****EVH's house building thread****

[Deleted member 651465]

Would be hilarious if he replied with:

"Arghhh! Bugger! "

Is the house finished and your just doing this over a few days or is there still work to be done??

Currently decorating, so it's not far from done.

As stated, we want to move in by October so I don't mind posting updates every week or so from now.. I think I would have been lynched if I'd done that from the beginning!

So where do all those cables go to control everything?

can you plug a bluray player into a cat6 socket at one side of the room and use it to play a movie in another room, is that what you mean by HDTV?

They all terminate in a 19" rack under the stairs.

Technically, yes, you can plug any HD source in to a socket (you'd have to use 2 CAT6 points) and have it appear anywhere in the house, you'd just have to change the patch leads.

Obviously, I want a HD matrix, so I can press a button and have the source routed anywhere but it's certainly possible doing it "manually". You'd need CAT5/6 -> HDMI baluns on either end of the run.

Ah ok awesome.

Laminate all around apart from kitchen and bathrooms then?

Tiled kitchen, bathrooms, hallway and utility. Carpets in the living room and bedrooms.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

so the matrix controls the routing of the source over the cat6?

how many outlets will you have in each room?

Yes, you don't need a matrix.. you could have it output on a HDMI distribution amp but then every room must watch the same source. A matrix allows multiple rooms to access multiple sources.

Each room has 2 double gang sockets (4 CAT6 per double) and a single gang socket (2 CAT6 per single), and a ceiling CAT6 for IR.

Love it

Just kinda skim read... any idea what the build cost?:

Yup, see: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=17186680&postcount=12

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Some more pictures of the plastering. At this point (July 2010), the house has been pink plastered in every room except the downstairs toilet and the hallway.. and that's because there is a python of cables in there!

As you can see the living room is taking shape. Note the 5.1 speaker points under the TV.

I can utilise the ceiling speakers for 7.1 if I wish, but we'll see how / if that need arises.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Next.. the meaty bit, how to get the cables through to the space under the stairs. Answer? A big drill.

As there are so many cables, I decided early on that one 4" hole wouldn't be big enough, so I drilled 2. Unfortunately, I don't have a working hole saw, so I drilled lots of 18mm holes and chiselled it out. I used old drainage pipe as the ducting and got the plasterer to fill in around my handy-work

You'll notice that the ducting was put in at an angle to give the CAT6 less of a radius to bend around. Again, the cables were wrapped to ensure no nasty paint or adhesive got on them during the build. The green WF100 coax was put through as a test.

The trusty cardboard box returns! I've sketched a line where I want the cables boxed in, in the downstairs toilet. There simply was no way around having some visual blemish, and I think it's a pretty good compromise.

I can't measure for a 19" rack until the stairs are in, so the cabling will be the last to be finished. I'm thinking 42 U, 600 x 600.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Upstairs is now almost dry (August 2010). I chose this as an opportunity to clear out the rooms with a good sweep.

First coat of Wickes matt emulsion (50% water) applied by the decorator. Actually surprised how well it covers the plaster. Still need about 3 coats before it's finished. We're going all white throughout the house, and using furniture to accent the rooms with colour. To be honest we may paint 1 wall a colour or paper a single wall in select rooms in the future (baby's room with pink wall etc) but it's all money.

I keep forgetting to explain the pictures.. they make sense to me! Here goes..

Master bedroom (showing position of wallmount TV)
Master bedroom (showing where the bed is going - sockets either side of the bed)
Master bathroom (showing pipes for towel rad)
Spare bedroom (showing position of TV)
Office (looking in to hallway)
Spare bedroom (showing rad)
Office (showing rad)
Landing
Master bathroom (obscured glazing)
Ensuite (showing sink pipes)

That's all the pictures I have until the underfloor heating is installed this week

 

[Deleted member 651465]

That is a lot of cabling!

Long term settling down place is it?

Well, the house is big enough and I don't have plans to sell.

It looks really good mate - however I do have a question.

Is the house just breeze blocks with plaster over the top? Surely that will be terrible for keeping the heat in?

Breeze block outer skin, cavity (gap), then a breeze block inner skin.

e.g. block -- gap -- block - plasterboard - plaster - paint

It's pretty standard practice in the UK building industry. You can fill the cavity with insulation but then you risk damp transfer if done wrong.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Have you not had insulation put within the cavity then? Most houses built within the last ten years will have insulated cavities and in most cases the building inspector will expect it, even though I do not think it is specifically called for in the building regs that insulation must be installed just that a minimum U-value must be achieved.

With insulation put into the cavity during the build you have very little chance of getting any damp transfer. The companies that pump insulation into your existing cavity have to be careful to get an even spread and not form any air pockets which will cause cold spots and the chance of a sweat within the cavity.

Yes, the insulation we have is the silver 3" boarded variety, laid in the cavity.

I was talking about retro-fit cavity insulation e.g. the stuff pumped in after construction.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

That's right.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Ok so before you move in complete may I suggest..

OcUK LAN party!

You've got the networking!

Good idea!

Ta,

Any idea roughly how much that sort of stuff would go for?

A matrix switch can vary, depending on the number of inputs/outputs. The Kramer switch (link) posted earlier in the thread can be had for £1500, the baluns are anywhere from £40 a pair to £99 a pair.. depending if you want IR and optical passthrough.

has bathroom got Network cable into it ? :O

No, but I have wired in a pair of ceiling speakers.

There's always wireless for those rooms

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Right guys, bit of an update..

Basically, what you can see here is the insulation boards being laid before the underfloor heating pipes go down. Was pretty straight forward, if not fiddly around the door openings. One tip, use a hoover to get up all the dust before you try and tape the joints.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Did you lay the piping yourself?

I helped. My brother is a plumber, so he's the one connecting it up and I just did the monkey work on the end of the coil. We had a CAD drawing from the supplier, as to where to lay the pipes for all the zones, so it wasn't that hard.

To explain a bit.. the insulation boards go down, then you tape them down with duct tape and cover the boards with polythene (to protect them from the acid in the screed). Once that is done the track is laid and the pipes are clipped in to the tracks, with anchors/staples pinning the pipe down between tracks.

The main picture shows the manifold where the 3 zones terminate. Kitchen (1), Hallway, toilet and utility (2) and Living room (3).

There is no piping laid under where the kitchen cupboards are going because it can cause them to "sweat".

 

[Deleted member 651465]

No idea how much it cost, I don't have access to my spreadsheet at the moment.

Just before the screed goes down, you need to do 1 final prep stage. To be honest I had no idea there was so much work involved, but it's best to do it right. Essentially, you want to put insulation against the walls so the heat from the flooring isn't lost to the walls when the heating is on.

At first it doesn't sound so bad, but when you realise that every inch of every room has to be water tight, so the screed doesn't bridge the gap to the outer walls/sub floor then it gets tiresome taping the insulation down. "If in doubt, tape it!" was the slogan

The guys who supplied the barrier tape and poured the screed were excellent. They came around the day before and made sure everything was in good order before starting. In fact they were showing me photos of their recent work on a digital camera.

They've just done the garages for Jeff Beck's motors, which I thought was pretty awesome.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Haven't you finished this yet ?

No . Had to wait a week for the screed to dry, hence the lack of pictures recently.

These pictures aren't the best because the light was fading fast when I took them, but you can see.. WE HAVE TEH FLOORZ.

Also looks much smoother in real-life, than these pictures make out. It's a self-levelling screed

 

[Deleted member 651465]

So, going back in time a bit.. this lot was happening while the inside was drying.

The canopy above the front door was constructed by the carpenter. Finished in the same roof tiles as the main house, and white PVC. The trench for the gas main was dug, and the land was cleaned and scraped back so we can begin prepping for the next stage, which is ultimately a new front wall and block paving.

Here's the house in it's current outside state, albeit it's been tidied since this picture was taken. Waiting for the front door to go in next.

You may also notice that I've taken the film off the PVC windows, and give them a quick clean.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

sweet! i wish i had the patience to do something like this. are you working at the same time as doing all this or have mostly got some men in to do it?

I work 9-5, but I usually go to the house every day for a few hours after work and all day on weekends if there is a job doing.

To be honest I've tried to do most jobs myself, but you can't afford to skimp when it comes to electrics and plumbing etc. I'm just lucky that I know people who are doing it on "mate's rates", and members of my family are tradesmen.

As mentioned earlier in the thread I did all the TV/Audio/Computer wiring because I did it in a previous job, so that saved a lot of money.

My advice for anyone looking to do similar is to just research everything and to take it as slow as you can afford to. It's not nice being stuck in all day trying to get a job done because someone is waiting on you to finish before they can start. If you can set timescales down on paper then you can plan trades to start and finish after another without too many problems.

Stairs going in this week, along with the skirtings and mouldings, so it should start coming together soon. The deadline is still October 27th

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Hi Chipperhead. Do you mind posting thumbnails, or links if you're going to post your own pictures?

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Firstly, let me apologise to everyone for the lack of updates.

I thought I'd lost my digital camera last week, but managed to find it on the weekend so I've been busy snapping the changes.

I'm new to the thread so bear with me while i catch up.

What hardware are you using to control / send the audio around the house ?

What HD video are you planning to distribute, Sky HD and Bluray i presume ? and i guess thats where the IR control comes in - to change the channels on the Sky HD box / Blurayplayer downstairs ?

Audio
All the audio will be sent around the house using Sonos Zoneplayers, connected to the ceiling speakers. The plan is to have them all housed under the stairs, and just keep various remotes lurking around for control. At first I'll buy 2, and slowly add one to each room as money permits.

The remote works on their own proprietary wi-fi called a mesh network, so I'm waiting to see if it will work with so many boxes (up to a max of 8 in the house) in such close proximity or if I will need the Sonos Zonebridge extenders in some of the further reaches of the house.

Devices can be connected to each Zoneplayer via an RCA input, so I'll have the possibility to daisy chain other devices to them and get them pumped around the house.


HD video
I want to be able to pump any HD source to any TV in the house. So far, I have the following list of kit..

• Humax Freesat HDR (replacing Sky+ HD)
• Sony PlayStation 3
• Mac Mini (media centre)

The plan is to add a dedicated AV amp (possibly dedicated Blu-Ray player) so the living room can process each source in 5.1, where the other rooms will run off the standard stereo from the TVs. 7.1 is a possibility if I can link the zone 2 from the AV amp to the ceiling speakers via the zoneplayer, as mentioned above.


IR Control
Essentially, each room has an IR receiver which will be linked back to a commander unit in the rack. From this commander unit, each device will be fitted with an IR transmitter (stick on sort) so the commands can be routed automatically, and without swapping cables.

I'll add pictures later

 

[Deleted member 651465]

@ MrLOL.. I know of better kit as I used to install it in a previous job, but honestly can't afford multi zone cloud amplifiers and soundlab DSPs

Anyway, as promised, some updates..

First job after the flooring was dry, was to trim off the excess foam insulation around the walls. Pretty self-explanatory, but nonetheless it had to be done. A sharp blade and 20 minutes later = success.

A quick tidy up later and the skirtings and stairs are ready to be fitted.

Pretty happy with the height of the cables coming in under the stairs. Was worried they'd be too tight to the bottom of the stairs, but it should be perfect for the rack. The twin and earth for the mains can be wired up now we know the final positioning of the stairs.

The duct with the pull chord and wood is for the underground BT line, and the other duct with the CAT6 is an emergency extension socket feeding a double socket by the front door (if BT decide they won't fit a master socket under the stairs) I have read they'll only fit an external faceplate on new builds, hence the backup plan. We shall see!

 

[Deleted member 651465]

For the electricians and network geeks amongst us..

First picture shows 1 of the 88 CAT6 modules fitted throughout the house. Those upstairs are fitted upside-down as the cable comes from the floor below but it's not really noticeable as it's the same for the whole 1st floor. Pretty standard cabling.. kept the sheath as close to the termination point as possible and kept the twisted pairs as tight as possible before punch down.

Second picture shows a finished CAT6 socket - blanked out to protect the competitor mention

Third picture just shows the mains board in the utility. Obviously not finished at that point.

Yes, there are 12 double sockets under the stairs, on their own ring main

At this point the IR sensors are connected to the ceiling cable and filler applied to the ceiling to ensure it's all nice and tidy before a final coat of paint.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

As you can see, the staircase was primed but has no hand rails at this point. We went for a "pencil round" architrave as I believe it's as close to minimal as we could get. Has a slight chamfered edge which keeps it from being too plain.. If that makes sense.

The upstairs pictures show the radiators now that they're hung. They're double width and should give us more than enough heat in the rooms. A family friend who supplied all the plumbing gear assured me that his calculations are good as I was not keen on massive rads "for the sake of it".