Ask Slashdot: Ideas For a Geek Remodel? 372
An anonymous reader writes "What would you do to 'go geek' if you had a major remodel on your hands? My wife and I are re-modeling my in-law's 3000 sq foot single-level house, and we're both very wired, tech-savvy individuals. We will both have offices, as well as TVs in the bedroom and dining room. My question to the community is: What would you do if you had 10-20,000 to spend for this kind of remodel project? What kind of hardware/firmware would you install? I'd love to have a digital 'command center' to run an LCD wall-calendar for the family, and be able to play my PS3 from anywhere in the house (ie, if everyone wants to watch Netflix while I'm in the middle of some Borderlands). What else have geeks done/planned to do? This is a test run for a much, much nicer house down the road, so don't be overly afraid of cost concerns for really great ideas. We will be taking most of the house down to studs, so don't factor demolition into costs. For culinary-minded geeks, I'd love any ideas you have to surprise my wife with cool kitchen gadgets or designs."
System under glass (Score:5, Interesting)
The #1 thing I've always wanted to do is put the whole entertainment system behind glass and give it muffled fans and intake filters. I'd really like to eliminate every little bit of noise finally, even the TV has a hum to it. And then there's the dust, which could be all but eliminated by using the right materials for building the enclosure, and the use of the aforementioned filters. I'd give it its own system for control of temp and humidity too, since that's relatively easy if you have all the other parts.
Kitchen (Score:3, Interesting)
Faucet over the stove.
Lighting automation (Score:4, Interesting)
A DIY friendly system and the programming language on the ISY is easy to use and quite flexible.
I have been very happy and wish I had done it on the old house.
#2 favorite thing (actually probably #1 but it is not really a remodel item) is a whole house Sonos system. The perfect audio sync and ease of listening to anything anywhere in the house is great. I used to be a developer for GiantDisc (which still has the best cataloging system available anywhere) but the Sonos ease of use and perfect audio sync won me over.
Wainscotting and conduit (Score:5, Interesting)
I would have easily removable wainscotting for access to the walls, and lots of conduit allowing whatever room-to-room connections I might need later. I'd model it on hospital setups, but go cheaper:I'd use luann paneling for the wainscotting, for example.
Re:System under glass (Score:5, Interesting)
I would suggest multiple Cat6a ethernet cables to each room. Two per wall, and if a wall is particularly long, possibly more sets. I would pull four into each entertainment center, and pull them in behind where each of the kitchen appliances goes, into every curio cabinet, where the laundry is, where the hot water heaters and air conditioning units are, and even to where the doorbell is, though that last one might remain unterminated in the wall. The beautiful thing about four-pair twisted pair wiring is that it can be used for not only ethernet and computers/appliances, but for telephones, intercom systems, security cameras, and all other manner of low voltage devices. Pick a nice closet as the concentration point and be sure to label everything so that you can figure out what it all is later. If you're feeling adventurous, put in conduit for all of this ethernet cable so that it can be upgraded or added to later. Probably 3/4" or bigger given the size of Cat6a. Yes, I know that everyone carries on about wireless, but wired really is the way to go for anything high bandwidth, like when all of the TVs are on and streaming different content at the same time.
Consider putting single-mode fiber in too. That could be a bit pricier though, and my guess is that it would be less essential than the copper.
In each room that will have any chance of having an entertainment center, put 2" conduit from the entertainment center location to the rough middle of the ceiling, terminate the conduit in doublegang boxes. That'll be for video signal cables. Or use a triplegang box at the entertainment center end and run eight speaker wires- front left, front center, front right, rear left, rear center, rear right, side left and side right. That way you can use a 4 way, a 5 way, a 6 way, or an 8 way surround sound system without having to change the cabling.
Re:Unrealistic budget (Score:4, Interesting)
It used to be 'This Old House'. Now it's "This Old Mansion". I don't think their renos reflect the average person's home by any measure. You can't base what an average person does to renovate based on that show. I stopped watching when it started getting as ridiculous as it is.
I have a cousin who renovated two 100+ year old homes for a fraction of what those guys spend. He lived in the first for something like 10 or 12 years. He renovated the second one in the early 90s and still lives there (it is an old farmhouse built in the 1880s or 1890s that is now part of an older subdivision that grew around it). But the heavy work isn't all that can be done to save. For example they found a nice granite counter top and island top that was used in a demonstration kitchen and was close enough to what they needed to only need a bit cut off the end (they looked for something like this, they didn't stumble on it... these are things you do to save money).
Of course if you aren't capable of using a hammer and saw, then you need a lot of money to spend on a contractor (or if you have a lot of money to spend that you don't need elsewhere, and your priorities dictate you don't want to do it yourself). FWIW, my cousin and his wife did almost all the work themselves, and he is a math teacher. The kicker is that the job was done so well that it was used as a demonstration home by the government as to how to properly renovate a home using energy efficient materials and insulation. The inspectors visited at a number of points during the work to make sure it met the criteria (he had to apply up front and was given a grant to offset some of the cost on successful completion). He did a good job.
Maybe the OP could volunteer on a couple of Habitat For Humanity projects to get some experience working on homes if they need to learn a bit first. In the meantime watch out for the many contractors who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground or who just like to cut corners and rip off the customer.
Secret passage (Score:5, Interesting)
Since you're going down to the studs anyway, find some place to put in a simple secret passageway. You know, for the kids and grandkids.
Look for dead spaces in the walls. It can be as simple as going from one closet to another. Try to connect to the crawlspace, maybe.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is the in-law's house right? (Score:4, Interesting)
500 amp mains? The heck do you plan to do that draws 120 kilowatts? Run 1200 incandescent bulbs?
Re:Comms and power (Score:4, Interesting)
Interestingly, different people perceive these things differently. I personally find that the flicker caused by LEDs (especially at 50Hz, without capacitors) is really annoying.
But the real problem is that one can't really use "colour temperature" to get a good understanding of lighting quality. You have to look at the distribution too.
Colour temperature is essentially a "weighted average" of the emission spectrum. But white LEDs have a strongly bi-modal spectrum (basically blue + yellow), which looks nothing like the smooth blackbody spectrum from tungsten/tungsten-halogen. So you can match colour temperature, but have a widely different spectrum.
Also, while the human eye has only 3 separate types of sensor (roughly "R,G,B"), with their own response curves, the resonances of the dyes in clothing, paint, or skin pigments have their own resonances too. The result is that, even if you can't distinguish LED and tungsten light from each other (when looking straight at the bulb), you can tell the difference in the scene that is illuminated.
Cameras to monitor the house infrastructure (Score:5, Interesting)
In light of the approaching hurricane, and during heavy rain in general, I like to make sure my sump pump is keeping up (I live in an older house). Rather than continually going down to check on it, I installed a WiFi IP Camera in the room pointed at the pump. That way I can check on it periodically from my phone without actually going in there. Of course, infra-red LEDs are a must on such a setup, but they come with most cameras anyway. To generalize, cameras wherever you might want to monitor the state of the house. This would be separate from security cameras.