Wiring a house for home automation

[diggle08]

Hi

This is my first post and this is probably a very broad question. Basically I am in the middle of gutting and renovating an old house, including complete re-wiring. I want to include the necessary wiring for multi-room music, TV amd networking - for "future proving" as much as possible.

I would be grateful for anyones advice on at least the wiring I should include. As a bare minimum I have been thinking about 2 Cat5 connections in each room, ceiling speakers in the main rooms. What I am not sure about is should I include TV/Sat ariel leads in the rooms where TVs will be or can I run it over Cat5

Or should I be using Cat 6 or even higher?

The configuration I want to end up with is a centralised server for both music and TV (HDD) that I can control from each room.

I have only just started looking into this but now need to get on with it as I want to start the re-wiring as soon as possible.

Thanks
diggle08

[hornydragon]

Hi Diggle you on a fruitful path, its all possible, your current cabling is a bit light,
some pointers, Cat5/6 isnt suitable for TV wiring as in aerial distribution, it is for distributing video HDMI, component etc.

For ceiling speakers you need some form of control locally this can be WiFi, IR or from a keypad/touch screen.

Have a look at the link in my signature for more information.

DO you want to control lighting/Heating etc?

[DaveChester]

I would normally recommend the following

4 x Cat5e to TV point
1 x Coax to TV point
speaker cable to roof void
Cat5e to somehere near the light switch.

All the above wired back to a central location.

This should cater for your AV requirements - you might want to add in a couple of Cat5e cables at low level somewhere in the room for networking (although most stuff is wireless nowadays so personally I wouldn't bother).

Edited to say stick with Cat5e and you'll be fine.