("Toreador Song") - I absolutely love the house I live in, and that's no accident. It's taken me 10 years to get everything just the way I like it. Perfect wifi coverage, a server room with copper
and fiber-optic cabling running everywhere I need it, VR base stations,
hard-mounted into my ceiling. And of course, my epic DIY
air conditioning project that saved me like 20 grand. But then my kids asked,
very nicely I might add, if they could have their own rooms, instead of all sharing one giant one. So, here I am in my new house that has absolutely no
technology in it whatsoever. And this very '90s aesthetic. Let's talk about what
we're gonna be changing and how you guys can
actually maybe help me here, because I am a little out of my depth. But first I need some help
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during the meeting and block them. Get 25% off today using offer code Linus at the link down below. (upbeat music) Okay, I lied to you a little bit before there is technology in the house. It's just that, Breaker, this is Big Eagle, the (laughs). This thing is hilarious. The issue is just that, what passes for cutting
edge home technology has changed a little bit in
the last two or three decades. So, we've got a, whoa!
(radio broadcasting) Radio!
(radio broadcasting) Look at that. So, the first thing we're gonna change is to rip all of these off
the wall and patch over them. Actually, the first thing we
did was the opposite of that, ripping open a hole in the wall by removing this built-in speaker. A, to have a look at it and
see if it's still pretty decent and it's something we can reuse. And B, because the box that
comes in from the street is right on the other side of this wall. And we needed to use a fish stick to bring in fiber-optic internet. That's right, at least here anyway. The ISP will not come onsite and confirm fiber is
coming into the building until you have actually taken possession. So, that was one of the first
things I wanted to check because if I was going
from gigabit up and down fiber to DOCSIS or ADSL, that would have been a
pretty crummy downgrade. And I really wanted to know I could do it. Fortunately, I can. It's already going down into the basement, so we can just pop this out. With that very important
thing out of the way, we're ready to move on. So, obviously for my wife, things like swapping out
this wonderful blue carpet were very high priorities
and I'm with her on that. I do wanna do that, but the tech is where I'm
focusing 98% of my attention. Starting with things like this, built-in bookshelf slash media console that's here in the family room. Now, it's super nice. Really high-quality build, and my goodness, there's
so much power in it. We've got four outlets in
here, they've got two in here. The only small problem
is that it was designed for televisions that were
a slightly different size and shape than modern ones. I mean, this is cool. Pull up your TV and angle it
toward the kitchen if you want. The intention is that when the kids have
taken over the basement, mom and dad will still have somewhere to sit and watch a movie
and cuddle on the couch. So, we're gonna put a subwoofer in here with some kind of acoustically
transparent cloth. That'll also act as a passive intake. We're gonna have cooling fans, probably like four 140
millimeters over here. And then, anything that requires
cooling like game console or a PC, or whatever
else is gonna go in here, just rip out these drawers. What I wanna do, this is my perfect world. And hopefully the
modifications can be made is just rip out all of these shelves and put probably a 77 inch TV in here. And then, so that we can hopefully, mostly reuse the structure. I'll just do some kind of wall mount that has an arm coming off of it. And then maybe some bias
lighting behind the TV, so that it doesn't look like
it's sitting in a cavern for no apparent reason. One cool thing is that four
rooms in the house are already wired up for in-ceiling
or in-wall speakers. So, I'm definitely gonna wanna reuse that. And I'm just gonna use
the same Sonos Connect:Amp that I do at my current house. Plug these in and then I'll
probably run a few more of these to the upstairs. So that the kids can have
music in their bedrooms and stuff like that. Then obviously another
high priority for me was a computer room slash
office for me and my wife. That's gonna be here
for a couple of reasons, with the biggest one, probably being that we are directly
above the mechanical room. That's where my server rack is gonna go. So, I think probably in
this corner over here, we're gonna run a conduit, so that I can have a similar setup to what I have now with
fiber-optic cabling running between my
actual desk and monitor, and peripherals in the computer, which is in a separate
room for complete silence. And to keep temperatures
in this room under control, so you don't have the computer
outputting heat in here in the summer when you're gaming or whatever the case may be. One kind of controversial
changes as beautiful and ornate as it is, I
think we're going to rip out this built-in desk
slash storage unit here. Not because it's not really high quality, but it's just really not us. Now, let's head down to the basement. We can have a look at
that mechanical room. That's actually where I think you guys are gonna be able to help me and talk about some of the cool tech that's gonna go down there. Oh, shoot! Aw! There's no stairs here yet. For whatever reason the
previous owners decided not to put these stairs in. So, we're gonna have to
go use the other ones. Smartifying the built-in
heating and cooling systems in this house is going
to be a huge challenge. So, heating is handled in
floor with radiant water tubes. That's super cool. And actually there's no reason from like an efficiency standpoint to have fine granular control over something like this on your smartphone. It's basically set a temperature with it and forget about it. The problem is that this heating system is the only thing that has thermostats positioned around the house. There are 10 zones for
it, two in the basement, three on the main floor,
and five on the upper floor each with their own thermostat, which would be great because I
could just swap all these out with smart thermostats, then I can get some dampers
and then some smart actuators for the built-in AC, which is forced air. And then I could have
those smart thermostats communicate to both the
heating and the cooling, except these are pretty
much 1950s technology. They have only two wires running to them and they use an actual
mechanical mercury switch in order to turn them on and off. To my knowledge, there's
no smart thermostat that will run on two wires. One idea I had was taking
all of these brown guys here. So, these wires are the ones
that run to the thermostats with their two conductors. And just putting a simple
24 volt power supply right on the wall here. And actually only
powering those thermostats and then doing all the
communication with them via Z-Wave or Zigbee, and then having maybe Home Assistant tie the whole thing together. I'd have to get smart valves
for all of the different zones, here's the last two. And I'd have to find a thermostat that is willing to run with just power and only smart communication with the AC and with the boiler. But if you guys have any suggestions, man, please leave a comment because I am, I mean, I love technology and everything, but home automation is
something that I haven't touched and can be very overwhelming coming in with no experience whatsoever. We are probably going
to replace this furnace with a high efficiency boiler system. Not because the furnace isn't working and won't continue to work, but because it could actually
end up saving us money. So, this vent right here is
what takes the hot exhaust from both the furnace
and the water boilers, and just kicks it out of
the roof of the house. Well, because we're gonna be putting solar panels on the roof, we actually need a nice, thick conduit going all the way from here
in the mechanical room, up to the roof as part of that project. If we switched to a high
efficiency boiler system, we're only gonna need about
this much for the boiler, which would free up the
rest of that for the wiring that we need for solar panels on the roof. So, in the longer term, I think that's gonna work
out really well for us. The other thing it'll
do, is it'll allow me to run some kind of like
cooling system for this room, because I think the server
racks gonna go in this corner. And I'm gonna want a couple of things. One is you can actually see the water pipe for the irrigation system over here, I'm gonna want to triple that. So, I'm gonna wanna have two more pipes running through the walls,
one inlet and one outlet. So, that I can actually water cool some of the stuff in the server rack and then exchange the heat outside. That's right ladies and gentlemen,
whole home water cooling, it's coming. Get subscribed. (rock music) Terrible. This is another room that I'm gonna want your guys' advice on. I mean, I know what I like
in terms of watching movies and playing games, but what I don't know is
some of the best practices for building a theater room,
and this is going to be it. I'm gonna have conduit running along the bottom to a small stage here that is going to have like
cable management holes coming up through it
so that, you know, TV, if a friend brings over a
game console or something, you'll be able to plug in here. And then all of the AV equipment is gonna be over in the mechanical room, which is on the other side of this wall. I'm gonna have power on the wall in case we wanna wall mount the TV, power down there. Obviously, we're wanna run speaker wire for Dolby Atmos and all
that kind of cool stuff. Since the, I mean it's
an unfinished basement, so we have a perfect
opportunity to do that. But guys, if there's any
sort of guides on, you know, what to know before you
do a home theater room, I'm obviously more than open to it. From theater room, this
wall is gonna be closed in and then there's gonna be a double door. And that will take us
into, the land center. The idea here is that whether
it's my kids and their friends or whether it's our whole family, we can all sit and play a game together. And my kids really want me
to try Minecraft with them. And right now, as crazy as it sounds, we don't have enough
computers in the house to all play together. So, they use mine and my wife's, and then the one that
we built into that desk and in my kid's room. So, we're gonna do three desks along here, one, two, three. Two more along here and then I think we're
gonna wire in one more power and ethernet right here. This is gonna be kind
of like a short wall, like a half wall, kind of like that. And then if, you know, someone brought over
a laptop or something, we could have a total of
six people playing in here all at the same time. I'd love to hear suggestions for cool, like if we should do
some power on the wall and you're like cool, like
led lighting on the wall over, like, I don't know. I want this to be kind
of cool and land caving But the main purpose
is a couple of things, one having everyone in kind of one place when they're using
computers, and number two, having the stairs come down right behind with all the screens visible so that I can see what's on the screens when I walked downstairs
without any notice. You know, parent things. All this house turns making me thirsty. I'm just gonna pop in
here and get a drink. If only I brought a water bottle. lttstore.com. And finally, this is where my
VR gaming setup is gonna go. We're gonna do yet another console. We'll probably put like
a pretty modest TV here. And then there'll be
couches, that are like weigh the crap out here. Weigh the crap out here because
I want a VR gaming space. That's about as big as what
I have in my living room now for playing games like GORN. Having the couches and the TV is for a game called Takelings
House Party, super fun. And then this wall is actually
gonna, see you later wall. And we're gonna open this up. So, this is gonna be like a games table. We'll have games storage in
that closet, that's behind Andy. And then this is gonna be
relocated against this wall, which actually I think starts here. So, it's gonna be rotated 90 degrees. And, you know, that'll be where kids can get their snacks or whatever. So, it'll be right between the land center and the games table, and the VR space. Wireless access points. So, Rawkus generously
offered to consult with me on the best place to put them. I drafted some in, like
five or something like that, to make sure I've got coverage when I'm working on a
project in the garage. I want coverage outside. So, if we're on the patio
and all that kind of stuff, I think one of them's
gonna go in this hallway. Anyway, what's also in this hallway is the single control
for the air conditioner. So, we've got humidity as
well as temperature control. And this is something that I've gotten very used
to at our current place, with our mini splits. Being able to control the AC room by room, because A it's a comfort thing. Not everyone likes the
temperature the same, and B, it's a huge efficiency thing. If the kids are away
at their grandparents, I can turn off the air
conditioning in their room, close the door, and save a ton of money. So, I wanna figure out what we can do in terms of altering the
ducting with dampers, to get room by room control. And then, I wanna replace these. There's a GE switch that, actually this was really generous. The Hook Up, you guys can
check out his channel here. He's helped me with some
stuff already, super nice guy. Test it out for me. It's got a motion sensor
and a switch built into it. And apparently, they've report independently to Home Assistant, which is super cool because
it means that I can do things like presence detection. So, if nobody's in the basement, according to the motion sensors that are on all of my light switches, I could just turn off the AC. Another thing that's
gonna be really expensive is installing electric car
chargers in the garage. So, we wanna have a two
head one, just in case we change the minivan out
for something electric in the future. And that's gonna go in here. So, that big old thick cable, instead of running from my
electrical panel in my garage, which is where it wasn't the old house. To the garage is gonna have to
run from the mechanical room, which is way over on the
other side to the garage. Fortunately, we've got
all the charging we need for these electric cars already. See you later! Thanks to Megapro for
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I fucking wish they put title in the title instead of the first two seconds of the vid?
Linus needs to write his house off as a business expense so he makes a video, but he's also fishing for a lot of free shit; of which he will get.
Jesus, that is going to be one helluva nice house.
Hey Linus, with regards to the HVAC, check out the TADO ecosystem of smart thermostats. The thermostats can communicate with other thermostats so you can use one as a measurement device and one as a relay, etc. They won't power themselves over 24v, they use regular batteries, but they will do what you want. In fact, it would be super easy to install with the hardware you have. They are not readily available here in Canada, but are on most EU amazon sites. They are controlling my home in Edmonton where I have 10 zones of hot water heat. They also do things like geofencing and IFTTT as well if you want. Perfect fit for those of us that like to tinker.