New Build Project

Mike2006

Hi,

I am about to embark on a new build. I have a fairly good idea what I want in each room from a HE perspective but I would like to know the best way to put it all together.

Is there anywhere in Ireland that supplies a consultancy service to discuss HE/AV/Security requirements?

I would like an independent, non-commercial point of view, just pay by the hour consultancy basis...

Any links/names?

Mike.

spartacus93

I'm sure there's loads.

Why not discuss here what you want / need and then be better equipped to deal with a company when the time comes?

Just a thought!

higster

I'll kick this off...

New house, will be single story (hate word bungolow)...4 beds all with ensuites, one main bathroom, kitchen/dining/living open plan, utility with small bathroom. Approx 2500 sq ft.

Thinking off:

1. Satellite TV (multiroom type) / phone connections in all bedrooms & kitchen
2. Living room: Surround sound tv system
3. All rooms: Music piped to all rooms (from iTunes)
4. Wireless broadband for complete house & garden (1/2 acre site)
5. PC in living/main bedroom (and other rooms in the future but not whilst kids are young)
6. Heating systems etc accesible from remote pc/phone
7. CCC Tv security at enterance / gates remote controlled
8. Alarm hooked to garda/security firm

Am I mising anything? Ca a normal sparky set this up? What cabling etc. Talked to couple companies that will do it but charging a bleeding fortune.

John

spartacus93

Satellite TV (multiroom type) / phone connections in all bedrooms & kitchen

Electrician will do that fine...

Living room: Surround sound tv system

He should also do this. Make sure he uses decent cables tho... Some go really on the cheap!

All rooms: Music piped to all rooms (from iTunes)

Get CAT5e or CAT6 cables going to every room from a central point. This should allow you to stream content into all the rooms from a media server or HTPC.

Wireless broadband for complete house & garden (1/2 acre site)

You might have to do that yourself. You can get a couple of access points and put them in repeater mode. These will work together and hopefully cover all your site.

PC in living/main bedroom (and other rooms in the future but not whilst kids are young)

All the rooms will be internet enabled by the CAT5 cables

Heating systems etc accesible from remote pc/phone

That's home automation and means a bit more money. Get a few quotes and see if it's really worth it...

CCC Tv security at enterance / gates remote controlled

Whoever installs your gates can hook you up with electrical ones. These work by remote control and many of the new ones can be opened by your mobile phone. If you ring a number... (there's a sim card in the control unnit of the gates) They will only open if the call is received from a number programmed into the control unit in the gates. So if someone finds out the number they still can't open the gates from their phone

Alarm hooked to garda/security firm

Eircom phonewatch or similar system

johnnyflav

spartacus93 wrote: »

Wireless broadband for complete house & garden (1/2 acre site)

You might have to do that yourself. You can get a couple of access points and put them in repeater mode. These will work together and hopefully cover all your site.

Sound advice spartacus, you could set up a "wireless-n" router which would cover the area you're talking about without the need for repeaters.

higster

johnnyflav wrote: »

Sound advice spartacus, you could set up a "wireless-n" router which would cover the area you're talking about without the need for repeaters.

But would all PC's/laptops (and iPhones) need to chave "n" recievers?

higster

spartacus93 wrote: »

Satellite TV (multiroom type) / phone connections in all bedrooms & kitchen

Electrician will do that fine...

Living room: Surround sound tv system

He should also do this. Make sure he uses decent cables tho... Some go really on the cheap!

All rooms: Music piped to all rooms (from iTunes)

Get CAT5e or CAT6 cables going to every room from a central point. This should allow you to stream content into all the rooms from a media server or HTPC.

Wireless broadband for complete house & garden (1/2 acre site)

You might have to do that yourself. You can get a couple of access points and put them in repeater mode. These will work together and hopefully cover all your site.

PC in living/main bedroom (and other rooms in the future but not whilst kids are young)

All the rooms will be internet enabled by the CAT5 cables

Heating systems etc accesible from remote pc/phone

That's home automation and means a bit more money. Get a few quotes and see if it's really worth it...

CCC Tv security at enterance / gates remote controlled

Whoever installs your gates can hook you up with electrical ones. These work by remote control and many of the new ones can be opened by your mobile phone. If you ring a number... (there's a sim card in the control unnit of the gates) They will only open if the call is received from a number programmed into the control unit in the gates. So if someone finds out the number they still can't open the gates from their phone

Alarm hooked to garda/security firm

Eircom phonewatch or similar system

Thanks. Dies the cat5 cable just do broadband or is it suitable for other applications (eg phoe/tv etc). CAn all the cables (incl. cat5) be ran through the house together or should they be kept seperate (interference?)

5h4mr0(k

Cat5 can be used for phone as well.

It can be used for carrying video too, but you need extra hardware to work with it.

johnnyflav

higster wrote: »

But would all PC's/laptops (and iPhones) need to have "n" recievers?

Unfortunately they would. For laptops that won't be too much trouble, quite a few are being released with this tech. iPhones won't have it

The wireless-n system will still have a/b/g-wireless (your standard wi-fi) so if you're within a closer range anything on these bands will work just fine.

mathias

Wireless n is still on pre-release draft standards and is not the type of thing you should be spending too much money on at the moment , some of the pre-standard draft devices arnt even working in the correct band and cause havoc with existing equipment.

Best to stick with finished standards or wait , wireless n at the moment is maybe OK for a small spend , not OK for a major install like this.

subway

why not just go with a purpose built outdoor wifi antenna?
example - http://www.radiolabs.com/products/antennas/2.4gig/8dbomni.php

you can hook whatever router you like without the need for repeaters etc

bakerbhoy

Go the comms route.
I'm currently installing a 2.5 ghz cable that carries the lot.
Look up irishhomenet.com

One wall plate all services.

higster

bakerbhoy wrote: »

Go the comms route.
I'm currently installing a 2.5 ghz cable that carries the lot.
Look up irishhomenet.com

One wall plate all services.

By god that does look good. Little confused on how it works, looks like one distribution point with capacity for sky/phone/broadband to all rooms with one wall plate?

Any guide on price?

Pocky

Just contact them and they will advice on local supplier.

I know they are currently moving premises so it is possible they can only email as phone not set up yet. Guess why

Tony

spartacus93 wrote: »

Satellite TV (multiroom type) / phone connections in all bedrooms & kitchen

Electrician will do that fine...

Must disagree, electrician does not have to make it work. Get a specialist.

bakerbhoy

higster wrote: »

By god that does look good. Little confused on how it works, looks like one distribution point with capacity for sky/phone/broadband to all rooms with one wall plate?

Any guide on price?

Sorry for the delay in replying been very busy.

2150 sq ft bungalow
5 bed 2 lounge , kitcken, dining, study, separate garage
two runs to main tv point in main lounge sky hd etc
two runs to master bedroom
two runs to recptionlounge
one run to all other rooms
approx €1400 + vat for materials
instalation
i have electrician running cables,chases etc.part of leci instalation
local agent will do final terminations cost .negotiable:D

foxfordbuild

I got prices from smart homes, abitana, can't think of the third one and all were really expensive but no doubt more flexible than what I did.
As my budget wouldn't stretch to getting an installer I decided to do as much as I could myself.
I'm not that into music so multiroom audio wasn't a big deal for me so what I did was put a kit together from some online stores -

CABLEMONKEY.UK € 1050
Home cabinet with 8 way TV distribution unit, Switch, Patch panels, patch cables, faceplates for network \ telephone \ TV points

RADIONICS.IE - € 520
2 x 305m Cat5 Cable
2 x 100m CT100 Coaxial Cable from Radionics
1 x 100m High quality linear crystal oxygen free copper speaker cable

NEXXIA.CO.UK - € 270
Chrone finish speaker plates for 7.1 surround in living room
Gold Banana Plugs for connecting the speakers to the wallplates

I bought the rest of the back boxes from an electrical wholesalers in Drogheda.

Over two days I ran the cable to points in each room -
4 Cat5,1 Coax to all Bedrooms, Playroom, Kitchen & Office
4 Cat5, 3 Coax to Living Room, Entertainment Room (Attic)
The timberframe made this a much easier task than having to chase the cables

Calibos

In a few months we'll be renovating an old house. One of the big jobs will be a full leccy rewire and plastering so in terms of cable runs and chasing it will be like a new build.

Looked into all the home automation stuff, like heating and CCTV, lights etc and tbh when I saw the cost I realised that I can live without all that. Cool is it is it just isn't worth the huge outlay. Sure aren't we becoming too sedentary as a species. I'll put up with having to get up off my arse to switch off a light or walk to the heating control pad in the hall.

One area where I do want the cool factor will be in the cinema room however where the curtains/blinds and projection screen and lights will be automated.

I am handy enough with the tech so will just get the electrician to do the cable runs. AV distribution had limitations and was very expensive so I think we will just run Cat 5e to each room, Co-ax for Satellite from an Octo LNB to each room and a phone line for Sky. That way if someone wants their own SKy they can pay for their own box and mirror sub.

Have a server and 4 XBMC's atm which stream our 1000 movie collection and music over the cat 5e.

Heres the thing though. We want 4 double power sockets in each room at least so that no matter where gear is positioned there should be power nearby. Ditto we would like to have an ethernet point beside each power socket. Does one need to run a separate Cat5e run from the central point to each and every power point/ethernet point or could one just run one Cat5e to each room and then split it in 4 via a 4 port hub? What are the disadvantages of doing this over spliting the single run to each room to the 4 points with a switch. Its just a hub is unpowered isn't it and could be buried in the wall whereas a switch is a powered device.

Pocky

Calibos wrote: »

I am handy enough with the tech so will just get the electrician to do the cable runs. AV distribution had limitations and was very expensive so I think we will just run Cat 5e to each room, Co-ax for Satellite from an Octo LNB to each room and a phone line for Sky. That way if someone wants their own SKy they can pay for their own box and mirror sub.

Have a server and 4 XBMC's atm which stream our 1000 movie collection and music over the cat 5e.

Heres the thing though. We want 4 double power sockets in each room at least so that no matter where gear is positioned there should be power nearby. Ditto we would like to have an ethernet point beside each power socket. Does one need to run a separate Cat5e run from the central point to each and every power point/ethernet point or could one just run one Cat5e to each room and then split it in 4 via a 4 port hub? What are the disadvantages of doing this over spliting the single run to each room to the 4 points with a switch.

There are limitations on daisy chaining and of course performance.

Calibos wrote: »

Its just a hub is unpowered isn't it and could be buried in the wall whereas a switch is a powered device.

No, hub is also powered for Ethernet unless you use PoE hubs. But you could also use PoE switches. But I would not put them into the wall as they can fail and than you are chasing the wall again. Wouldn't make sense.

With all this cables and requirements have a look at IrishHomeNet for their flexibility. You/your electrician could still do the first fix. And once second fix is done even your wife could do the patching That would also allow putting extra sky boxes (separate subscription or multiroom options) or FTA boxes around the house or stream video/content from a media server ...