Rewiring Costs

[biffvernon]

Cat 5 is a very small cat that can fit down mouse holes. Handy, eh?

 

[bournonite]

nEMESIS..... YOU MEAN THEY'VE FOUND SOMETHING YOU DONT KNOW ABOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[bournonite]

Um..

We rewired a very large house - ca. £2.5 million project cost - and cat 5 everywhere. Every cable had to be tested for interference, and in the end, the only way to make sure they passed was to keep them well away from anything electrical. OK to run them with electrics if they are just for telephone or very basic control - but anything computer driven, you'll have problems. My place is a mass of the stuff - the hub is in the kitchen, with the main conduit through the cellars to avoid any electrics - its bundled with camera and alarm cables, but nothing with a/c running through it. I can turn on the heating system from New York airport lounge, and check who is sitting on the downstairs bog at the same time... The guys that installed and tested the hub (we ran all the cabling ourselves) reckon that in the next 2 or 3 years it'll be obsolete and replaced by wireless - the only problem is that if you have neighbours (my drive is a mile long) they can intercept the wireless and tap into your system. Not sure what the answer is - I guess its a case of wait and see what the boffins come up with next - in the meantime, wire with cat5, but keep electrics away from it. Total cost - about £1500 for the hub and connection/ testing - with us doing the cabling (it costs peanuts - I have boxes of the stuff in the barn left - over).

Re: Electrical costs - re-wire - budget for 2/3 bed house, about £2000 - but as the guys say, if there is significant chasing and routing of cables through tight spots, it can climb. Use plenty of power points - 2 a room not enough! Should be about £20 a double socket...

Pete

 

[biffvernon]

Toys for big boys or period property? How about a lifestyle that is not geared to ever greater consumption of electricity and the stuff it drives?

 

[Nemesis]

I can honestly state, hand on heart, that I will never wish to sit in New York airport and turn on the heating, either.

And as for snooping on who is using the bog... I think that man needs help.

 

[biffvernon]

I'm not saying we should all live in glass boxes, nor that we should incorporate all that macho, category-five-future-proofing-cable gizmo stuff, such as mood dimmer systems and remote-controlled electric window blinds connected to your own satellite weather station. People think of that as being so very up to the minute, but of course it'll all go wrong in a year's time and date very quickly.

Read the whole article here.

 

[Nemesis]

You were reading the Torygraph?

Worrying.

Actually - Mr M is a good man. I understand he's putting his dosh where his mouth is and having designed and built some 'mass market housing' which hopefully is better than yer average Barrattbox.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1859325,00.html

http://www.kevinmccloud.co.uk/

 

[Gervase]

And as for snooping on who is using the bog... I think that man needs help

As does any chap who uses the thunderbox with his trouserings still hoisted. That's going to take more than a few pages of the Telegraph to sort out :?

 

[Nemesis]

Well I thnk I'd keep mine on and buttoned up if I thought someone was snooping on me...

But maybe they were the modified version with a modesty backflap.

Women had it easier. The crotchless knicker isn't a new invention - even Good Queen Vic wore 'em. I know as I've also worn 'em. A pair of Her Maj's finest, white linen with emboidered crest.

Draughty.


http://archive.theargus.co.uk/2002/1/5/165615.html

 

[NT]

> OK to run them with electrics if they are just for telephone or very basic control - but anything computer driven, you'll have problems.

Not really. Theres nothing difficult about rejecting such interference, despite the current crop of engineers that seem to think it impossible. Current network standard might have problems, but many other apps, including computer based ones, dont.

I would expect the next network standard to be more robust about this.


> Not sure what the answer is - I guess its a case of wait and see what the boffins come up with next - in the meantime, wire with cat5, but keep electrics away from it. Total cost - about £1500

I think this is much too much money and hassle for 98% of the population.

Bunging cat5 in your mains channels is otoh peanut priced, and equips the house to handle all sorts of future-probable equipment.


NT

 

[NT]

biffvernon:

> Toys for big boys or period property? How about a lifestyle that is
> not geared to ever greater consumption of electricity and the stuff
> it drives?


One of the main purposes of LV cabling is precisely this, to enable significant fuel savings. It wont be long before standard CH systems have a temp sensor in each room, all wired back to the control box, and heat is at times delivered on a per room basis to achieve 3 things:

1. avoid any rooms being heated to above set temp
2. use different timing schedules for different rooms
3. and maybe enable whole house fan cooling, eliminating ac use


NT

 

[Mark]

Please tell me where I can find people willing to pay £1500 for getting cat 5 put in their houses.

 

[biffvernon]

It wont be long before standard CH systems have a temp sensor in each room, all wired back to the control box, and heat is at times delivered on a per room basis to achieve 3 things:
1. avoid any rooms being heated to above set temp
2. use different timing schedules for different rooms
3. and maybe enable whole house fan cooling, eliminating ac use

I can't see much point in heating a room that you don't use. And when you do use a room then you are in it so don't need a sensor and wires and control boxes. You just light the fire and put another log on or twiddle the tap on the radiator if you've got central heating. Whole house fan cooling? Why not open the window, doh?

 

[Nemesis]

We have valve thingys on our rads. Very low tech but they work.

When it gets cold I put me cardi on. When it gets hot I take it off.

 

[NT]

It wont be long before standard CH systems have a temp sensor in each room, all wired back to the control box, and heat is at times delivered on a per room basis to achieve 3 things:
1. avoid any rooms being heated to above set temp
2. use different timing schedules for different rooms
3. and maybe enable whole house fan cooling, eliminating ac use

I can't see much point in heating a room that you don't use. And when you do use a room then you are in it so don't need a sensor and wires and control boxes. You just light the fire and put another log on or twiddle the tap on the radiator if you've got central heating.

I know some dont have CH, but the great majority of our population does. So making it more efficient and having it not heat bedrooms during the day would be a real energy saving step.

Whole house fan cooling? Why not open the window, doh?

Too often I've seen people open windows and doors when outdoor temp was above indoor, yet they insist its cooling the house. I cant understand such profound ignorance.

To cool the building in the day one fan ventilates it at night, the structure temperature drops, and cools the house through the next day. Its a major energy saving compared to ac.


NT

 

[Pford75]

I would also say that the whole debate about CAT5 & wireless technology is important to the fabric of old buildings.

Why chase great lumps out of a 250 year old wall for cabling, when wireless technology can avoid this. FWIW, we also have 802.11 plug adaptors which enable you to switch a plug on/off via the network...we use this to switch our garden lighting and fountain on/off.

Also, on the heating front - there's a much lower cost solution. We have a series of 'Honeywell' wireless thermostats...they run on batteries and use radio signals...they can be moved around the house and obviously take the temperature of the room you are in.

Why? Well firstly, when you have 68 radiators around your house, you want to save as much heating oil as possible. It's also a b*gger to keep switching rads individually.

In the event that I light a fire and the room heats up, the rads will switch off automatically. If I'm in a nice warm room and move to my office, I just take the thermostat with me and the heating clicks on. Not needed for a 2 up 2 down....but in a larger house can eliminate lots of trips back and forth to a central stat

 

[NT]

Motes may well overtake wired systems for heating control, and maybe some other apps, but thats not a certainty, and doesnt address power needs. But running everything battery powered vs putting £8 of cable in pre-existing wall channels is a no-brainer.

NT

 

[Lime]

I don't think that you can accurately predict what cable will be used for in the future.
However you can predict with almost absolute certainty that the cable will be in the wrong position and the wrong type for any unforeseen/future use.

 

[NT]

quote="Lime"

>I don't think that you can accurately predict what cable will be used for in the future.

Right, at a detailed level, but we do know there are many uses just waiting to become more popular, plus no doubt other apps not generally known today.


>However you can predict with almost absolute certainty that the cable will be in the wrong position

how will it be if you stuff £8's worth in every channel there is?


> and the wrong type for any unforeseen/future use.

Absolutely not. Almost every app you could do today would run just as well on 1920s cable as it will on modern cable. Technology moves on but marketing claims far more change than is reality.


NT

 

[Penners]

you can predict with almost absolute certainty that the cable will be in the wrong position and the wrong type for any unforeseen/future use.

Spot on, Lime!

It's a fundamental law of nature that - however much time you spend planning where all your electricity sockets should be - they will always end up behind the sofa.

It's one of the many facets of S*d's Law of the Perversity of Inanimate Objects