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

[Deleted member 651465]

Bit of an update, the doors have almost been finished in the kitchen, and the majority of the appliances are installed (minus the induction hob), but I only had my phone on me and well, a video is better isn't it. Is in HD too

 

[Deleted member 651465]

What an accomplishment though. What about your feelings on the thing? Has it been difficult, put a strain on relationships, stressful, painful, or just great fun?

Been a LOT of hard. Most of it goes unnoticed and overlooked. I've lost track at the amount of times I've swept the house out, cleaned something up or done something that's needed doing again 2 days later (usually throwing rubbish out).

To date the most difficult part was planning. Where you want sockets, toilets, radiators etc before a brick is laid can drive you mentally insane. I've already noticed that I put the light switch on the wrong side of the front door

As for relationships.. it's been hard going over the house to do work with a newborn about, so I try to go over with a list of jobs to do.

Digging the trench for the phone line to enter underground was painful. Had to be 18 inches deep, and run for 20ft. Doesn't sound like much, but when the ground is so frozen it repels a pick axe then it suddenly turns from a job in to a punishment. I spent all day over the weekend and the last 2 nights after work (in the dark) with a car inspection lamp, digging like a madman out the front of the house. I’m sure some of the neighbours probably think I’m burying a body.

The kitchen looks good. I presumed that holes were cut for the hob before securing the work surface though...obviously not.

No, the worktop comes in a solid plank and you have to route it out.

It's a good idea, if the house sells to someone who is disabled or the occupants become disabled it is ready - will save the tax payers money in the long run so it's a no brainer really.

Not that i am the worlds biggest fan of building control but this one is a good common sense one.

The thing that's annoyed me with this, was it had to be on the front of the house. Originally, I thought we'd have a nice step in to the front and a ramp around the back. Talking to the inspector, he did say that we were lucky because all new builds now require solar panels or some form of green energy. This was around an £8000-£12000 expense when I looked in to it, so I'm glad that's not been forced on us or we'd be on stop now.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Some updates.

As you can see, we are fortunate to have a manhole cover outside the front door. As seen in earlier pictures, I'd already sunk a 50mm duct in to the foundations of the house (with a view to getting an underground phone service). Essentially, I wanted the line entering at Node 0, and having it come in upstairs wasn't going to work.

It's hard to appreciate how deep this trench is, but it's a good 12-18 inches deep all the way along. The trench has been partially filled so ****** don't steal my ducting! Tip: if you want it done quickly, hire a machine. I didn't and I'm sorry because it was back breaking in the freezing weather.

This may not make sense to anyone, but this is a shot of the duct that enters the house (currently covered with bubble wrap to protect the cable from the cold and damp weather). Due to Openreach's new policy, and how they won't pull the cable all the way inside the building anymore, we have to have an external NTE, so I'm using the duct I laid at the beginning of the build to connect the internal wiring directly to the NTE via a T piece.

The pull rope you can see here is from the duct that comes from the pavement. Both ducts do line up but I've pushed it to one side for the sake of the photograph.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Now, the good bit. Installing the rack.

I went for the biggest rack I could fit under the stairs as I knew anything smaller would look silly, and I'd run out of room and end up with 2, which wouldn't go down well. It's a 39U rack, 600x600mm. Came on a pallet

Almost had a disaster at this stage. When measuring for the maximum height of the rack, I took a measurement from the highest point, (the tallest step, 600mm from the wall) allowing for a tolerance of 25mm above. Unfortunately, I did not take the diagonal fascia of the staircase in to account!! This meant when the rack arrived, what should have been a simple "put wheels on, slide in to position" job, turned in to a "OMG IT DOESN'T FIT!".

Much swearing, head scratching and panic, and the solution was born: take the wheels off and hope that we could slide it under the fascia and in to position. Thankfully it all fits, and the door will open. I have to say I thought I'd dropped the ball on this one though

Sorry to sound stupid, but whats going through the piping, what cable?

The BT line comes from the road to the front of the house. At this point, there will be a T piece and it will come up and terminate in the form of a grey box on the outside of the house. My internal CAT6 will run out from Node 0 (out the duct that's sunk under the house), up the T piece and in to this grey box.

You can see the blue pull rope in the 4th rack picture, right at the far side. There's a pull rope and a CAT6 cable in that duct for the internal wiring. Basically where the master socket will terminate for the broadband and phones.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Some more updates.

Just had the phone line put in, as you can see from the pictures. They didn't install the box on the exterior of the house as I first thought, as a friend actually arrived to install the line. It's who you know

Although I say "line", there's actually 2 lines wired up, from 2 pairs within the one physical line that enters the building. At present, only 1 will be active, but it saves moving the rack in future if we want another line connected up. Top box is Line 1, lower is Line 2.

If you have eagle vision you may be able to spot 1 bundle of CAT6 has a set of red insulation tape, and the other has white tape. I've split the lower floor in to 1 bundle and the upper floor in another to make it easier to patch them later on. The blue cable is Van Damme speaker cable (with a black shielded subwoofer cable in there) and the green is the WF100 coax for the Sky, 4 feeds to the roof and 1 to each room.

The electrical earth (green & yellow) tape is just keeping it all tidy.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

looks good

why not go for PDUs in the rack rather than all the 3 pin sockets ?

To be honest it was because I only had a 600mm (deep) rack, and I didn't think I'd have the room, so wanted to offload that externally. I may add one in, if I find the sockets aren't working.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

What you Planning to mount in that rack?
just Switches or a CCTV dvr aswell?

Any looking very good wished i had the cash to do this, maybe in a couple of years.
Keep up the good work.

Everything really. Freesat box, PS3, AV Reciever, NAS, multiroom audio boxes, Mac Mini, patch panels, switches, routers.. And thats what I have right now. I'll probably end up with a smaller rack adjacent to this one, if the list continues to grow!

Spent today unbundling the cable and beginning to patch it up.

If you are wondering WTF is happening on the right hand side of this patch panel. basically.. Line 1 will be patched on port 9, it's then jumpered to 10,11,12 essentially spanning the line across 4 ports. Same with line 2, except that comes in on port 13 and spans 14,15,16. What this means is, you can patch any 1 of the 4 ports (per line), to anywhere in the house for use as a telephone socket just by moving the patch cable around. On the other end you simply connect a RJ45-> BT adaptor. Instant phone socket.

You can jumper as many ports as you want, but you will run in to REN problems if you have more than 4 phones on 1 line.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

so you haven't told me, whats going in the rack? Are you going to put your DroboPro in there, you can mount these in racks which would be awesome if connected to a server to go with a switch/hub for all those darn CAT6 cables

Everything. See post 276.

Yes, the DroboPro is the NAS which will be connected to the Mac Mini, acting as my server. As for switch, I've picked up a HP Procurve 1810-24.

Good thread, kudos for doing it and especially taking photos all the way through. I Just bought a 1930s semi which Im doing some work on, so its good to see ideas .

There are some things I do find strange, especially the multiple three pin sockets in the comms cab? I would rather fit a surge protection strip, then you have an easy option of fitting a beefy UPS in the future if needed.

Also I dont think I would have run Cat6 (and do you really need so many?), to my mind cat5e would suit most situations?

I will be running some cat5e soon around my place and im genuinely interested in what you intend to use all your cat6 cables for.

In hindsight, yes, I probably should have gone for a commando socket with a surge protector in the rack. I suppose it's not too late to remove the sockets and put that in. I'll have to see how I get on wiring the rack before I go yanking them off

As for all the CAT 6. In essence, I wanted to spread out the sockets and have uniform coverage, so instead of putting x number where I want a TV, PC etc now, I just mirrored them around the rooms to allow for future expansion. The kitchen and living room pretty much have 4 at the top, 2 in the middle, 2 at the bottom end, then the same opposite.

The bedrooms all have 10 network ports (+1 in the ceilings for IR), 4 where a TV is going, and 4 one side of the bed, and 2 on the other side of the bed. Don't forget, 2 of the network ports are going to be used to carry HD video, 1 for a computer which leaves 7 for various other things. I'll be doing a lot of USB over CAT6 too, so I can plug my phone in next to the bed and have it sync/charge without the need for a PC.

Plus, the cable is cheap and I'll only get to do it once. Oh, and you can claim the VAT back on it!!

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Fair comments, what are the cost implications of the usb over cat6 baluns? would they function the same over cat5e? I dont know a lot about them, do they support full speed? usb3.0? attenuation limit? other protocols supported (i know of HDMI but know its fairly expensive)

I havent looked at pricing but did you go for cat6 or cat6a?

I like the idea of sending hdtv to every room from one source, have you thought about things like IR lag and multi-room usage? - could be an interesting system.

Yes, the baluns work over a pair of network cables, doesn't really matter if it's Cat5 or Cat6 (as that's just a standard anyway).

You can get USB 2.0 baluns and USB 1.1 baluns. Depends how much you want to spend. I've seen 1.1 baluns go for £15 and 2.0 ones go for £300. I'm still shopping around for those (link). The twisted pairs carries the USB signal, and although a lot of adaptors are rated at 50m, I've had practical experience sending that signal over 50m in commercial environments.

The HDMI matrix switcher I want is a Kramer VS-66H (link). Plug in 6 sources, connect HDMI to CAT6 baluns, route to room and plug in a CAT6 to HDMI balun on the other end. Instant multiroom video. The difficulty comes if you have displays of varying resolution (720p vs. 1080p).

I haven't heard of people experiencing IR lag with the system I've put in, but as always.. I reserve judgement until I have tested it myself

If you are whacking all that in to the rack I'm guessing you have some sound proofing solution for the massive amount of "hum" you will get?

That's why it's in the hallway, and not a spare bedroom . I do still have acoustic insulation if worst comes to worst.

The plan is to enclose it within a hidden under-stairs cupboard with push to open doors, but that's a future project.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Thanks for the response

Hmm for me it would have to be usb 2.0 but also for me £300pu is prohibitive, 50m is reasonable and im thinking should suit most homes.

That sure is an expensive piece of kit (hdmi switch), does it do anything cleverer than just split the signal? im guessing it does, please divulge

With the 720p/1080p issue surely the 720p kit will just dither to 1080i?

Im intrigued to know what this matrix switch is capable of.

A HDMI distribution amp displays 1 source at every screen (the kind cinemas have to display show times). To change the source in 1 room means turning it over in every other room.. a BIG problem if you have children, I'm sure you'll see! A HDMI matrix amp sends multiple sources to multiple screens, so every room can access every source independent of each other.

As far as the 720/1080 thing goes.. if you have a 720p display, then it can cause problems on the 1080p displays because of the way HDMI works. Essentially, the HDMI matrix will see the 720p display and because all the sources need to communicate with all the screens, at all times, and share encryption keys, it'll downscale the signal to the lowest common denominator.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Only really decided to read this thread recently. Never really noticed it before.

Absolutely amazing stuff, I would love to do something like this with enough time and money one day. I'd have to muster up the inhuman amount of effort required first too

Well done to EVH, epic job and looks like it is doing really nicely!

It's like OcUK's own grand designs

If I ever see Kevin McLoud snooping around here I'll chin him!

EVH, if you could get away with a 4X4 matrix these work out much cheaper, I picked one up that outputs over cat5e/cat6 including baluns for £300.

Out of interest, where'd you get your matrix? I need 6 inputs, 8 if I want expansion, but I haven't found many places that sell them outside of the usual couple of etailers and even then they are imported from the US which I don't fancy.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

2001: A Space Odyssey.. anyone? It'll take over the house!!

I do need a name for the server. HAL9000 it is!

 

[Deleted member 651465]

I'm getting update withdrawal... *shakes* Everytime this thread appears in my User CP I get all excited that you've posted something new.

Appreciated it's Christmas etc.. but whenever you're ready mate.

Do you realise how long it takes to untangle and terminate 88 CAT6 cables?

I'll post updates later as the kitchen is now done (mostly). Just the professional tap to fit.

What are you going to do when one of those cables develops a fault ?

Cry? In seriousness, I'll be testing them after I've punched them down, so if something happens in the future it shouldn't be that hard to trace it.

It doesnt take very long at all to block build, getting to the point where you have the groundworks in place is the lengthy part in the UK. Our planning sucks, our land values suck. Its a nightmare

We had to wait 6 months for planning, and in that time we considered timber frame. It's a bigger cost upfront, requires a lot more planning but it goes up quicker, but then you need carpenters to put it up so the estimated costs were around the same as block.. and so we went block.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

As promised, some more updates.

I'm posting more full size images, instead of thumbnails because I find people don't click thumbnails

A few things I'll point out, that may not be obvious.

The sink is missing a tap, the plinth has been fitted but dislodged (so I can clean under the units), the thin drawer next to the cooker is a spice rack and the worktop has been oiled since the last round of pictures.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Some updates regarding the utility room.

Some minor electrics to do here, such as wiring the pump in for the underfloor heating (currently plugged in to the standard socket, just so we can run it), and again, the tap needs to go on the sink.

The big gap under the boiler is for a washing machine and tumble drier.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Also had a good go at wiring the rack today. Almost had to call it off due to the snow, but thankfully it held out long enough to get a bit done.

As we only have 6 IR sensors in the house, I didn't need to do much to finish the top patch panel. That explains why ports 7 and 8 are not used.

Ports 1 - 6 are for IR, ports 9 - 16 are analogue phone extensions.

Tip. If you are ever doing any form of wiring get yourself a basic tester. It will pay for itself in minutes, and will save you hours of frustration later on when it comes to fitting all the equipment.

Using the correct colour code is vital if you want the cabling to actually work. I found that placing the cable on the port "number" was a good guide for working out how much cable could be untwisted before punching down. You don't want too much, but at the same time, I found any shorter and it would cause the cable to pull when tidied up and zip tied.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Can go either way. Plug the other hole up.

As its been said before, what an EPIC build. Takes some guts to do a project like this let alone with a baby due / born.

Full credit to you! Hope you've had a very happy christmas and many happy years living there!

Epic epic techy porn, I like

Thanks! Baby is doing well. Hope to have more pictures soon. A video walkthrough if it pleases Tunney.

yeah, it it's what feels natural, unless they're both leftys?
meh, minor detail when looking at the rest of the show!

The draining side of the sink is on the right because it's directly above the dishwasher. The thinking was, rinse the plates then put them in the dishwasher.. seemed natural? I dunno, won't be doing much washing up myself!

EVH, this is one of the best "my house build logs" I have ever saw. keep up the good work and keep the images coming!

Thanks. Had a bit of a delay getting the tech together because of Christmas and the bad weather slowing down deliveries.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

I hope so, but belive it when I see it. Self build is a lot cheaper or should I say you get a lot more for your money and of course it's how you want it to be.

The best part about a new build is claiming the VAT back. I've got a bucket full of receipts I intend on claiming, so it should take the edge off the final total and go toward some luxury items.

Sorry EVH I'm sure you posted it or said you where but I can find it. Any chance of a diagram of your electrical/entertainment system if you have one. It's very confusing.

Sure, I'll draw something up soon and get back to you on that. Most of the technology is pretty straight forward but I'll try to cover every aspect for anyone looking to do similar.

^ Amen to that. Surely you can't still be wiring cat 5 sockets EVH? I saw you logged into Steam the other day, slacking!

Believe it or not yes! I had to rewire a load because Id left too much slack and not only did it look awful but there didn't really need to be as much slack so I cut them off and started again. As for the updates. I haven't forgotten about the thread.. I know the updates seem to have slowed recently but with Christmas things have been so sporadic. I do have some updates though and hope to have pictures tomorrow.

Recent things you can expect..

• Changed the sockets under the stairs for a single 16a commando socket
• The doors are on and in the process of getting painted
• Loft insulated to 400mm
• Bath and freestanding tap fitted
• Professional tap in kitchen fitted
• 3 zone underfoor heating keypads configured and live
• Carpets ordered
• General tidy up

 

[Deleted member 651465]

Pics.

I like to think I take criticism on board, so with that in mind I changed all the sockets for a 16A commando socket. This allows me to have a surge protector in the rack. Needs a quick coat of paint to cover the filler.

Basic panel doors with chrome knob. I am sick of the 6 panel variety, so we went with a basic 2 panel jobbie. Still waiting to be glossed.

Freestanding tap now plumbed in with the main bath. Just waiting for a mirror to be cut in work and this room is complete!

Really happy with how it turned out in here, the floor has been freshly moped, hence why it looks darker.

Professional tap in, just need a blanking cap for the front of the sink.

Excuse the mess. All the crap is in the kitchen so the rooms that need to be carpeted are free.

The Samsung american fridge freezer wheeled in, ready for plumbing. It actually goes back further than the picture. Took four of us to lift it in to the house. Bought at Best Buy with 10% cashback (along with the other appliances)

Utility room complete. Just needs a splashback above the sink and the pipes need glossing. We went for basic Indesit appliances, with A+ energy ratings. Washer on the left, drier on the right. They stick out proud of the worktop about 20mm.

Cleaned the living room out, ready for the carpets on Friday. Suprising at the amount of stuff that was in that room.

 

[Deleted member 651465]

no integrated washer and dryer

Also, those pro taps are nice to look at but become a real ball ache when you have to use them all the time in a normal kitchen environment

Chose not to have the appliances integrated to save on the cost of the cupboards in the utility.

Is that a TV wallmount I spy there? if so, is that not WAY too high?

No. The TV sits 3/4 lower than the centre of the bracket