What to wire (Audio, Cable, phone)

[mr2mike]

Looking at rewiring some of my house as I have access to some walls with them torn apart. Should I be wiring for anything specific?

Phones are sort of gone now with cells and running networking cable is sort of done with WiFi so what should I do? I was still gonna run cable because that's not obsolete just yet.
But anything else? A spot for a flatscreen mid wall? Also some audio cables maybe too.

Other ideas?

Want to do security cams but that would be outside the house so not this project.

[Mitsu3000gt]

- Cat 6 for network, I know there is Wifi but I find being hardwired far more reliable, and it's extremely cheap to do
- Speaker wire and HDMI cable if you are building any sort of home theater
- Regular cable
- I'd still run a phone line unless you strictly use cell phones
- Power outlet, cable outlet, and HDMI all brought up to where the back of the TV will be if you aren't going with a projector

Thats about all I can think of, sounds like you've got most of it covered already.

[mr2mike]

For a future flat screen, I hate to have a dummy cover in the middle of the wall. Thinking I might wire it at the base of the wall then if I go flatscreen mounted to the wall, I'll just cut the hole in the wall and do some fishing.

[barmanjay]

Originally posted by mr2mike
For a future flat screen, I hate to have a dummy cover in the middle of the wall. Thinking I might wire it at the base of the wall then if I go flatscreen mounted to the wall, I'll just cut the hole in the wall and do some fishing.

You wont see the dummy cover if you hang a picture where the future flat screen will go.

I recently ran power and cable up the inside of the wall to our flat screen. Looks soo much better!

No wires and cables for our 2yr old to grab and pull!

http://photos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs097.snc3/16458_341243930486_878110486_9834513_4681775_n.jpg

http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs117.snc3/16458_341244665486_878110486_9834516_4980724_n.jpg

[masoncgy]

Originally posted by mr2mike
For a future flat screen, I hate to have a dummy cover in the middle of the wall. Thinking I might wire it at the base of the wall then if I go flatscreen mounted to the wall, I'll just cut the hole in the wall and do some fishing.

You can always paint the cover to match the wall... then it isn't as noticeable... or... as was suggested, hang a picture over top.

[Tik-Tok]

When I did our house, I put 2 Cat5e ports, and 2 cable ports in every room, and 4 for the living room and family room. Every line is wired to our networking panels in the laundry room.

This way you have the option of both cable TV and satellite, and 2 Cat5 ports, which can also be used as phone ports.

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u64/TykTauk/1.jpg

[Sailz]

http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepartment.asp?c_id=104&cp_id=10425

I run the hdmi over CAT5E/CAT6 plates and the HDMI Component and Optical plates. Great products at great prices.

[ercchry]

cat 5 is ALWAYS good to run, so versatile, can use it to extend video, vga, or usb... tons of things hell even hdmi or dvi-d (if you want to spend the coin on the hardware, and run a few other cables)

run some to future touch panel locations too :dunno:

there is so much you can do, only limit is how much you want to spend on home automation

EDIT: you can always get ready for the "analog sunset" as well.... im not too up on the residential shit but crestron has some slick setups for extending hdmi and making sure it stays hdcp compliant.... this would let you keep everything in the basement and just have your display and a small little box behind it on the room.... cost crazy money though haha... but then again its so new that all pieces are not even released yet, but you can always check out what cable needs to be ran, and to where for future

http://www.crestron.com/products/show_products.asp?type=residential&cat=1047

[Grogador]

- power
- CAT5e everywhere, you can run everything over it
- RG6 Belden® coax, simply because it is very high bandwidth (don't cheap out on Radio Shack RG59 here)
- conduit with soft bends, at least between the bsmt/main/attic :)

IMHO the bigger concern is WHERE to run it. Take into consideration projectors, speakers, flat-panels... then get into your time machine and consider what you might want in the future. Fishing 3-4' down a wall to the baseboard is relatively simple, but then what? If you're really anti-blankplates, run conduit up to the proposed spot, measure/take pics and drywall over it :)

iirc SpireTECH does home AV...

[mr2mike]

Thanks for the advice guys!!

For sure I'll take pics before dry walling. Then I got a reference to go back to.

[Stuntmonkey]

You can never have enough Cat5. Personally I would run;

Cat5/6 - Hardwired networks rule. Wifi for laptops, but for Xbox/PSN/playing games on PC its so much more reliable.

You can run phone over cat5, just use a single pair. Make sure you run it to an existing phone jack location or the demarc point.

RG6 for sure, you don't HAVE to go with Belden branded cable, because that shit can get expensive, fast. But its always good to have.

Because I have access to it, I run 6leg video cable. You can run component, composite, vga, dvi, over it. If you have access and can terminate bnc connections, do it.

Power, obviously.

Soft bends in conduit are shit, seriously, who runs that shit? Over a long run its a royal pain in the ass to get cable through. Run your standard metal conduit and put a decent poly pull string through it.

I would also run a mix of 22/2, 18/2 and some cresnet for control, audio and touch panels respectively.

One thing that will save you money, is running 18/2 or 16/2 for speaker connections, you can get decorer plates or normal plates with RCA/3.5 stereo/xlr jacks on them. Don't get sucked into the 'MONSTER CABLE IS THE BEST, RUN GOLD PLATED STRANDED CABLE OR YOUR AUDIO WILL SUCK' bullshit.

Because simply put, its bullshit.

If you want any tips, lmk. I do this for a living (except commercial, hardly any residential stuff anymore).

[ExtraSlow]

You might want to throw in some off these in rooms where you would be charging usb devices.
USB and power outlet combo (http://www.slashgear.com/truepower-outlet-packs-usb-ports-and-ac-for-just-9-95-0465164/)

[teknical]

Monoprice.com has cables, wires, decor plates, everything you could possibly need! :D

and it will cost you next to nothing compared to MONSTER Products.

[mr2mike]

That USB power outlet looks pretty sweet but can be added after as I don't think they're out yet.

I'll be adding CAT-6 and cable outlets. Now the hard part is figuring out the best spots.

Thanks guys.

[mr2mike]

Now I'm wiring coax to the house. Is this okay in a cost cutting way or not? I've never had digital cable or internet through a coax so correct me if I'm wrong.

I was planning on running one length of RG-6 from the util room to the end of the house with the bedrooms, then splitting this off to the 4 rooms. Can the one length handle that many splits? Will Shaw like this? Do people now just pay for the digital cable box rather than a per tv thing or whatever they had in the past?

Then run a coax to family room and then one down to basement. Might do two to the basement if I go with satellite and cable at some point.

Thanks for your input.

Mostly concerend with how many times you can split the coax and not lose signal strength and if it's ok with shaw's guidelines.

[ercchry]

if you get shaw i thought they do free install :dunno:

[cet]

If you are running 1 anyway you may as well run seperate cables to each room. Here is an article about pre-wiring your house. They haven't finished the series yet but the basics are there.
http://www.hometoys.com/ezine/09.12/fuller1/index.htm

[mr2mike]

Looks like it doesn't cost too much per foot so I'll run one wire per 2 rooms as in 2 wires and have them split once. I don't see two rooms actually getting full cable in the area I'm in and there shouldn't be too much of signal drops with the cable split once rather than my inital 3 times.

I doubt shaw comes into your house and runs all the coax in a reno. Considering I've never had a shaw account and am not willing to commit to it until renos are 100% done. Don't need a tv distraction.

[Czar]

When I had my house built they put a standard HDTV cable set in the wall (in the middle of the wall where we wanted the flatscreen). The wiring terminated behind where the sofa went:

- 2 x Cat5E
- 8 x RG6 (Coax)

You can use the 2 CAT5E for HDMI, and the RG6 for Component. I'd personally also add another Cat5E for a network run.

Will you be terminating all runs in a central location?

[mr2mike]

Thanks Czar, for the main area where the main TV will be I will do this. For the bedrooms, I think it's overkill to have full theater hookups.

Bedrooms will just have 1 CAT-6 hooked up and 1 CAT-6 there but not connected and 1 Coax.
Two bedrooms upstairs have 1 main Coax with it split. Same goes for downstairs. I might just pick up a roll of Coax and run an extra dedicated line up and down in case something comes up.

CAT and Coax will terminate in laundry room for easy hookup. Theater area will have it setup like you've got it Czar. with lines for speakers and lines for video.