2. home-theater
  3. 1343506840

Whole house re-wiring question

Here’s the situation: We're doing a gut renovation on a 2200-square foot house. The entire electrical system is being replaced, and about half the rooms are being taken down to the studs. I'm planning on doing gratuitous wiring because obviously it's cheaper to have the wiring and not use it than to open up the walls in the future.

Essentially, I'll be running multiple CAT6 lines to every room, coax CATV to most rooms, and speaker wire to many of the rooms.

My setup will be: One 5.1 room with a TV and Paradigm in-ceiling speakers. Hardware: Oppo CD/DVDA/SACD/BluRay/DVD, Denon 2112 receiver. I'd like to do multiple zones of audio, and despite the fact that Sonos doesn't do anything above 16/44, I think that's the easiest solution. Then I'll have at least one room where I can listen to hi-res digital audio, probably using a Music Fidelity M1 CLiC.

My electrician has said he's comfortable laying all of this -- but of course when I talked to a custom installer he said it would be crazy to have an electrician do this b/c they don't know about maximum pull rate, minimum turn angles, etc. He quoted me a price of around $8k to run all those wires and set up a structured media center.

My questions are:

Am I, indeed, crazy for thinking about having my electrician do all of this?

Is setting up an SMC something I can do myself -- and if so, where would I go to find out information about it? I've been corresponding with someone from Leviton and he's laid out a whole slew of things I could potentially use in an SMC, but I have no way to evaluate his recommendations.

Are there any DIY home automation systems that make sense? HAI does sell directly to consumers (unlike Crestron and I think Control4) but I don't know if that's something that I should try to do.

(I have plenty of other more specific questions, too -- about what type of speaker wire to use, about CAT6 wire, about whether it makes sense to run conduits, etc -- but I can start throwing those out if this is indeed the right place to look for some help. If it's not, and if anyone has any suggestions for more appropriate forums, that'd be much appreciated...)
plgtimes

Showing 1 response by internetmin

internetmin
258 posts
 
My 2 cents echo a few things:
1) if it's a good, licensed and competent electrician it's just fine.

2) what is the apples to apples price quote between the two? They should give you a similar time quote for the job. Electricians should be $75-$90 and home theater guys $75-$100 tops anything more for T&M and you are paying a premium. $85 is a target rate that is fair and market rate.

3) If you are going to the studs you should be good. The electrician should know not to run low voltage and electrical in the same raceway and not to twist low voltage 90 degrees.

4) the elecrician should know about plenum space requirements if you have any and also about running CL2 rated. If they have no idea what you are talking about then perhaps they are not the right person.

5) run as much as you can and run extra CAT6 in case you want to distribute signals via BALUNS in the future. Just note that BALUNS run via a patch panel don't work well.

6) run extra COAX in case HDMI gives you fits.

7) have fun. :-)
More to discover