Currently remodeling a domicile, with the sweet and expensive ability to add anything I want within reason. I plan on modernizing the place to bring it into the 21st century because this house deserves it (just a great structure with lots of history and nearing it’s centennial birthday).
Luckily, everything is built perfectly for access so nothing is off the table. I came onto this property with my own server “rack” and a mini diy setup for network debauchery, but plan on expanding that and installing a mini-server “room” (a fancy closet I might install in a “dead space” that I can pipe duct work in and out of).
I will be running all new electrical, A/C, Telecom lines, the whole works. I’m currently in the process of ripping out all the old coaxial, phone, piping, anything not ran properly or of a modern importance (probably reinstall phone and doorbell circuits but they’re currently strewn everywhere from previous installers). I’m also creating up to date blueprints for the structure and including mechanical systems/engineering schematics for anything I’m doing or plan to do. All of this will be saved to a USB for the next owner and printed out for a laminated notebook to stay with the house (maybe a copy for myself for the nostalgia one day).
The only 2 things I KNOW I want to do is installing
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a monitor with a pi that will run a weather and local data program that I’ve been working on into the kitchen area
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a multi-camera cctv system (local and offsite backup) with a monitor in a neutral-shared living area.
I will probably leave those parts of the system installed here unless it’s requested to be removed. I actually would love to leave everything here as a full system package for someone to “inherit” with the house but I’m not sure if that’s a benefit or a hindrance someone wants to receive.
There’s 3 different plans in the works (3/5/10 year plans, we are here for family but that will eventually not be required and we desperately want out of this area), depending on the time frame I might need to put in
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monitoring stations for renewable energy systems (solar/wind),
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a personalized-home weather monitoring system (barometric,temp,humidity) with a display and functionality to control the mechanical systems (A/C adjustment, daylight sensors for shades/lighting, etc),
and a bunch of other off the wall ideas I’ve been wanting to tinker with. Unfortunately most videos out there of “home setups” include someone with 10x my price bracket and their system is designed for themselves and their specific equipment in mind. I’m wanting to install something more generic that anyone would have use for (like weather and security). There are really only 2 “office areas” that I think would require a hardline besides any monitors I have to install for systems (I don’t mind running wiring, but I don’t think every room needs an ethernet port to be functional, or am I wrong thinking this way?). I will probably need to install repeaters in two locations though to cover the entire property in wifi because old houses gobble signals up but inside everything “just” reaches.
Everything I’ve done with my network so far I’ve gotten around needing a switch (it would’ve saved me a lot of hassle in the past but I usually find a way to get everything connected or just disconnect unused equipment that’s ran it’s course), but at this point I can’t expand any further without a headache. So now I’m looking at new tech and equipment I don’t have hands-on experience with and don’t know it’s proper use/limitations which I don’t like when making action plans. I figured just trying to get a general sense of what people want or see would be a better angle to come at since I don’t do this professionally and don’t have the insider knowledge of the taboos of home networking infrastructure.
TLDR: What kind of wiring, connection setups are important to you and won’t be obsolete after a few years? What do you consider a “modern” house to have or are decent “quality of life” improvements like lighting control, sensors, etc? What’s your best case scenario of equipment when walking into a house and seeing a pre-installed setup?
Conduit everywhere. Every cable will be obsolete eventually, a conduit run to every room with pull cables makes it so replacing cables doesn’t require a remodel.
I wonder why I don’t see houses using dropped ceilings to provide for infrastructure space with easy access? It seems like a universal in offices that I’ve seen.
Poor insulation, and even if you had drop ceilings you still have headers you’d have to drill through at the top of every wall. Not to mention they look awful and damage easily.
My first home had a dropped ceiling in the basement. It was so ugly, dropped whatever the hell that material is all over the floor when you moved it, and it was an old house so it started to discolor.
I’d rather crawl space that allows for running cable once every 10 years than have to deal with a dropped ceiling.
and here I thought I was being excessive with thinking about conduit. There is a large unfinished basement that mostly everything in it was destroyed from a flood. After I ripped everything out, installed a new stairwell, and ran new drainage to avoid the next eventual flood (as all lower elevations like to do), I was pondering running conduit for everything to protect from moisture in that area for at the very least some high wall outlets to power systems down there. I could scale that plan back and not have everything being conduit (for cost sake) but install it in specific spots for anything that won’t have easy access in the future. I know of a few spots that will need new lines ran through 3 floors so the pull cables would come in handy for future use.
If I could do it all over again? Wired ethernet to every room, back to a utility closet connected to a fiber line.
Fiber is a sore subject lol, it was a big local deal when fiber was coming to town with newspaper articles and everything about the big development and how great everything was gonna be with the upgrade in speed. Lots of crews all over the county for months (maybe years? time is fickle) and even had them running the lines on my street and a relatives on the other side of the main town. Turns out they decided to not actually make fiber available for the area, it’s just running through. I understand you can’t just splice into fiber lol, still irks me I have a box I can’t touch or move with “Fiber” labelled on it sitting on the property though and have to deal with cable internet that runs like it’s a DSL connection.
With wired Ethernet to every room, would something of this type of connection be aesthetically pleasing? I would like to bundle everything so there’s not an excessive amount of wall plates and others have suggested running two lines in parallel with STP cat6a (cat8 will probably be saved for the next place if it has fiber available). I’m just worried about the look of having several wall jacks or several unknown connections that might confuse someone (I will label everything but that only goes so far for understanding). If I include coaxial it might look a little like this style of outlet if I’m not running two ethernet ports. I’m starting to lean into the coaxial/single ethernet just because cable/satellite tv is still king around these parts and people love their boxes.
If you had to have a modem box for internet with coaxial or DSL, would you prefer that tucked away into the server closet as well? or keep that in a separate area with the phone connections and just run an ethernet from the modem to the server closet where the router and switch setup are at?
Yeah, a combo plate with power would be fine, I don’t know that anyone needs RJ-11 phone jacks anymore, but if you have a use case…
Sorry to hear about your fiber problem. I’m similar in that I can get fiber to the house, but my exterior wall is solid cinder block and I can’t find an installer willing to drill through it. :(
I need to get a mason out to poke a hole, THEN maybe I can think about fiber.
But, yeah, run the internet connection in to the utility closet, connect that to a switch, then run ethernet from the switch to every room.
Combo plate is fine, but I’d argue not worth it. ITs much easier, more scalable, and more flexible for network wiring to be a separate junction box and plate. That also makes it easier to have multiple drops where appropriate, or to do future work.
I don’t know how big a concern it is but network wiring in parallel to power too much, can pick up noise from power lines. Wire them separately and you don’t have to think about it
I would run at least 2 CAT6 STP lines to every room and probably even run some fiber too since 10G over copper is power hungry. I would install hard wired WiFi access points wherever needed to get good 5/6GHz coverage over the entire house.
I would also install a dedicated UPS circuit so I could have a single, large UPS to backup everything that needs it.
a dedicated UPS circuit so I could have a single, large UPS to backup everything that needs it
That’s beautiful and didn’t cross my mind. I’ve done solar installs so my mind always just thinks of that type of battery bank for my needs, that’s definitely a viable alternative that I could tie into the cctv system for continuous security as well without adding extra systems. I’ve only had a small “pc” UPS that crapped out on me years ago but I see they’re scalable so I will entertain myself looking at some specs while pondering.
Even with solar a UPS is a good idea if you’re running a home server. You can still get voltage spikes or brief outages. You don’t want to lose power when you have a service writing to a database.
That being said a single large UPS is expensive to maintain. For home use I don’t go over 1000W on a single UPS. Any larger than that creeps into ‘enterprise pricing’ for battery replacements.
Yeah at least 2 cat6 cables and 1-2 MMF or SMF fiber pairs to every drop. At least 1 drop per room and include ceiling drops for ceiling-mounted wifi. Always pull double what you think you’ll use at a location, since pulling new cables is more expensive than the cable itself.
STP might be overkill for home wiring though, tbh. I would really only recommend it if you’re running any cable outside or near kitchen appliances or motors.
I recommend rectangular cable ducts where one face can be removed instead of using conduit. Also, it should never run parallel to a 110/220V power cable - you can cross them, but don’t run alongside them. Low voltage power (like PoE) is fine.
Finally - tell anyone who works on your house that if you find any electrical tape or cable ties — you’re going to ask them to come back and remove them - I wouldn’t do it yourself especially cable ties since there’s a non-zero risk you might damage the cable and have to run a new one.
Those two things should never be used — they’re quick and dirty tools used by lazy people who want to spend 10 seconds less time on today’s job, and don’t care if it creates hours of extra work in a few year’s time.
Velcro strapping tape is the way to go. It lasts longer and is easily removed. The only drawback is it’s a little ugly - I’ll use tape or cable ties if the wiring is exposed… but you shouldn’t have any exposed wiring in a house.
https://www.amazon.com.au/Reusable-Fastening-Cable-Double-Sided-Management/dp/B09C3SVY9Q
https://www.amazon.com.au/Rectangular-Cable-Duct-25-16mm/dp/B07QM6X9V7
For your CCTV lookup Frigate NVR, and grab a ~30$ Coral TPU for it. Run your cameras with a PoE switch.
Home Assistant is THE gold standard for smart homes. ZigBee is nice too, since they mesh and aren’t the same wave length as WiFi.
Edit: oops I meant ZWave, not ZigBee.
Unfortunately Zigbee is precisely 2.4GHz, which isn’t used much for phones and laptops, but still widely used in TVs, vacuum robots and other smart devices that don’t need much bandwidth.
2.4Ghz is the right frequency to use - it has pretty good internal wall penetration and you want that. You don’t need much bandwidth to turn alight on, so there’s nothing wrong with a bit of competition on the channel.
Your TV/etc shouldn’t be on a wireless connection.
2.4GHz ia good in theory, in practice tho, every technology especially the open protocols use it so there is a lot of interference. I know that because I had to lower the 2.4GHz wifi power by a lot so it doesn’t cause issues with the zigbee mesh.
As for tv I would agree if TVs came with gigabit NIC, but the majority comes with 100mbps card, so if you want to stream some high quality 100+mbps content you have no other option but to use the wifi or give up the usb port for a usb ethernet nic or use a usb hub. Not pretty solitions for sure.
And then you have the robot vacuum which can only use 2.4GHz wifi for obvious reasons. And people might have IPcams which are also on wifi.
For my money, KNX>Zwave>Zigbee. Zigbee’s standard are not certified so you get non compliant devices that don’t work well, and 2.4 is a very crowded frequency with lots of interference not only from other wireless devices but also microwaves, etc. Zwave solves both of these issues and generally has a higher level of quality, but for me a wired standard will always beat a wireless one if I’m starting from scratch.
