Electricity - Rewiring

Hi All,
I am just about to renovate my house. And i need some ideas tips from you re: anything, but in particular the electricity.

Facts:
The house is 30 yrs old, 3 bed semi d. I am doing a big renovation job - i.e. dry lining / insulating all the walls and taking up floors etc. So it will get messy - (so I will consider anything you suggest, big job or small job).
One of the jobs I plan to do us to get the house completely rewired.
I dont have a massive budget, but would like to get it right at this stage.

My Question:

(1) I would like some ideas as to what to ask for - from the electrician? I am note sure what gadgets and gismo's are out there in the market place, and would like some ideas.




(2) And how many sockets in each room?

(3) Any other things i am missing out on or should consider??.

So your ideas and tips for me - would be v helpful. And rough idea on cost. .

Many thanks. This website is excellent and has helped so much already.
Yours
BB

Hi BB,
Your options are varied, depending on how far you want to go. You can go simply as far aas wiring lots of coax and cat5/cat6 cable around the place, to putting in a home hub that distributes all your tv,bb and audio etc.

With regards piping music from one room to another, your options are from a basic wiring speakers from your cd/stere player, to putting in a full multiroom audio system.

Question is, how far do you want to go, and how much you want to spend.

My advice is to at least pipe cat5/cat6 aroudn the house, to all placecs where you would normally provision for a tv,phone and/or broadband point. Thats a very minimum.

If you want to go further, including multiroom audio etc, then you should look at a more integrated solution, planning everything from where your BB comes in, what services you want on it, wireless, tv, radio, music,mp3 etc, and use a structured wiring system rather than a mixture of cat5/6 and coax.

Look at sites like Smarthomes etc to get an idea of what you can do (no affiliation to smarthomes).

I tend to go on a rant about home wiring etc, and have done a bit before on AAM, so rather than subject others to my rants, send me a PM if you want, and I will give you some more info etc.

Wexfordman

Hi Wexfordman. Thanks for replying. I have pm'd you.

Can anyone tell me whether I should get my rewiring done before I dry line the walls or after.

I imagine its probably better for the exctician to see the new plaster boards etc up on the wall before rewiring...however on the other hand, if he needs to dig into walls, perhaps its better if the rewiring is done before the dry linigh of the walls????

bb baskin said:

Can anyone tell me whether I should get my rewiring done before I dry line the walls or after.

I imagine its probably better for the electician to see the new plaster boards etc up on the wall before rewiring...however on the other hand, if he needs to dig into walls, perhaps its better if the rewiring is done before the dry linigh of the walls????

Click to expand...

I would have thought it better to put the cables in behind the dry lined wall so that they won't show.

OP

Definitely install at least 2x CAT5e cables in each room with the cables coming back to a central point. Install 4x near to anywhere you'll be putting Sky boxes etc. Don't forget you can configure a phone, intercom, gate camera, CCTV over these cables and putting them in at this stage is effectively free.
- Run coax back to a central point (in the attic?) so you can distribute broadcast TV around - amplified if necessary. You can put the Sky boxes in the attic and use the Sky-eyes to change channels.

You're not supposed to chase the dry-lining - I'm assuming you're talking about the insulated boards. Depending on the way this is fitted you'll need to chase in the wiring into the walls or run in conduit behind them.

SSE

If you are wiring with standard (i.e coax, cat5 etc), here is what I reckon would be the bare min.
Living Room
4 x coax cables fed back to central point (2 for sky+, one for feeding it back up to other rooms, one for external ariel feed). Use high quality coax here, as it is required for sattelite feed.
1 Phone point (again for sky)
1 x ethernet point for BB, XBOX etc (TV will be via ethernet and bb in the future, and to some degree even is today. Also ethernet for a hometheatre pc
Wiring for surround sound (speaker wiring simply)in this room also.

Consider where you are going to place an LCD, and ensure you can run cables to this from your sky box etc with ease (and I do not mean coax, see below).

I would not recommend locating your sky box etc out of your main living room. The reason for this, is if you want to use high definiation, this cannot be done over coax, so you need to have the set top box close to your tv, and this means in the same room. For other rooms where you distribute your sky to, then thats okay over coax, asa generally you wont want High def on smaller tv's around the house, its a bit of a waste.

Central HUB
This is where all of the above will be wired back to (except for the surround sound speakers etc). In here, again, run 4 high quuality coax cables, but this time down from your attic, so the sky installer can use them, and they in turn will be joined/extended into your main living room, as you already have run 4 cables into there.

Your phone line and Broadband should also come into this point, that is this point will be the first place that they arrive and terminate in.
Alarm system should also have all your sensors wired back to this point, as this is the best place to locate your main alarm panel. I would recommend, on the alarm front, wiring a cat5 cable to each point in the hosue where you plan to have an alarm keypad (front and rear door perhaps). Some of the better quality alarm systems need good quality cat5 to the keypads, as they run audio and telephone etc into the keypads now.
Power, leave lots of power points in this space, as you will need them for BB router, alarm system, multiroom audio if you plan to go this route and other things.

Rest of House:-
Anywhere you want a tv, put in a coax point, and a cat-5 cable, and a phone cable. They can all be terminated in the one outlet to keep things tidy and prevent "wall acne" with loads of sockets etc. Consider running speaker wire out to the garden for those nice summer BBQ's etc.
Depending on how big your house is, what its made of, and where you locate your central cabling, you may need to add a wireless extender to give wifi coverage about the house. This can be done easiest by running another ethernet point upstairs next to a power point for example.
Plan where you want any other computers, games machines etc, and provision for ethernet back to your central wiring point also.
If you are planning a home office, then a bit more thought will be required here also.

Even for a standard home, rather than having a bog standard printer, go for a networked printer, so you can hide it away. You can get these very cheaply now, wired and/or wireless, but.......... Go for wired!!!
That and a NAS

Finally, a couple of things to consider.

If you would like to go the route of multiroom audio, then plan for the wiring of it. Do not rely on wireless if you can avoid it, always go for wired. I am referring to Sonos here, where you can go wired or wireless for example. Wire it, it will be best in the long run.

TV distribution. When you consider tv distribution, remember a few things. You need to be able to control your source equipment from the remote tv's. This can be relatively straight forward, particularly if you are using sky, but there are other external ways of doing this also. Some of the are done wirelessly, some wired. Go for wired....

Another point to remember, you cannot distribute dvd signal over coax, even if you put some fancy modulator in it. It might work, but its not relaible. I did it myself a few years ago and it was a disaster. DVD has a facility called "macrovision" which, if enabled on a dvd disc (and it is in a lot if i remember correctly), it distorts the picture if it is modulated. Its a sort of copyright protection thing. If you want to distribute DVD around the house, you need to look at doing it via a cat5 type solution, and the plus here is, that many of these solutions also do the remote control element too. They are not cheap, relative to the cost of putting in a bog standard coax, but worth it in my opinion.

Regards,
Wexfordman

hi all,
how much (ball park figure) to rewire a 30 yr old one bed apartment? its 37 sq mts.
am looking for: 5 double sockets, 2 electronic storage heaters, extractor fain in bathroom with time delay switch, one in kitchen (its open plan with sitting room) and dimmed lighting. basically a complete overhaul??

also considering a new bathroom, new bath, electric shower, toilet and sink. how much to get a good quality one installed?

am looking for individual quotes inclusive of vat. property is in kimmage.

ta all,
g

Hi Indemena,

Welcome to AAM.

I hope you get the advice you need to refurbish your apartment but please be aware of the and do not duplicate your posts. It causes unnecessary duplication of replies if the same query is taking place on a few threads. I have deleted your other post.

Thanks,

Sue Ellen.