High Tech in Older Homes

[OldTownHome]

We've been doing a lot of high tech upgrades while maintaining the historic aspects of our home. It's been a challenge to marry the two, and do it in a way that doesn't requires us to gut the house, but we've done a good job thus far. I just posted a blog entry that gets into the structured wiring aspect of our projects.

http://www.oldtownhome.com/2011/7/7/Confessions-of-a-Total-House-Geek-Structured-Wiring-Technology-Overkill/index.aspx

So my question. Have any of you installed massive amounts of structured wiring, network cable, or anything else in your 100+ year old homes? Do you stick with wireless? Do you have any problems with wireless and your thick plaster or brick walls?

[KristenS]

We've got nothing even remotely technologically similar in our house (you don't wanna see the tv I'm watching right now... it's nearly embarrassing). But I enjoyed your blog post SO MUCH! I'm the nerd of my house, but lack the geeky skill to do a darn thing technological. I am in awe of your wiring skillz.

[Lynners]

I have your blog in my Google Reader - and I immediately sent it off to the boyfriend because he is all things nerd!

[SkipW]

I run a PLC controller to do lighting throughout the house and a few motion sensor/macro mini scripts. For our two laptops, we have cable internet and a wireless G router with no issues except range 'through' the kitchen, I'm guessing due to massive metal appliances, etc. We have no structured wiring as it's done either over PL or wireless.

[Daniel Meyer]

Well, on the wifi and communications front...not much yet. We're not quite to that stage, but we are headed there.

We do HAVE wifi, just on a single router. The house absolutely eats wifi signal, but if the router is near the center of the house it is reasonably everywhere.

While we firmly believe in preserving the Victorian *character* of our home, we also believe it has to support modern living both in function and efficiency or it is doomed to destruction in favor of some ranch box home thing.

So...so far a computerized hi-efficiency water heater, complete with geeky control panel and home run pex panel. All plumbing runs go to one place, no junctions in walls or under house...picture a breaker box for your plumbing. Included sediment filters because the sediment here is crunchy and tastes like...well...sediment.

http://theoldvictorian.com/2010/10/11/p ... n-eighths/

We are also putting in the DC inverter technology seer 20 heat pump mini-splits. Achieves comfort, affordablity, zoning (each room can be kept at an appropriate temp and changed rapidly for changing use), redundancy, efficiency, freeze protection, and humidity control.

Automatic lights in the halls and stairway are coming, and decorative and functional outdoor lighting is on a combination of celestial timers, motion detectors, and photo-eyes. Mood/accent lighting is LED, and I am struggling through the ordeal of combining efficient lighting with Victorian look...and yes, we are going to have ceiling fans.

There's security too, but that's best left for the reader's imagination.

[Abuela]

A server rack and house-wide structured wiring while maintaining the historical character of your home? I'm an old-school networking geek (with emphasis on the "old" - LANtastic, anyone?) and a life-long old house lover, and all I can think about is marrying you and having geek babies. That is, if we both weren't married and I was 30 years younger and straight.

I have bookmarked this to put into my "interesting miscellaneous network stuff" folder for my networking students!

[s.kelly]

I am in the process of starting. I am an electrician by trade so really not into wireless.

Got some x10 and speaker and computer wiring to some selected areas now. Playing and learning as I go. Not really a techno geek ( I understand the sadly old TV KristenS) but I am learning how much you can do with the stuff now. Since I wire for a living the learning curve for me is really about what you can do with the stuff now and which way I want to go.

Did not click the link to your post yet, will when I have time to digest. Looking foreward to seeing what you have done.

[OldTownHome]

Thanks for all the responses.

KristenS, I find its best to throw yourself into a project that you know nothing about and figure it out along the way I did that when I had the opportunity the network my fraternity house in college, and it turned out ok. So I ended up doing it (and doing a better job) in our house.

Lynners, Great! I hope he enjoys it. I hope to get into our whole house audio stuff in the next few weeks, so stay tuned.

SkipW, I've done a fair amount of PLC stuff throughout our house. It is more ad-hoc than from a single controller though. I'm also starting to think that my wireless router just stinks and that's my wireless issue. Maybe I need a new one.

Daniel, I WANT an organized pex manifold like that so badly! You don't even know! I'm working on a plan to change from forced air heating to boiler fed radiant floor hear on the first floor, and hydronic coil in the attic for the 2nd floor. I hope my Pex looks as organized as yours. I'm using a homemade pex manifold in our master bath, but not home runs. I wish it were a possibility in our house. I may just run a bunch of unused pex in the floor for the day I eventually open a critical wall and then hook it all up the way I want it to be.

Abuela, hysterical! All these details seem to be getting in the way of our geek babies. So sad.

s.kelly, I'm not an electrician or a networking guy, but I play one on the internet and in my house. We've got a mix of X10 and Insteon throughout our house. I also installed one of the first gen smartlincs that allows IP control of the lights. I can get on my house's website (yeah, it has one) and control all of the lights in the house from any internet connected device, like my iPhone. I'm also adding the ability to turn lights on and off via text message. I used to work for an electrician (really a GC who was a master electrician/master plumber) and learned a ton that way. If there's any advice I can give you about wiring with network cabling, get yourself a good digital tester. There is nothing worse that closing up the walls then realizing that your cabling had a kink or defect and your stuff won't work.

[jharkin]

One of the first things I did when we moved in was to wire the house.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=19728&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=10#p160307

I had done some small networking projects before- mostly cables running across the floor in college apartments but had fun dong this one right. I bought all the tools and cable and ran Cat 5e, coax and phone to every room. Fairly easy in a cape, just drilled up into the walls and put boxes in the baseboards where they are easy to hide. Second floor was the biggest challenge - ran cables up through 2 stacked closets and put the wifi router up there for good coverage. In the basement we have the fiber terminal, then a run upstairs to the router, then from there to the upstairs room and a line back down to the basement into a switch that feeds all the first floor rooms.

[KristenS]

KristenS, I find its best to throw yourself into a project that you know nothing about and figure it out along the way I did that when I had the opportunity the network my fraternity house in college, and it turned out ok. So I ended up doing it (and doing a better job) in our house.

I agree! I'm fantastic at troubleshooting, solving problems, and reasoning my way through an issue. But I would never undertake something as awesome as wiring my house.

I like to delay making tech decisions long enough that I can just skip learning about intermediate technologies.

For example... I'll be making the jump directly from having a VCR/DVD combo on RCA cables through a RF modulator on a coax-only TV, to having a simple HDTV+laptop setup. Ha ha to you, 1994-2008 technologies! I laugh at your S-video ports! I have no need of your Blu-ray capabilities!