Just had a big hole dug in my front yard

[Iplayfarmer]

What do you call the box on the outside of the house where the coax comes in from the antenna/satellite/cable? I dont' have one, and I'd like to put one in. I've looked on ebay, and I've done a regular internet search. I see a lot of discussion, but I don't see anywhere to buy one.

I am getting ready to do my network. I ordered a roll of Coax, and I have about 350 feet of Cat5e and Cat 6 in various lengths. I have a punchdown block coming to network my telephone, and I'm getting a video amplifier. I still need to get my wall plates.

 

[Treemonkey1000]

I believe it is called an Interface box. Phone companies call them "Network interface" boxes.

 

[dcyrilc]

How's the house comming along?

 

[turbo36]

On the AC side of things:

Here's a shot of the service entrance that goes to the 400 amp disconnect switch (left hand side, rear, behind the ladder). Then that goes to the generator transfer switch (box close to the disconnect- you can see the conduit between them). Then the transfer switch goes to the 4 200 amp breaker panels. You can see the tray where they connect.

Next shot shows the disconnect again. To the left of the disconnect is a 200 amp panel for things that are before the transfer switch. Only have a 45 KW generator, so the resistive electric backups for the heat pumps (10 KW each) are on that, as well as the 100 amp feed to the tractor garage currently under construction. You can also see the cover for the disconnect for the generator immediately to the right of the disconnect switch, and to the right of that is the transfer switch. You can see various penetrations going to the outside.

For the tractor garage, I ran a 15 amp light circuit and one 20 amp outlet from the generator backed up side. So in a power outage, I still have lights and one outlet.

Using 200 amp panels was an economic call. It was cheaper to buy the 200 amp Square-D panels with 12 breakers at Lowes for $200 than to buy the "right" size panels at an electrical supply house.

Key concept here: By putting a panel before the transfer switch for a generator, you can make some load decisions that let you use a generator that is less than the maximum load value for your house. You can also set up a shop with both before and after the generator circuits.

Pete

Good Lord Man! Your set up dwarfs the 1,600 amp service into my manufacturing Company!

 

[Iplayfarmer]

How's the house comming along?

Planted grass today. I'm hoping to get the porch railing cut out this week so DW can paint it. She'll have a few weeks since I'm vacationing over Memorial Day.

Here's a conceptual drawing of the porch railing...

 

[dcyrilc]

Planted grass today. I'm hoping to get the porch railing cut out this week so DW can paint it. She'll have a few weeks since I'm vacationing over Memorial Day.

Here's a conceptual drawing of the porch railing...

Should look good. Can't wait to see some pix after you get it done.

Curious what part of Idaho you're in. We were just over near Spokane for the weekend. Just got home tonight. Actually, we kinda traveled all over eastern Washington. Put about 800 miles on the motorhome.

 

[eepete]

Took my aluminum foil hat off today and got back to this thread... sorry for the delay.

A source for enclosures and the like I've used is:

HomeTech Solutions: Whole House Wiring Products, Automation & Security

Under "wiring products" -> "demarcation"

The Universal Network Interface Device (corning 3006) is good for twisted pair for telco and low voltage. You can buy more gas tubes and the like. Yell if you need more specific part numbers. The site has lots of other stuff too, I've just bought the protection stuff and enclosures from them.

On the coax for satellite, the signals on the satellite stuff are in the 1.5 to 2.5 GHz range. When you come into the house, you can run them through the little lightning protection blocks. You can get these at Radio Shack (America's Technology Store :confused2. All these do is give you a way to ground the other shield. That way if you get a lightning strike on the dish, the house probably won't burn down.

If you get the device that takes the 4 coaxes in from the HD dish and outputs 8 connections (made by Zinwell or something like that?) you can ground it too.

Progress looks good, the pourch design is nice too. Plumbers are my least favorite trade. Good ones are rare as hens teeth.

In the way to long post, I had a pix of some MT boxes. Here are the _other_ empty spools from the job :laughing:.

Pete

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Took my aluminum foil hat off today and got back to this thread... sorry for the delay.

A source for enclosures and the like I've used is:

HomeTech Solutions: Whole House Wiring Products, Automation & Security

Under "wiring products" -> "demarcation"

The Universal Network Interface Device (corning 3006) is good for twisted pair for telco and low voltage. You can buy more gas tubes and the like. Yell if you need more specific part numbers. The site has lots of other stuff too, I've just bought the protection stuff and enclosures from them.

On the coax for satellite, the signals on the satellite stuff are in the 1.5 to 2.5 GHz range. When you come into the house, you can run them through the little lightning protection blocks. You can get these at Radio Shack (America's Technology Store :confused2. All these do is give you a way to ground the other shield. That way if you get a lightning strike on the dish, the house probably won't burn down.

If you get the device that takes the 4 coaxes in from the HD dish and outputs 8 connections (made by Zinwell or something like that?) you can ground it too.

Progress looks good, the pourch design is nice too. Plumbers are my least favorite trade. Good ones are rare as hens teeth.

In the way to long post, I had a pix of some MT boxes. Here are the _other_ empty spools from the job :laughing:.

Pete

I have to thank you again, Pete, for your help on the network stuff. I ended up getting a simple outdoor cable box like this one. The phone stuff is already there. I just need a better way to get the antenna signal into the house. It currently circles the house almost a full turn before it gets to the TV. I'll have to look into that grounding block. Is it better to ground the line like that, or is grounding the antenna enough?

I'm planning to go through the wall via this box and then right to a signal amplifier. The plan for all my network right now involves a lot of loose wires hanging in the box. I don't see myself ever having more than a few TV's or computers, but I can see any combination of about 13 places where they may be placed. Rather than have all locations connected at the same time, I plan to carefully label the wires, and use my current 4 way video amplifier and 4 port ethernet switch. I'll just move wires around in the box whenever I move locations in my rooms. My punchdown block for the telephone will handle more connections than I could ever imagine; but it was cheap off e-bay, so I'm happy.

I have to put in a plug for the plumber that I found. He's pretty good. He seems to know his stuff really well, but he's very willing to work around my budget and schedule. Best of all he's in good communication with us.

 

[clemsonfor]

Here are pictures of the before and after of the joists. The first two pics are before shots, and the second two were taken tonight. It may not be perfect, but it's a whole lot better than it was. It will hold the house up. I have one more joist to do, but I have to wait for the plumber to remove all of the old line.

I still haven't done much with the wiring.

Wow hope you will address those tapped up splices while at it. At least put a junction box in. I would pull new romex wire and get the cloth stuff out as it is at least from the 60's and can be as old as the 40's. I have been slowly replacing all the old cloth romex in my house and putting in new 12/2 grounded romex.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

Wow hope you will address those tapped up splices while at it. At least put a junction box in. I would pull new romex wire and get the cloth stuff out as it is at least from the 60's and can be as old as the 40's. I have been slowly replacing all the old cloth romex in my house and putting in new 12/2 grounded romex.

Funny you mentioned that today. That's actually my project for this weekend. I have most of the electrical done for the basement, now I'm going to replace as much of the old stuff as I can.