Best Approach for Whole House Wiring?

[LittleBill21]

Im an electrician, so i way overdid my house when i built it in 1996. Heck, no romex for me. Its all steel flex and metal boxes with MC light whips. All open shops and barn are emt pipe. I also ran twin cat5, and phone lines to all rooms. I no longer have land lines and never used any if the cat5, i even installed 2 Leviton recessed boxes with catv splitters and racks for phone and ethernet, with surge suppression, etc. none of it was used.

All wifi now. I did actually have to run a cat6 out to my generator for monitoring as it was having trouble dropping my wifi signal.

I have starlink ported thru a wifi/mesh router, and a separate mesh node in barn and shop. This gives me internet and phone out 400 feet from router and i have phone inside all my steel buildings. When we let landline drop, i had lost all phones inside shop until mesh came along.

All my outlets are 20 amps. All lighting 15 amps.
3 and 4way lighting all over the place. I can turn barn lights on from house. Have all exterior lighting run via astronomical timers that adjust for sun up and sundown. All turn off at 11 pm cause im not paranoid and like dark nights to see stars.

I use a system called YoLink to control things like turning on tractor engine heat, diesel truck heat, snow melt devices, security lighting and to monitor temps in refers and freezers and leak detectors. This system has saved my butt so many times alerting me to high temps in freezer and leaks under cabinets.

If wife and i are in town too late, i can turn on select house lights to make house look lived in. Random on and off.

Just added a yolink driveway alert because we missed package delivery too many times and had to reschedule. Dont miss them any longer.

I installed maybe 2x the needed electrical outlets as necessary…..but i dont regret it at all. Heck, my 3 car garage has 14 duplex outlets shared over 3 circuits. Ya, thats overkill.

I ran empty conduit out of all of my breaker boxes in house for future use, and have used them over the years. I installed a separate subpanel in master walk in closet behind door, another subpanel in utility room for some exterior circuits and a subpanel in basement. This was so all home runs didnt have to go all the way out to the garage main panel.

Subpanels save you alot of wasted wire runs.

My house is all propane heat, water heater, dryer and stovetop. So a 22kw backup generator powers entire house and barn. My shop has its own 10kw backup generator. Property has 400 amp service.

look into home assistant for the Yolink stuff, Lora has some nice distance.

 

[Richard]

I've not read past page one yet...

Are you going to have some form of stereo or more to the point, a HT entertainment system?

Mine isn't a typical plug in and set the speakers. I biamp (need 2-channels per speaker), wanted to plan ahead in case I put a tube amp at the front mains...

Had a secondary box in garage so had plenty of slots.

Decided to create four 20 amp circuits, dedicated to the sound system (over kill HOWEVER) before I moved it to basement, everything was daisy-chained out of one outlet and it would pop every now & then so I wanted to spread the load.

Electronics in central closet with enough outlets to power the space shuttle!
EACH outlet in entire system (something like 40 outlets) is partially switched. Each upper plug is switched, each lower plug is live.

Some things I have need turned on/off....other things, might need constant power.

EACH 20 amp circuit is run over to the wall when you walk in and I have four 20 amp switches. You can walk in or out of room, hit the 4 switches and entire system (that is plugged into UPPER plugs) shuts down. Lower plugs (like TV, satellite) remain powered.

Took while to think it through and get it done. The switches at door were mainly for my wife so she wouldn't have to figure things out.... easy/peasy..... four up=on
four down = off

I then had to wire XLR/balanced cables around the room for various locations and other types of wires. Was a fairly large production for someone who had never done this before!

To differentiate the "HT" outlets verses others for the wife to use, my brother in law had given me a bunch of orange hospital grade....so I used those. Wife absolutely HATES them!


Then, buried the subwoofer above the ventless fireplace. Wife figured I would get rid of it...as a bit of a smart** I said we could put it up there? She said fine. I got a tape and had maybe 3/8-1/2 inch to spare. It was like the space was made for it and it was a total happenchance of luck.

 

[LittleBill21]

I've not read past page one yet...

Are you going to have some form of stereo or more to the point, a HT entertainment system?

Mine isn't a typical plug in and set the speakers. I biamp (need 2-channels per speaker), wanted to plan ahead in case I put a tube amp at the front mains...

Had a secondary box in garage so had plenty of slots.

Decided to create four 20 amp circuits, dedicated to the sound system (over kill HOWEVER) before I moved it to basement, everything was daisy-chained out of one outlet and it would pop every now & then so I wanted to spread the load.

Electronics in central closet with enough outlets to power the space shuttle!
EACH outlet in entire system (something like 40 outlets) is partially switched. Each upper plug is switched, each lower plug is live.

Some things I have need turned on/off....other things, might need constant power.

EACH 20 amp circuit is run over to the wall when you walk in and I have four 20 amp switches. You can walk in or out of room, hit the 4 switches and entire system (that is plugged into UPPER plugs) shuts down. Lower plugs (like TV, satellite) remain powered.

Took while to think it through and get it done. The switches at door were mainly for my wife so she wouldn't have to figure things out.... easy/peasy..... four up=on
four down = off

I then had to wire XLR/balanced cables around the room for various locations and other types of wires. Was a fairly large production for someone who had never done this before!

To differentiate the "HT" outlets verses others for the wife to use, my brother in law had given me a bunch of orange hospital grade....so I used those. Wife absolutely HATES them! View attachment 3078921
View attachment 3078920View attachment 3078923

Then, buried the subwoofer above the ventless fireplace. Wife figured I would get rid of it...as a bit of a smart** I said we could put it up there? She said fine. I got a tape and had maybe 3/8-1/2 inch to spare. It was like the space was made for it and it was a total happenchance of luck.


View attachment 3078933
View attachment 3078934


View attachment 3078935

dear god talk about overkill LOL

 

[Richard]

Oh, but there's more. I gave you the abbreviated version....

 

[grsthegreat]

dear god talk about overkill LOL

man....and i thought I went overkill. ive never seen anything like that for a home entertainment system....not even for a commercial theater.

 

[LittleBill21]

man....and i thought I went overkill. ive never sen anything like that for a home entertainment system....not even for a commercial theater.

Doesn't everyone have a 9600W stereo?

 

[grsthegreat]

problem with my home theater, if i turn on a good movie like Black Hawk Down, the subwoofer rattles the house and sets off both the dog and wife into b***h mode. i think my HT was a waste of money. hardly ever gets used.

 

[scott_vt]

Good Evening,

. Copper is so expensive that it's nice to save a buck where you can, and 14/2 is so much easier to work with then 12/2

Eddie, I agree completely with that statement. If it’s just for lighting the 14/2 is the way to go. The 12/2 can be a bear at times.

 

[quicksandfarmer]

I'm not getting all the love for 12/2 for general purpose outlets. What are you guys plugging in that draws so much power? Except for the kitchen and the workshop my house is all 14/2 and I've never tripped a circuit.

 

[grsthegreat]

ahhh. Ive run hundreds of miles of the stuff….12 and 14/2 easy peasy to run and use. I just dont like romex due to rodent damage ive seen over the years. Ive generally only used the 1000’ spools of the stuff due to the ease of use. Just place a piece of 1/2” rebar in spool and set up between stud spaces and off you go. On multi story projects we poked 1/2” hole in floor or ceiling to pass wire to another floor. Never had to move rolls of wire.We generally setup a roll of each 14/2, 12;2, 14/3, 14/2/2 and 12/3 on rollers, than place the 250’ spool of 10/2 or 10/3 onto the romex spinner tools as you dont use much of this size.