Wiring new house what to include

Jollyman

Meet an electrician on site last night im pricing the house, went through it room by room and what we wanted ie Number of Sockets, lights and so on. In the office we have wiring for the computers what else would i need to include?

Stoner

Best thing to do is to plan this a little better, mark up a set of drawings by hand, if you want i can e mail you some symbols, they will remind you of items like, TV points, fans, 3 pole isolators, shaver lights, (attic Light and socket), electric shower/showers (including shower and switch), cooker points, kitchen under counter light (wire only or wire and install), consider dimming , avoid 50W 12V and 50W 220V lamps, consider a 100% low energy light solution, internally anyway.
Consider a hockey stick arrangement for your main TV point (to house all the cables in the wall up and down from a flat screen TV mounted on a wall) Outside light and security light, door bell with a new traffo integrated into the consumer unit

If you mark up what you have and post it here we can have a look at it, quicker then typing a spec.
Remember if you cant afford something but would like it, try to get it cabled for future installation (saving money but future proofing your installation and cutting down on repairs to the finishes of your house due to retrospective cabling)
items like the following can be cabled but installed at a future date , under counter lighting, outside lights, power and controls for intercoms or gates, electric showers, mixer showers, security camera, future unterminated data points, speaker and surround sound wiring etc

Best of luck

MickLimk

I've mentioned this in a few other posts but I'll go again!

Cat5e/Cat6 networking cable - at least one cable run to each room (not just the office), each cable run back directly to a central location with at least one power socket (utility, under the stairs, etc.). No looping or joining of cables between rooms. A 100M reel is about €43, 300M for €107. Not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things considering how much it would cost to retrofit later. No matter what anyone says, wired is still way better than any wireless scheme for networking. I use wireless for my laptop at home but everything else is wired on a gigabit network.

Ensure you run a minimum of CT100/WF100 standard cable for all your TV points. Don't let the sparky use RG59 or anything like it. There is a difference especially over long runs and when we are eventually forced to switch to digital terrestrial TV (coming in a few years), you shouldn't have any problems. As to the quantity of TV cables, if you have or are considering Sky at any stage, remember each Sky+ box requires 2x cables from the dish to the receiver. Bear this in mind when figuring out your requirements there.

Other than that Stoner has covered a lot of what I had to retrofit to my place so look at everything he mentions on the list.

Cabling for flat screen TV: put in the best quality cables you can, don't be tempted to go for the cheaper options if they're going to be plastered into a wall! Can give you recommendations if you want for reasonably priced quality cables. Try and cover all your bases for input options on a tv - i.e. put in cables to connect to every possible type of input: HDMI, Scart, Component, etc. Will save you a lot of hassle in the long run.

Surround sound wiring: Again use decent cables and consider your room layout. Not a fan of ceiling speakers at all myself.

You putting in a garage or remotely planning to at some stage in the future? Definitely recommend running cabling in for that now as trying to pull SWA up through a cavity when the house is finished isn't the most straightforward of tasks.

Basically, run in cables for every eventuality you can think of now. It's a million times easier do it now than at a later stage even if you think you may never need it...

Edit: Don't forget extractor fans for bathrooms and shower rooms. Usually covered by regulations but have seen them left out.
You may also want to discuss your heating system with your sparky to make sure everything is covered there especially if you've anything slightly different than what he's used to seeing.
Don't forget to wire for a burglar alarm at the same time. There are others here on boards who are involved in this business who could give you recommendations based on your house layout.
On the subject of alarms, I think a minimum of 2 mains powered, battery backed up smoke alarms are required for regulations.

Sorry for the long post, just had a very strong caffeine hit!

thekooman

mick has mentioned most things that i did.

i also put in 2 SWA cables from the fuse board to the garage allowing one for a backup, like a generator or if i have the time in the future to put in a wind turbine.

also i ran HDMI, VGA and 2 sq cable to a point on the ceiling in my sitting room from the back of the telly so that a projector could be mounted there. a bridging was also put in to mount the projector on.

i ran all CT100 and CAT5E to a "node zero" (a store room) upstairs. the wireless broadband will be fed into there as well.

if you are putting in an island in the kitchen, don't forget to bring a cable to it for power; i forgot!

ircoha

Most covered already here:

My approach includes:
heating design has a wired wall mounted room stat in each room back to a central control room from where I control the heating.

Each room has its own 1.5 and 2.5 circuit with separate mcbs

I also include a separate circuit to cater for timed wall/table lamps for security: this also allows for a radio to come on if house is unoccupied.

If the house includes any water pumps they have a separate circuit also so as they can be easily isolated when on vacation

Jollyman

Ok thanks for the help guys really appreciate it, but these cable names and technology's go way over my head, although im hoping to learn a lot more about them.

I covered outside lights and 1 or two outside sockets with him last night sensor lights automatic gates. I also have a granny flat upstairs in the garage, he said that we could only have one electric shower in the house.

What are the better quality cables to the tv for?

ambman

Also

Make sure to get phone sockets behind the tv if you have sky. so those buggers wont be sending letters to say your box or boxes are not connected to a phone line:rolleyes:

uncle betty

Jollyman wrote: »

Ok thanks for the help guys really appreciate it, but these cable names and technology's go way over my head, although im hoping to learn a lot more about them.

I covered outside lights and 1 or two outside sockets with him last night sensor lights automatic gates. I also have a granny flat upstairs in the garage, he said that we could only have one electric shower in the house.


Not so, as I understand it. You have a choice -

1) You can have two fed from the same circuit, as long as only one unit is supplied at any one time. Done by interlocked contactors.

or

2) If you have to have them running simultaneously, they need separate circuits with their own rcd+mcb. In this case, you could overload the supply, unless you make arrangements with the ESB (even if you're running them for very short periods).

Plus you'd need to make sure the main isolation and protective devices can handle the total load of the installation.

Hope I haven't misread this - Annex 43A of the Reg.'s is where I'm getting it from.

UrbanFox

Loads of double sockets as you will always find that that you should have got another one after about a year in the house !!

Be sure to have enough sockets in the kitchen in particular.

davelerave

you can mention the smoke alarms make sure you're getting most of the downstairs living areas covered and even one in the attic.also sort out the zoning for heating and the esb supply and time of day tariff if required .security lighting and electric gates if needed .if you're fitting insulated slab on the exterior walls get the electrician to fit the correct size boxes straight onto the block so they're flush later.i keep a checklist of things to be checked for domestic work there's so many

Irish-trucker

One of the lads mentioned having side lamps in the sitting room on a seperate timed circuit .

My uncle is just finished his house and i put in 5a sockets for him , so that all his side lamps in the sitting room come on a the flick of a switch.

Just a thought ...

Finneganjp

Dont forget to run all the alarm cables now. It will save time and money and give a neater finish in the end.

RoundyMooney

Heh, I was just coming in to post the same thing. Don't forget PIRs and loops to each opening window...

axer

You can put in all the cables for technology you want but the technology will change so there is no point trying to plan for those cables now. If your plan allows it try and run a sewer pipe from the sitting room (where the most likely place for a TV) straight up to the attic. With the sewer pipe you can just drop a cable whenever you want without any stress.

Go with cat5e over cat6 unless the electrician specifically knows what he is doing with cat6. If cat6 is wired incorrectly then it will be worse than cat5e. Put at least a double point in each room all returning back to a comms cabinet somewhere so you can make a point a data or telephone point easily at any time.

Stoner

Jollyman,

I had a good luck at your house, it's very nice, huge. I've also looked at all the advice you have been given here, a lot of it is very good.

The problem is the size of your place, if you took all the advice your bill could be 50K.

With 5 showers and all thouse large bed rooms the sky is the limit.

Even servicing and future proofing your bedrooms will cost you, I guess that if you were on a budget that you could look at particular rooms, the main bedroom and most used other rooms, living room and kitchen.

Note you will need somke detection in the master bedroom and the living room as well as the hall , and a heat detector in the kitchen, in fact i'd put 2 in the hall, one on each leg, and make sure they are decent ones that are wired, battery backed up linked to each other

Jollyman

Thanks for all the help guys, i have the electrician on board now €7,200 i think its pretty good? For this he is putting tv points in all bedrooms kitchen sittingroom three doubles and 1 single socket to all rooms, the plumbing is on 4 zones wiring for that and 1 electric shower and underfloor heating all lights external lights 3 no; wire for automated gates, extractor fans to all bathrooms and 7 smoke alarms he is also wiring the garage. The office will be wired for the internet and phone points in office and hall and masterbedroom.

uncle betty

I think you should ask him again about the showers. A house that size with only one, or am I reading you wrong ?