Electrical - Nearly Complete

I went out on site this morning to meet the sparkies. I wanted to make sure that they don't run electrical cabling where I marked and wanted to see if they could move one TV  point which they said was no problem. We also had a chat about the location of where the electrical Sub-board is going and location for C-Bus board, they had no problem with any of this.

I also had a chat to the SS today about running a "few" data cables and home theatre wiring which he had no problems with! Woohoo.

When we visited after work 95% of the electrical was completed. They didn't install power points where I didn't want them! (Good!). The rear laundry door has bee installed and garage side door has been installed.

I also picked up all the AV and speaker cables tonight so we are good to go for the weekend to install as the sparkies look like they will be finished tomorrow.

Entrance Wall Holes Left to Right: FTTH, C-Bus Board Location, Sub-Board

Lots of 240v Home run cabling for C-Bus

Master Bed Room Electrical Done

Ensuite Cabling

Kitchen

Living Room

Games looking into Living

Bed4/Games

Bathroom

Alfresco Pier Cabling. Note how the Gas/Water are on different sites.

New Laundry Door!!

Garage Entry Door (will have to change to solid later)

Roof Completed - Frame Issues Fixed

We had some good progress today!

The roof has been finished with all the capping done and it looks awesome. The carpenter has been and fixed up all the issues from the Frame Inspection report, I'm really happy about this as this has been dragging on for ages. The door frames for the garage, laundry and front door were installed but the sidelight on the front door has completed cracked, I assume from when the carpenter installed the frame he twisted the frame to much, but not to worried about this as it can be fixed at any time.

I also received a call about upgrading our heating unit to support AC add on after handover, I'll probably give this a miss as we will be replacing the entire heating/cooling system with a Actron ESP Ultima system. I'll have a think about this tonight as the Actron system is nearly $20k!.

I also had a look and a think about how I'm going to do my theatre cabinet, specifically what type of cabinet I'm going to use and how its going to be mounted. Also thinking if the network cabling should go into the theatre rack or a seperate dedicated comms rack. For the theater rack I'll probably use a Middle Atlantic Slim 5 rack, as its made for installing into walls. For those of you interested google this one there are heaps of example setups.

Plumbing in the alfresco. The gas is one side of the pier and the hot/cold water points are on the other side. It ended up this way as I was told they couldn't fit these all on one side at contract, but they can easily be moved, I will probably move them as I don't like where they are. I'll ask the SS if he has any issues with me moving them.

I've also been thinking that I want to add an Intercom but I need to understand what one so I can add the cabling.

 Summary:

* All Frame Issues Fixed
* Front, Garage and Laundry Door Frames Installed
* Roof Finished with all Capping Done
* Front Door Window Smashed
* Can I move pluming in Alfresco?
* Large Metal Lintels delivered
* Received call about upgrading heating unit to support add on A/C
* Planning completed for Data, C-Bus, Home Theatre Cabling cabling lengths estimated and orders placed.
* Noggins, time to add these for towel rails, toilet holders, TVs etc. Need to think about which side and how high they need to be mounted.
* Theatre Cabinet, can I get the Middle Atlantic rack in AU?
* Intercom wiring requirements?

Front with capping done

Master Bed, Ens, Bed2, Ldry, Bath

Ens, Bed2, Laundry, Bath, Bed3

Ens, Ldry, Bath, Bed2, Bed3, Bed 4, Games

Bed4, Games, Alfresco, Study, Lounge, Garage

Alfresco / Lounge / Garage Side

Garage / Portico

Our Smashed Side Light

Example of look I'm going for with Theater Rack

Another Example: Thou mine will be twice as tall.

Cbus - Data Points - Home Theater - AV Distribution

So After talking to my sparky again he has suggested now is the best time to get in the networking cables, especially based on the amount of work it will require later with chasing cables in works even with noggins drilled. So I spent the weekend planning out everything as I expect electricals to finish this Thursday and need to be ready to run all this in. As such I have planned my first draft with the following items:

• Data Point Locations (88 points and nearly 2000 meters of cable!!)
• C-Bus Light Switch locations (305 meters of cable)
• C-Bus Sensor Locations
• Future C-Bus Switched GPO outlets
• Security Camera Locations
• Home Theatre Cabling:  Speakers, HDMI, Component, Projector, etc. 

I had also previously planned our C-Bus controlled dimmable lighting, C-Bus controlled switched lighting and the C-Bus controlled GPO points.

See all the various electrical diagrams below:

Data Point Locations

Data Point Locations including Cable Runs

C-Bus Switch and Sensor Locations

C-Bus Switch and Sensor Locations & Cable Runs

Home Theatre Cabling (excl speakers)

C-Bus Controlled - Dimmable Lighting

C-Bus Controlled - Switched (Relay) Lighting

C-Bus Controlled - General Power Outlets

Electrical Selection

Our Electrical Plans

If you want to just get straight to the plans/costs scroll to the bottom.

Smart Home Background Objectives

So, I've had a few ideas and plans around our Electricals for our House. One of them is that we do as much Electricals after handover as possible in order to reduce the house costs and it is also one of the reasons we chose as single storey over double as it makes this option possible.

C-Bus Automation

One of the main items that I want to include in the house is C-Bus home automation but this is not something that Porter Davis will do and I can understand why when there are so many options to chose from and the complexities around programming functions for users.

For those of you that don't know what C-Bus is, effectively moves the switching function for a light switch to a central location. These central switches are then controlled using low voltage light switches in the desired locations. This provides great flexibility of being able to re program light switches and change their function should the need arise, rather than re-wiring the house. A big benefit is when multiple switches might be required to control a single light, this can become costly and difficult when over 3 switches are required. With C-bus there is no limitations to the number of switches a single light can have or the number of lights a switch can control. This is further automated through the use of light sensors, movement sensors, timers, thermometers and remote controls.

For more information on C-Bus visit:

 http://www.clipsal.com/homeowner/products/smart_home_technology


I will get PD to cable all the lights back to the Garage in order to make it easier for an Electrician to install a C-Bus after handover, I'll probably purchase all the C-Bus gear, program it myself, and run the low voltage cabling and leave the High Voltage 240v stuff to the Electricians.

Here are just a few things I am hoping to achieve:

• Automation of lighting to reduce energy costs and take advantage of lighting scenes
• Automation of window coverings internal/external to reduce the amount of heating/cooling required based on internal/external temperatures and time of year
• Automation of Scenes and timers for bathroom fans based on when the light was turned off/on/time of day etc
• Automation of Scenes to dim lights after 10PM
• Control of Irrigation Systems 
• Control of Blinds, Lighting, Dimmers, and mufti-room audio using C-bus DLT/eDLTs
• Control of lighting, watering systems, blinds all via central LCD screens,
• Control of Lighting and Appliance via the use of IPads through the Clipsal Wiser Interface
• C-Bus integrated alarm system to enable alarming of the system remotely or via single buttons.
• Monitoring of Energy usage
• Feature 1 Button all lights off and all standby devices off
• Feature 1 Button all external lights on for security

Home Theatre

The next item that I wanted to include with the house is a dedicated theatre room. I've always wanted to build one, and I'll further justify my reason as it is even harder to relax and watch movies with out waking little people around the house so having a room that I can close the doors on and turn up the volume is important to me.

I have some high level plans for my theatre room, including a minimum 2.5meter diagonal screen lit by a nice Panasonic projector, acoustically treated room, built for 11.2 surround sound and yes I know a decent 5.1 system will do but its my house ;), theatre recliners, IB sufwoofers and a dedicated equipment rack outside of the theatre room.

I have done some initial layouts of where I want my seating/speakers/screen etc, but I will go alot more detailed on this once I am in the house. I expect this to be a half year to year long project until I'm happy with my theatre room.

Theatre AV Rack

The theatre equipment rack will be housed just outside the theatre room. It will be built into the wall of the store room and will look like part of the house once finished. The rack will also be used to distribute AV around the house using HDMI over Cat6 extenders so that I don't have to run a multitude of cables that are soon to be out dated. This way I don't have to have DVD players, set top boxes, PlayStation's, WII's etc in each room. I can simply mount the TV on the wall and access the sources from the central cabinet. This will require alot of cat6 down the road.

The rack will also house all Data Points  network equipment from the rear. Free space in the rack will be utilised for DVD shelfs or remote controller draws. Having all the data points and AV in the same rack will make it much more easier to distribute AV.

Misc Electrical Plans

I also have plans to add the following items post handover so I'll ensure that non of these items are added or at least supported.

• Acton Air conditioning to zone the house into 8 zones to reduce heating and cooling usage down to as little as 1.3KW on a 20KW system. Rather than heating or cooling the entire house we heat and cool areas and not rooms that are not in use
• Network IP Security Cameras displayed on TV screen located in kitchen, but accessible via PC's, IPADs locally or via the Internet. Cameras to support low light conditions and facial identification when person is on the property record to network storage and also local SD cards.
• Intercom system to reduce having to open the door to hawkers.

Once all these steps to reduce energy usage have been done, the power usage will be monitored and then reduced to zero by installing the correct amount of solar panels. I'm expecting 3-4.5kw depending.

The Electrical Appointment.

This went pretty quickly and easily which is probably due to the fact that I didn't really want to add anything. Again Porter Davis Disappointed us buy not having our correct plans so indicating locations where we wanted points was made harder by the fact that the ensuite, lounge, and study were all different to what was on the plans provided! We added a few more data points and TV points around the house, which after the appointment I kind of wished I hadn't as I'll just be adding more later. Oh well what's done is done. The other item that I was not really happy with was the $1600 for NBN connection, which is 3 data points, some conduit, a pull line, a box and a power point effectively... seriously come on...

Anyway our plans!

Electrical Plan

Electrical Plan Icons

Electrical Selection Pricing1

Electrical Selection Pricing2

Electrical Selection Pricing3

NBN Plan

NBN Pricing - 1

NBN Pricing - 2