Renovating a new house.

Beyond lights and sockets I’m thinking alarm and cameras (no intention to actually add the cameras yet).

We are not really gadgety, geeky types and our boy is only 18 months old. What am I missing?

What about solar? What do I need if I want to add it later?

wifi

Cat6 cabling, 2 runs per outlet just in case. I have my stereo stuff all cabled and run hdmi over twisted pair between rooms as well. WiFi is easy but still not fantastic under constant heavy load (well consumer stuff isn’t)
Solar water is useful if you have the position for it. We have 2 roof panels and a 300ltr tank – no water bills between oct-end of may really.
PV – dunno about that so will leave that to Stoner.
Wood burner/pellet boiler – same as above.

Solar if you can afford it. I think there are grants available. Heats the water so our family (6) can shower for zero cost..

Suggest if you are re-wiring probably go with some network cabling (even though you arent geeky, it may be a selling point and you will use it), but ethernet over power is now quite good. Depending on house type wifi may not be that good (wall thickness etc)

+1 for the Network
+1 For Solar HW

Solar PV 4mm t&e run to the roof space from the cu area with plenty of spare tail for termination at isolators etc in the future.

3 core cable to possible zoned area for smart thermostats lead to heating controls

6mm cable for air source heat pump

wifi cameras and alarm would save alot of faffing about but hard to beat hardwire.
your best bet would be an 8 core alarm cable to each pir point and sounders, keypads, back to were your going to have the alarm panel.
for your cameras its more of what your budget is. can get ones that only need a cat 6 to run, or ones that need a 240v point at them as well, along with harddrive or pc. not my area cameras.
for your solar you will need to allow a low voltage power point in you loft to your boiler and a mains supply for the solar panel. you may need to allow for a stat cable as well.

For solar pv you would need a 4mm twin and earth. Cat 6 run too each room from a central point. Coax from the attic too each room, maybe also 6 or 8 core alarm cable too each room from a central point. Rewired my house a few years back and have started to add bits on now, latest addition being power for the summerhouse!

Thermal store and solar thermal.

Plumb for a second cold feed to toilet/DW/WM so that should you ever install a rainwater harvest system you can connect it up.

Power to your aerial masthead for an amplifier or a wireless distribution system.

A really nice install is to put a low level, 3amp lamp socket next to your mains socket, switchable from the door like a centre light. They are a special round pin socket, you wire a round pin plug to your desk/table/standard lamps.

Jeez, that’s a lot to consider… Thanks for that, I may be back for an explanation or two 🙂

No-ones mentioned exterior security lights and security of garage. Are they already part of the plan?

solar HW is only any use if you have a boiler that can cope.

Rainwater harvesting is good.

I’d have said wifi myself but in my new house I’ve found how wifi can be trapped in one room, even in the next room with a top of the line n router it doesnt’ get through our walls!

3 core cable to possible zoned area for smart thermostats lead to heating controls

Good idea.

6mm cable for air source heat pump

6mm?!?!

If you have a garage a dirty great circuit to it for a future EV charging point might be worth it – but I’d wait for now.

Cabling for timer switch for lights in porch and just outside.

with mine, I wired it with cat6 (22 ports spread around the house), and 5 points with 8 core telephone wire for phones and/or wired alarm points.

I plan on using wifi repeaters around the house, and two wifi cctv cameras on the outside, linked to PIR lights.

I have also ran some water pipes upto a southerly facing roof (on the inside) for a water heater.

I have also ran decent speaker cable in some rooms from wall sockets (near shelves etc) to ceiling speakers in the bathrooms, kitchen and some bedrooms.

Longer term, I am getting an armoured cable ran to the barn and the gate for power and electric gates and some network cables as well.

If you are running cat6, make sure you run at least two cables to every room so if you break a cable its not the end of the world, and remember about bend radius’s!

Good point slowoldgit. Never thought about the garage 🙂

What will I need or use this cat 6 cabling for?

What is wrong with my standard wifi & router?

Sorry if this seems like a daft question, I’m a bit of a Luddite. At 41 yrs old I’ve only just bought my first tv, lived off cast offs up to now.
We use a laptop and smartphones and play music through decent quality docking stations.

I have had a good chat with a guy today (thanks woody2000) regarding solar, it seems I just need to run SY cable from the consumer unit in case we want to add it later.

I’d run ducts with pull-cords installed so you can pull through whatever cables you need in the future eg fibre optics etc. Standards change so quickly these days, could be Thunderbolt everywhere in 5 years time…..

Also taps front and rear plus outside sockets.

I wouldn’t bother with IT etc cabling, use WiFi.

Depends on the size of the house, as WiFi is very slow and pretty shit if you live in a house with thick walls, which makes streaming movies/TV a PITA (last house I ended up with homeplugs everywhere)

Personally, I have gone for wired points in most rooms, and a two wifi repeaters. Mind you it is a big house with very thick stone walls. As in the end its only a few more wires scattered around.

Definitely allow for power in the garage and a cold water feed.

As for what are you going to use all these IT points for, well you can plug any computers/hifi/web radio/fire alarm/alarms/phones etc over them, and they just work.

I wouldn’t really worry about Cat6 becoming obsolete, as it supports 1Gbps and I doubt any home networks are going to need data much faster than that for quite a while.

To give you some perspective max speed for WiFi (g) is 54 Mbps and (n) is 100 Mbps, but these are theoretical, so you will be very very lucky to get more than 54 Mbps on n, and 32 Mbps on g when actually transferring data. So your wired network will be approximately 18 to 32 times faster than your WiFi network if you have a perfect signal in perfect conditions (ie: sat next to it)

Thanks Richc, that makes some sense of it.

It is worth considering running some dedicated circuits one to the freezer and another to the boiler perhaps one to any security systems that you are installing. If you get these to be wired without RCD protection it will mean that should something trip either of the RCD’s that you will always have heating an not loose a fortune from a fully stocked freezer defrosting if you are away for a couple of days.

Consider outside lighting that can be controlled from a central position.

Would that be legal?

lots of people have lights outside 😛 😛

seriously though, you can have dedicated non-rcd circuits for designated circuits which helps in situations like these