Wiring up Ethernet for Nick

Nick has been after me for a while to run ethernet to his room, he is convinced it will be far superior to the wireless ethernet he is using now.  I haven't been in a big hurry, because I need to run a cable through the attic, and it is dusty up there.

However, Maddie started guitar lessons and that left Nick and me home for 2 hours and he wanted to do it, so we did.  He did most of the wiring in the panel and his room, I braved the attic though.

The amazing thing is that the wired connection is about 10x faster, when doing a speed test to our NAS.  The wireless speed is just as fast as the WAN connection about 100mbps, but with the wired connection it gets almost the full 1gbps that our network is capable of.

So, most of the time it won't make a difference, but when transferring files to the NAS it is a lot faster.  The location of the ethernet port in his room necessitated the purchase of a right angle ethernet cable, so we could push his dresser up against it.

Long lost update

So needless to say it has been awhile. Jen and I have had a busy life the last couple weeks. We introduced our new son, Nicholas, into the world and finished moving into the house.

Our folks have been over numerous times, we planted seed on the hillsides around the house to slow erosion. Then of course it didn't rain for 2 weeks... But it finally is today, hurray!

Today I am finally running some Cat5 to the bedroom, so the internet isn't so slow. I can now just remote desktop to my PC and work from there.

Structured Wiring plan

This was what I put together in October and pretty much what we went with. Didn't do the speaker in the entry way, as it is pretty open to the great room. We also don't have speakers in the master, but we did run wires in the wall.

- Circles are ceiling speaker placement, just have to run 14/2 CL2 to the box over the woodbox. Was thinking it might be nice to run the external speakers to a volume control first though. Probably need about 380 feet for the main floor.
- Boxes are the wall plates for "stuff", at this point I just want to run conduit to the basement and wire it later when I figure out what I want where. There are 6 boxes, one external one (I can run the two over the fireplace on the inside wall), so 3 low voltage brackets, a large indented bracket behind the flat panel (saw one at menards today), a 2 gang box (or larger) over the firebox, and call it 60 feet of 3/4 inch conduit (just to drop it to the basement).

- Circle is again a ceiling speaker, run that wire to the boxes over the woodbox on the first floor again 14/2 CL2 call it 60 feet.
- Triangles in the bedroom are wall speaker locations. I am thinking of just leaving the speaker wire running the length of the wall top to bottom, until we get what we want there figured out. That way we can open the wall and grab the wire, for in wall speakers, or attached to brackets on the wall. Run the 14/2 CL2 to the double box in that room, about 180 feet.
- Boxes run up to the attic, 10 boxes about 10 feet of 3/4 inch conduit per box for 100 feet.
- Blue box is a structured wiring panel, which has 2 2 inch knockouts on the top and bottom, and I think only 2 2 inch knockout on the bottom. I think there will be more wires coming into the top so we will put that up. And run that up to the attic as well. So 20 feet of 2 inch conduit and 20 feet of 3/4 inch conduit.
- Also have to run 2 inch conduit down to the basement from the blue box. Call that 60 feet of 2 inch conduit.

The Meeting (part 3)

Yeah, this is the 100th post on this blog...

The overage agreement that I had written up and sent to Lighthouse was what Jen and I felt were fair overages and we feel obligated to pay (well I felt obligated, Jen humored me...).

The 3k for the appliances was what we had discussed with Lighthouse, when they decided to upgrade our appliances and pay the difference. We had discussed 5k, but had also obtained a letter from them granting us 2k as a credit for appliances. That was obtained when we went to sign the sworn construction statement and expected to save some money, but were faced with another increase. That was another interesting meeting...

The 605.51 was for trenching the electric to the house. This was an area of contention, because Jen and I remember Lighthouse agreeing to pay for 50 feet of the trenching, which of course Steve didn't remember.

The 794.20 was for putting up gutters. This was something that Lighthouse asked us to add, and we agreed that it would probably be necessary. So Steve told me that they wouldn't charge O/P, and presented me with an estimate for $625. Of course they ended up charging us almost $800. That was an interesting conversation with Steve as well...

The 3128.50 was the main issue of contention and constitutes the concrete retaining that was "necessary" to add while pouring the foundation. We felt that it was an added cost w/o our consent or discussion with us, so were only willing to pay for half of the addition. We were told after the fact that it was done and we would have to incur the increased cost. Of course at the time I was told that it wouldn't cost that much and would probably be offset with savings on other items.

The 872.10 and 200 was the charge from Excel (natural gas) and Dakota Electric for the hookup charges.

The 610.50 was a credit to us, because we had installed the low voltage electric in the house, instead of using their contractor (550 was included for that (plus 11%)). The 1338 was the savings that we realized, because the foundation crew had done some of the waterproofing that the waterproofing company was planning on performing.

Possible security system

I wanted to allow for the wired security system in the future, so I ran cat5 to any areas where I thought I would need it in the future. Greg thought we could just do wireless and not have to worry about this, but I am comforted by the idea of having actual wires run to the areas.

We went out for dinner with Jen's aunt, uncle and cousins the night after we did this and Dave offered to come over and jam the wireless signal that Greg wanted to install ;)

Speaker placement

These are mud rings for the speakers in the living room. Chris D. put these up for me while I worked on the low voltage stuff. We have 5.1 in the living room and master bedroom. This isn't a home theater obviously, but should be nice for casual movie watching and out of the way.

Low Voltage outlets

This is an example of the low voltage conduit that we ran over the weekend. As you can see the box is on the wall, and the conduit either runs into the attic, or into the basement. From there I can run whatever I want after the drywall is installed.

I will run a combination of cat5e, coax or speaker wire to them. I have at least 2 boxes in each bedroom, and a couple others strategically placed around the house.

Over the weekend

Over the weekend we did a bunch of work on the house. On Saturday, Greg and Joanne came down and help us run some low voltage, add a couple of outlets... Chris D. came over as well and ran speaker cable all over the place :) Then today, we finished up running low voltage and my parents came over and insulated the garage. I will get some photos up tomorrow and explain everything a little bit better as well.

Speaker enclosures on the porch

I wanted to have some speakers on the porch outside of the front door. I thought it would be nice for background music while looking out over the bowl. I had the brackets, but they weren't very stiff, so I thought to back it with some plywood.

Then I figured why not build a box around it as well, to get better bass response. I hope it works out, I am not too sure of the air tightness of the enclosure.

Also, I am a little worried, since the bottom board isn't attached to the frame on the sides. It is only attached to the bracket and the bracket to the joists...