Re: Wish List for New House
Just a fe ideas in my opion.
Central Vacuum system
I put one in, and to be honest, not really worth it. The hose is very long, and to be honest takes away any of the benefit iwth regards storage and having to lug it around. There is no difference in my opinion between luggin around my long hose (ooh err) for my central vac, and lugging around a standard vacuum. The same goes for storage. The only advantage in my opinion is no bags required, and the dust storage is very big, but this does not outweigh the cost of the system, and also when it does eventually breakdown, I think I will just go out an buy a normal hoover.
Phone points
Phone points are a bit redundant around the house these days with dect phones and dual or multiple handsets. I would not put more than 2 in any new house, and use dect handsets spread around the house to give you the same benefit.
What I would do, is as you mentioned with the catf/cat6 cabling, I would distribute this to the points where you had planned on putting phone points. Plan this well, and also bear in mind that you will or should be using wireless lan for this type of stuff also. Saying that, you will never have too much cat5. All your cat 5 should route back to a common point where you will have either your main phone line comming in for DSL broadband or cable or wireless bb, depending on your area etc.
Try to put some cable ducts around the place, specially in the common rooms, where you will have tv, computers, routers etc, so that you can add to later. You will always find you need to add cables in the future, whether it is for broadband, sky chorus etc.
Run two coax cables to each tv point, and 3 to 4 in the main rooms, so you can distribute tv easily. Again, all you coax should return to the one point, again preferrably to where your sky or cable box will be.
Alarm monitoring system
These are a bit overpriced in my opinion, and the annual fee often does not cover the extra discount that you will have. You can get self monitored systems, which will phone you, or a neighbour etc if one of you can not be reached. The only time I woul drecommend self monitoring is if you are living alone or something and you want peace of mind.
External wiring
Make sure you allow for external wiring to the garden, including power, phone, and speaker cables if you want also. Try and have a duct under your footpath so you can add more in future if you want.
Also, have an external tap plumped away from your house. We have two external taps, but they are attatched to the gable ends of the house. I would love to have some at either end of the garden, but will have to go digging up my footpath to bury the pipes comming from the house..
Home entertainment.
Have you cinsidered distributing music and/or video around the house ?
If you think it is something you would be interested in, consider speaker cable etc to tghe rooms you would want it in, (living room, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom etc).
Wexfordman
Thats my 2 centws worth, enjoy your build