RE: Home automation equipment

["Des Gibbons" <des@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Colin,


Just to add to Paul's excellent advice...


Speaker cable to rooms where you want speakers :) Speaker cable type,
depends on budget, either 1.5mm2 T&E flex cable or high end multi
strand
audio cable.

I would advise you to use 6 core alarm cable to places where you want alarm
sensors, PIR's etc mainly because of the flexibility of the cable, solid
cat5e is a bitch to work with in tight spaces ie alarm contacts. (From
personal experience) Also, there is a good chance that you will damage the
solid cat5e as it is so inflexible, not great if you have little play to
work with. (From personal experience)

Some alarm systems (Comfort) specify shielded cable for their intercoms.

One of the biggest decisions when designing lighting is to go for homerun
or
ring lighting, lets just say that on a new build mid to high end house, you
would be mad to go for ring ;) For the lighting system, unless your budget
is miniscule you should check out clipsal cbus, good
price/feature/reliability system.

UHF distribution, probably a good idea to run at least 1 ct-100 cable to
each possible location for TV. I have one in each TV point in each room,
but
in certain main rooms, I have 2-4 per possible TV location, mainly to allow
for sky+.

Running cables to outside should also be planned at this stage, as it is a
pain to run them after 1st fix stage. CCTV cables, gate automation, traffic
sensors. And as someone mentioned recently, a feed to the boundary to allow
for viewing of the house by cctv is a good idea.

Other things that may or may not interest you...

IR distribution
12V distribution

Im sure your head is full of questions now :)

I take it you are in Northern Ireland?

Cheers, Des.