Are custom homes incorporating a server room where all wires terminate for the networking/smart home control etc?
Networking cable: Is anyone running Cat6 these days? <!—-><!—->
Fiber Optic: How much fiber and where are they running it in the house?
Replies
Usually, the cables converge on a distribution center in a closst (in the den or somewhere close to the center of the house, near the main computer).
Standard now is Cat 5e. Probably will change soon.
Fiber is being pulled to outlet locations as part of composite cable (two Cat 5e, two RG-6U quad shield, and one or two fiber bundled together. And in most cases, the fiber is just left in the wall at the outlet, unused. I think it's a waste of money to pull FO unless the distances are long (90 meters is the recommended max distance for a data line of unsheilded twisted pair copper, e.g., Cat 5 or 6).
Cliff
We have been incorporating server areas/ rooms for the past 5 years. Sometimes it's in a closet in the Foyer, sometimes it's incorporated into the Home Theater room/ den, and sometimes it's just part of a wall in the basement (away from the breaker panel) where everything is well organized and marked clearly The important thing is to be sure it is away from florescent light fixtures and other power feeds.
Coax cable is RG 6 quad sheilded. All phone lines AND computer lines are Cat 5e. Just the other day someone mentioned Cat 6. I guess soon that will be the norm.
BTW, there was a time that clients were foregoing hardwired jacks for each connection figuring that they would use a wireless system. Just recently, my clients have gone back to hardwired connections while also incorporating a wireless system for flexability with their laptops. Basically all desktops remain hardwired. Routers are stratigicaly located throughout the apt or home. The first time I installed 2 routers in an apt (!) my buddies thought I was crazy. But it was a 3 story apt with metal stud and gypsum block walls and concrete floors. The signal could not reach to the 3rd story. First router was in a 1st floor closet. We ran a feed to the 3rd flr and set up a second router there which allowed the roof deck to also have connectability. Pretty cool.
All Cat 5e/ 6 and coax runs are homeruns.
The reason we use cat 5e and not cat 3 for phone lines is to avoid crosstalk between fax lines and voice lines. Works much better/ cleaner.
Never ran bundled cable as the coax and cat 5 locations are rarely the same. Also never ran fiber optic. I have seen it in a .com office that a friend was wiring. Neat stuff and reletively thick cable for such a thin wire. Quite surprising.
How about you?
F
Edited 3/7/2005 1:00 pm ET by Frankie
Cat 5e for both Telco and hard wired network. Cat 6 is very similar and will carry new 10/100/1000 meg/sec soon to be standard. Cable is priced like Cat5 was a few years ago, so I may do a combination of cat 5e (multiple runs of red/voice blue/data) with some cat 6 thrown in for future proofing. I am interested in running a few fiber runs to a select number of High traffic areas, i.e. office, media center in fact anything that will be high def, and multiple RG6 Quads are a must. You can never OVER wire. In fact just when you think you are done, RUN SOME MORE!!<!----><!---->
Our house we are building with have a dedicated server room, with separate cooling. Because of the cooling, it will also double as the wine cellar! Should be fun.This room will also have the James Bond secret entrance behind a sliding bookcase with secret combination to get in. Should be fun!<!---->
Are you doing any HAI stuff? i.e. Stargate, OmniPro or the like? If so, you just running cat 5e to each locations needing controlled? And is it still pretty standard running a single wire four conductor 16 gage stranded for speaker installs in rooms, or is anyone doing like 70v stuff.<!---->
The closest we get to Omnipro and the like is The Grafik Eye system. It is only for lighting but clients love it - once they get over the sticker shock. It beats having 6 or 7 dimmers on the walls though. And the infared remote controller is great for the den or home theater. The Omnipro is most certainly down the road though. $$$. My only concern is the programing. Since it is flexible for a variety of lifestyles and schedules it seems that it will need to be program updated regularly, but not regularly enough for the layman to remember the programing sequence. We recently replace a # of programable thermostats in one residence that we installed just over a year earlier. The client couldn't get the hang of it. So we gave him basic temp controlled thermostats w/out programing. Then he sold the place 2 mos ago and the new guy wants the programables installed. Who knows if he will be able to understand them.F
> or is anyone doing like 70v stuff.
70v carries the stigma of lo-fi mono elevator muzak systems. The idea behind it was to have a low impedance source and high impedance speakers so it wouldn't much matter how many speakers you had, up to its current limit.
-- J.S.
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If you were going to do whole-house "party" sound, it wouldn't be dumb to run a 70V system. Not what you want for a single remote set of speakers, though.Keep in mind that remote speakers (other than for Muzak/party sound) are probably rarely done anymore. If for some (strange) reason you want to distribute audio, distribute low-level signals and have amplifiers in each room. But mostly everyone wants full control of their sound source, so you end up having a CD/FM unit in each room.
Instead of worrying about Cat 6 vs. fiber, perhaps the smart way to go is to put boxes in the walls with nice fat conduit running down to the crawl space/basement or up to the attic. That way you can pull in whatever they invent whenever they invent it.
-- J.S.
Lots of homes are incorporating a particular spot to run all the telephone, network, automation, cable, security to. A corner of the basement is common from the plans I'm seeing. Being in Florida we don't see a whole lot of basements. A closet is usually sufficient.
Coax and Cat5e is mostly what is being strung. Ones I have done in the past have been Coax and Cat5e but all the major runs and tight spots were put into oversized conduits in some form. 3/4" PVC or even smurf tube through the top plates and down the wall to the locations and 2" PVC stubs, sometimes more than one going to the closet/s.
These standards have been in flux for some time. Conduits, even if they are just in the tight spots and choke points, make replacement with the next generation cables or FO a lot easier. Takes a lot of stress out of getting it right and guessing what the next generation 'big thing' will be.