/year),
started out, married at 28 with dual incomes @ about $100k/year combined.

Only problem with our income: 2 kids in private school... that costs $26k/year of after tax money ($13k each kid)!

This has been in the works for 8 years. I bought the lot ($162k), and paid it off over the past 7 years, then started working with an architect... took 6 months & $12k. We're getting ready to close on our construction loan this week. We've had to apply for a variance to get our permit unfortunately which is going to delay the actual start from this week until next month. I've already spent $200k on things and we haven't even broken ground.

Architect's render photoshopped on to my lot. The house on the left is my current house.
12615649_10208415896336123_499624798237659741_o.jpg
 
As a former private school student myself, I can assure you the investment is well worth it.

32 year old wildcatter myself.

Thanks for the numbers, adds up to about what I expected....

Definitely digging the two car garage! - Something tells me that house is going to gobble up a large portion of the backyard heh :)
 
BlueLineSwinger said:
Conduit. It's the only way to come close to future-proofing. Put it in (most) every wall in every room. If a room has a long wall, strongly consider giving it two conduit drops. You may want/need two conduit runs behind the entertainment center, as things can really add up there between ethernet (plan for one per device and then some, try to avoid satellite switches), coax, speaker wire, etc. Put conduit in the slab for the sub run. I'd terminate the conduit for the sub run under the couch instead of the table, so it's hidden a little better.
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done...... for future proofing smurf tubing is it.

other than that you run what you need at the time and buy a nice wire fish
 
Make sure they're not stapling the cable down tight. I've seen some jobs were the contractor staples the CAT5 like it was electrical wiring and went through the jacket or crimped the cables.
 
Just my $.02 I would go with Cat6 over Cat5e. If your runs are under 150ft or so it would be compatible for 10GBe. Who knows what kind of bandwidth will use 5 or 10 years from now. I would definitely make sure there is a spot for power and HDMI for a projector if you choose to get one. As far as speaker wire I would just go with 12 or 14 gauge wire depending on how ling the runs are. Also as stated in other posts use conduit so you can replace it for something better in the future.

And congratulations on the new home. I wish my house had wires run, I just two sets of speaker run through my attic last week, even though it was 40 degrees outside I was still sweating like crazy.
 
Cat5e should be plenty enough bandwidth for anybody.... right?

Also, 640Kb of ram should be enough for everybody right?


For now, I'm doing nothing! :mad: I'll see when I get closer to actually running the wiring. I will probably buy Cat6 wire, maybe even Cat7 to "future proof". It costs a lot more, but in the big scheme of the project its only an extra $300-400 ? I'll probably need 2,000 ft. So maybe I'll get a box of Cat6 & Cat7 and run one of each type to each room.

My "server closet" is close to the center of the house, so spiderwebbing out in all directions most of my runs should be relatively short.

I'm so bummed there was an unplanned problem with the plans that delays everything a month while we wait for approval of our variance application. I would be even more bummed if my variance was rejected!!! :(

1,000 ft Cat5e = $75
1,000 ft Cat6 = $150
1,000 ft Cat7 = $450 :eek:
 
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Cat5e is a monster to this day if dealing with 'compressed data' for video...even up to 4k streams. Problem is 10GigE isn't really "copper friendly". There is some "talk" about making it more friendly...

I would pull "fiber" (bulk is pretty cheap) and multiple Cat6 if you really want to "future proof" in a residential setting. Throw in a RG6 pull if you may ever consider cable or satellite.

Also...more than one run on the Cat. You know what happens when you only pull one...that one will fail. ;) Secondarily, Check all copper pulls before drywall goes up. Spend the few $ on keystones and run at least GigE data through all the paths.
 
For a house that size, I would think wireless would reach everywhere just fine without any repeaters. I put cables all through my last 2 build projects, but the last one and the current one have eliminated the wires anywhere I can and it works as well as the wired homes.
 
Technical_Advisor said:
For a house that size, I would think wireless would reach everywhere just fine without any repeaters. I put cables all through my last 2 build projects, but the last one and the current one have eliminated the wires anywhere I can and it works as well as the wired homes.
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really...... wireless? that is your idea?

Ever try and transfer 100 ripped blu-ray movies from your PC to you NAS using wireless? :eek:

Or how about uncompressed video from a HDhomerun over wifi on 3 different machines :rolleyes:

Maybe.... just maybe try watching multiple video files from a NAS on multiple clients in a house while someone is streaming netflix and someone else is playing PS4 and then have 1 machine backing up all your photos to Google Photo on wireless and see how that goes.... :p


No, no i know...... how about transferring all your recently converted VHS family videos from your laptop to your NAS through 5 walls, 1 floor on wifi.... ;)


Great idea Tech Advisor! perfect! :confused:
 
Really? Why put all the data you want on the NAS on a different device and not just put it on the NAS to begin with? That's what I always do and it's easier than uploading to one device just to move it to another.
 
Technical_Advisor said:
Really? Why put all the data you want on the NAS on a different device and not just put it on the NAS to begin with? That's what I always do and it's easier than uploading to one device just to move it to another.
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My sons computer sits less than 20 ft away from the router, with no walls in the way, and still can't max out my internet. Why would you want to depend on wireless for an entire house?
 
Time2Kill said:
My sons computer sits less than 20 ft away from the router, with no walls in the way, and still can't max out my internet. Why would you want to depend on wireless for an entire house?
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I guess I just got lucky and have never had any issues running wireless.
How do you stream to a tablet when you're in the backyard on a nice day, or to a phone or to any other wireless device if you are not using a wireless system?
 
Technical_Advisor said:
I guess I just got lucky and have never had any issues running wireless.
How do you stream to a tablet when you're in the backyard on a nice day, or to a phone or to any other wireless device if you are not using a wireless system?
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I have wireless, it's just no replacement for a hard wired connection, especially when gigabit+ internet is becoming a reality to some people.
 
Technical_Advisor said:
I guess I just got lucky and have never had any issues running wireless.
How do you stream to a tablet when you're in the backyard on a nice day, or to a phone or to any other wireless device if you are not using a wireless system?
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The thing about wireless...it works until it doesn't..and you really don't know why it doesn't. That is why I will always hardwire people unless it just isn't viable or reasonable. Everything about media streaming is based upon not dropping too many packets. Once wireless "hiccups", it can become a death loop resulting in continuous stuttering or stalling especially if latency to the source is high. Some apps manage this by gutting your picture quality. Since most times you are going to a small screens...you don't notice it. However, doing it to a big TV..it will become obvious as "backyard on a nice day".

If you have no choice but to use wireless...then use it. It is better than nothing . However, its only superior attribute is mobility compared to wired.

Most importantly though...wireless has a huge plus in WAF when it works. They love it...no wires. But when it doesn't...it is like you cheated on them with their sister and posted it on Facebook. Hell have no fury like this!
 
Technical_Advisor said:
I guess I just got lucky and have never had any issues running wireless.
How do you stream to a tablet when you're in the backyard on a nice day, or to a phone or to any other wireless device if you are not using a wireless system?
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The rule of thumb is that you wire everything you can. It's faster and more reliable.

Wireless is a supplement for endpoints where running a wire is not possible (or convenient), or for devices that only use wifi (tablets/phone). If you have less devices on wifi, it means better connectivity and throughput for the devices that must be on wifi.

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sKiDmArK said:
The rule of thumb is that you wire everything you can. It's faster and more reliable.

Wireless is a supplement for endpoints where running a wire is not possible (or convenient), or for devices that only use wifi (tablets/phone). If you have less devices on wifi, it means better connectivity and throughput for the devices that must be on wifi.

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Exactly.

I'd love to have everything wired. My TV's, blu-rays, etc... I think all have LAN ports. And in future, that will be a requirement for me, since my new house will have LAN jacks everywhere.

I have a good central location that I plan on putting my wireless AP. The problem is neighbors & interference. I fired up "Wifi Analyzer" on my phone and there are so many AP's in my areas it ridiculous. A ton of people in my neighborhood recently switched to AT&T U-verse and their routers and wireless AP's for the cable boxes put out very strong signals. All of that overlap on the same frequencies is bad.
 
LOL that dude got banned after 20 days here. I think he pissed in Kyle's cheerios about a FO4 article.
 
valve1138 said:
LOL that dude got banned after 20 days here. I think he pissed in Kyle's cheerios about a FO4 article.
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If you looked at his other posts..he wasn't a typical forum user...he had a "business edge" about him with most of his replies. Wonder if he was pulling shit in PM's trying to drum up business to members here?
 
Trepidati0n said:
If you looked at his other posts..he wasn't a typical forum user...he had a "business edge" about him with most of his replies. Wonder if he was pulling shit in PM's trying to drum up business to members here?
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He seemed to be lacking on very basic networking fundamentals, so it probably wasn't a very good one :p
 
sKiDmArK said:
He seemed to be lacking on very basic networking fundamentals, so it probably wasn't a very good one :p
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Those are the people that make a decent buck by selling bullshit to people who don't know better. They are the epitome of the snake oil salesman. You wish they would go out of business but they don't. They sell a good enough line to keep people hooked.
 
I gave him a massive does of sarcasm from reading his first post...... easy to tell he was not worthy of the [H]community



Adidas4275 said:
really...... wireless? that is your idea?

Ever try and transfer 100 ripped blu-ray movies from your PC to you NAS using wireless? :eek:

Or how about uncompressed video from a HDhomerun over wifi on 3 different machines :rolleyes:

Maybe.... just maybe try watching multiple video files from a NAS on multiple clients in a house while someone is streaming netflix and someone else is playing PS4 and then have 1 machine backing up all your photos to Google Photo on wireless and see how that goes.... :p


No, no i know...... how about transferring all your recently converted VHS family videos from your laptop to your NAS through 5 walls, 1 floor on wifi.... ;)


Great idea Tech Advisor! perfect! :confused:
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Just curious how much do you think the cost will be per sqft of building your own home?
 
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