You might post on another section with more traffic like "Building a Home."

The trouble with prewiring for lighting control is that you need to know what system it will be and to have some kind of design. Running some Cat5 is way over simplified and the best brands of lighting control want you to use a more robust heavier stranded shieled cable. Another problem with only prewiring is that you give up one of the most requested features of lighting control which is to get rid of the big groups of switches and dimmers in exchange for small and much more attractive keypads. You can't do that in a prewire.

You don't mention size of house or budget. Most A/V & integration companies ask a lot of questions and listen to your needs to tailor a system for you. If you are DIY the 3 day time limit is probably not realistic for an "everything" prewire unless you have lots of experience, several handy friends or a small house. You may want to put in runs of empty ENT conduit from every possible extra outlet location up to the accessible attic. That could be done in a few days and give you lots of time to plan and design. Use at least 1" or larger.

Thanks for the response. It sounds like if I really want lighting control I need to contact a professional and let them deal with it. As for the house, it is 2500 sq ft down and 1300 sq ft up. It is essentially a single story house with a very over sized attic to accommodate the home theatre + lobby. Directly below the second floor square footage is the concern. Most of the rest will not be too difficult especially if, as you say, I drop conduit in the walls.

I dont know much about lighting control, not just in technical terms but also in terms of available features. I have no idea whats available! Actually, the technical aspect should not be difficult, its figuring out what I want that will be the challenge. Especially now that you mention the elimination of large banks of wall platesIm not even sure where to drop the conduit.

Given the short available time combined with being tired from jet lag from the trip home I think Im going to have to either give up on the idea of lighting control or get someone else to do it. Ill have my hands full just completing the whole house audio which I was fortunately able to start on before leaving on this trip.

thanks,
Monte

At the top of the market are brands like Lutron HomeWorks, Vangage, Lite Touch. Crestron now does lighting control, too. At the low end of the market are some new wireless systems based on Zwave technology. Leviton is a big name in that. At the top of the market your imagination and budget are the only limits. At the lower end of the market the systems have issues that must be considered and designed around. It takes a lot of research to really understand the differences. To learn what's possible even if you choose something less the Lutron website is attractive and fairly easy to dig around in. If you don't require the elimination of the big dimmer groups a system can be retrofitted without tearing up the place.

There is a healthy DIY group at http://avsforum.com/ debating all of the home automation and AV gear and how to get it all done.

montekay

unless you are superman, 3 days is really not that much time to do all of the wiring you have on your list. i pre-wired my house and it took longer than that. but i learned a few things that might help you out.

i would suggest running conduit instead of wires, except in selected spots. you can buy 100 or 200 ft spools of the stuff at home depot or lowes for about 30 bucks or so. the conduit is very easy to work with - 1 person can do the pulling. you will also need a supply of ENT boxes and snap connectors. if you go this route - get your parts early because the big box stores do not stock that much - i cleaned out two HD stores for my parts. you will also need a good drill, plenty of battteries, and sharp drill bits to drill holes for the conduit runs. make sure you clamp the tubes against the studs to prvent kinking when you do your wire pulls later. also - in the basement make sure you leave plenty of excess conduit so that if they put spray foam in the joist cavities, they won't cover up the tubes.

for whole house audio the key right now are the speaker wires. you need to get CL3 rated wire if you want to bury that into the walls. i ordered mine from MidSouth cable - it was 16 guage 64 stand wire - very good stuff. you can choose to either put in the speaker boxes now or just run the wires and cut in the speakers later. if you cut in later - make sure you make a good treasure map so you can locate the wires later. to install - just place an ENT box where you want the contoller to go. run conduit from that box down into the basement - run the speaker wire from that same box to the locations for the speakers. once that is done, you can add in whatever digital or analog audio distribution you want.

for lighting control, you can put conduit in the locations where you want the controllers to go. Or you can use a wireless system. warning - these systems are not cheap and i would not rush into buying anything until you have really researched the product. again - i suggest conduit.

for CCTV - you need to have power & ground plus the cable for the video signal. MidSouth sells a siamese cable that has both integrated into one cable to make pulling easier.

i did run some cat5e for voice and data. you probably don't need too many drops becuase of wireless products.

you did not mention antenna drops for over the wire HD and radio signals. I put two antennas in my attic and then ran RG-6 from the attic to the basement so I could distribute these signals to any room in the house.

my overall strategy was to run wires only to the places that I new I would need connectivity the day we move in. to all other locations i ran conduit. i think you would easily finish that in 3 days if you go this route. and then you can take your time and put in whatever you want - whenever you want. i suggest using 1 inch conduit tubing for structured wires, and 3/4 inch for audio and light controls. use single gang ENT boxes for audio and light contols, use dual gang ENT boxes for multi-media sturctured wires.

best of luck

I like the conduit idea. I can think of several locations where I should use this. BTW, down in Texas we don't usually have basements and my house is no exception. All this has to be done in the attic! Good news is I have a big attic with the 12/12 pitch roof.

Yes, I did run an RG6 from the control closet to the attic and one from the back of the living room TV to the attic for adding an over the air HD antenna later. I thought of that spare of the moment while I was running the other RG6. This is one of the few things I got done before leaving on this trip.

As for lighting, I like the idea of eliminating multi switch banks on the wall. I believe this has to require low voltage lighting control and should require a completely different approach to the electrical wiring. I've just sent an e-mail to my builder asking him if it will be possible to just have the electrician wire it for this.

I doubt I will get it all done in three days so I have assigned priorities to my list. Things that will be most difficult after the fact have the highest priority. I think by doing this and by using the conduit I should be able to make it possible to eventually have it all done.

thanks for all the tips and advice,

Monte

FWIW, a fair amount of this can be accomplished later with wireless. For example, if you decide you want internet cameras, you can get a wireless one or two. It will be cheaper than wiring everywhere for the possibility (which, btw, would need to be only cat-5; don't need rg-59 for internet cams).

I would do a run between the TVs, since you might have something like Tivo, which allows you to network the boxes and get programs off of either one.

The one thing to consider with wireless, though, is bandwidth -- especially for high-definition color video. A wireless system built to Wi-Fi standards most likely could not handle more than one signal at a time with any fidelity (if that). Maybe 802.11n or a proprietary protocol could do it, but it remains to be seen whether n will be more resistant to interference and/or won't be compromised by non-n devices on the same network.

Wireless is a real alternative if the walls are not coming down any time soon. But on new construction, conduit rules.