Pre-Wire Walk Through of Our New Smart Home

over the last seven years i've shown you a ton of different ways in which i made my existing home smart well in today's video i'm going to show you how i'm preparing to make our new home smart let's get started as you can see there's quite a bit more work to do but right now is the perfect opportunity to show you what i'm doing to the home before the walls are up so that you can see how i have made it smart now over the last few months we were able to purchase this luckily before the drywall is up so we did have the option to come in with the electrician add a few different items and then i was able to add a few on my own and so i'm going to show you all those things that are available i've watched a ton of different youtube videos about this topic so i'm going to show you from my perspective what is great to add and not add before the walls are up in your home let's start off by talking about lighting so they already had all the different items laid out on where they wanted it to be and we did give some recommendations on what we wanted here we wanted all these to match and line up so making sure that you're clear on what you want over here on the stairs they gave us the option to put in different little night lights that we could turn on but i think each one of those was about 250 so we went with the option of just adding an outlet which each outlet was an extra 150 bucks so that we could add a nightlight later now coming up here we have a little loft and a playroom and in this closet i thought oh this might be a place where we're going to be putting our nintendo switch controllers and different things so i had them add an outlet right in the closet so that we can then plug in items and they are out of the way now with each of the bedrooms that we had in this house they just had a standard light and we had the option to upgrade to a fan rated box as well as a basic fan i've now replaced every fan in our current home with that so i decided why not do it right from the beginning and get the fan rated box in there and the good news about that is it brings a 14 3 wire down here so that gives me a switch for the light on the fan and a switch for the fan itself so then i can make those switches smart and have full control of the room without needing to use a remote or anything like that which i'm really excited for now as we're going around here you'll see a bunch of different outlets and here i have some cat6 ethernet ports now each one of these that they added was 85 but it's nice that they were able to run all those cables before the installation or anything was in especially in the attic so that was super nice and then i came back and ended up adding one here for the loft where we can have the kids use a computer or whatever so i did wire each room with a cat6 ethernet cable for future if we have a computer or game consoles or whatever it is inside those rooms and coming in here into the loft um the first thing i want to show you is up here in the middle of the main room here and even up above our main living space there i added a wireless access point so this is where we have a cat6 cable going all the way down into the network room and then we'll be able to plug in a point where it's then going to broadcast internet to this rom so i could put a few of those throughout the house but the plan is to just have one in the basement and one up here so that everyone in this room will have quick access to the wi-fi now over here i plan to have a tv for the kids so is what they would do is they would run a outlet to where the tv would be mounted and then they have a smurf tube here that goes down so that you can easily have your hdmis and everything route from your entertainment center with your nintendo switch or your xbox all the way up to behind the tv now they also put an outlet here and then here is where we can run the smurf tube and here they're going to put a little outlet cover that has ethernet as well as a coaxial cable for tv so i like that we have all of those options right there and then i can hide all the cables in the wall if you just put a hole like this in a wall and feed an extension cable or a power cable through it that is actually not allowed you need to make sure that you have an outlet up here next to the box that is up to code so that's going to be perfect for adding our tv up here playing games and everything like that so up here in the attic you can see all the different cat6 cable that is going down over to the network room but one thing when running these you do want to make sure that you are running them away from the romex cable here because if you run them along there could be different interference so it would have been nice if they used a different route so when you're doing yours make sure you do that so here you can see i used a staple gun to put some staples up to get it a little further away from the electrical and there my run comes down and goes in just like that goes down and out so that will be easy to pull through and i have plenty of cable to use later and so here all the network cable comes to and it is running down all the way through the four now one thing i would have liked to add is another smurf tube that's going all the way from the attic down into the network room so that later i could come back and add more cat6 cables as i want but just the way this is laid out it was pretty difficult to add i might have some time to do it but once the electrical is in and you see the insulation you only have a matter of days before the drywall could pop up so the best time to do this is once the electrical is done and before the insulation is in now here you'll notice these other cables around the house so this is actually a cl3 cable i believe and this is for each window in the home so i had the electricians come through and i had them wire every single window in this house so that it can be compatible with the serena shades by lutron which then i have the option to add smart shades or blinds to each window so is how this works is we have the cable here i think it needs to go about half of the window and then have it come in on the left side of the window and then that is going to be routed all the way down into an electrical box down into the basement now i'm going to make an additional video about all the steps for wiring serena shades but i'll show you some more of what is going to be done down by the electrical panel so there we have one of these in every single window and i'm really excited about this because having smart shades has been one of my favorite things that a smart home can do now over here we do have these smaller windows i decided not to put them on there as they're so small and then we have quite a few windows and you can have 10 windows per panel so we'll have pretty much maxed out two panels already now next here we just have a typical thermostat i just wanted to know where those are because i will be putting on a smart thermostat so we will have a dual unit in this home so that would be kind of fun to play with now another thing i did check is whenever there was a light i made sure that uh if there was a three-way so if there's two light switches or three-way light switches that those were all in the right place so later down the road when i add smart switches to this i already know where everything is going to be and of course this is all new wiring so we have a nice neutral wire bundle back there in the back so these will all be compatible with smart switches all right let's head down to the kitchen and here we are in the kitchen doesn't look like much of a kitchen right now but it will so over here we have our stove and some cabinets we have an island with the sink and then here we will have our refrigerator with some cabinets as well now one thing that i've really wanted forever was led lighting underneath the cabinets so i did pay the extra to be able to do that let me show you how they ran that so over here we have that same type of cable uh that they ran the windows to so here's going to be one run of the led strips then that cable goes up and it goes over all the way down here where this is going to be where all of them are linked together and powered then we have the next strip that goes up and over and let's see it comes out there's a microwave right there it comes out right here so then they'll be able to tie that in and then we had the third cable that goes up all the way over and down and then here will be the third run that attaches the three different cabinet sections together with all the under cabinet led light strips so i'm very excited about that excited to make them smart so this is going to be the light switch that controls it there you can see it goes all the way up and all the way back coming down to here so right here this is going to be the light switch that is able to control that so one thing i can do is add a motion sensor switch right there to be able to automatically turn them on and off when we come into the kitchen or i can put a smart switch and a motion sensor somewhere in the room where those will automatically be turned on then we have all our candlelights up here and they will be adding some pendant lights over the island as well pretty excited about those now one more item i have added here in the kitchen all credit goes to mr bristow my dad is right here we have the cabinets that are going to the bottom of the cabinets right there but we ended up adding an outlet right inside the cabinets there you can see they marked it in the cabinets and is what my dad uses this for is the bottom cabinet right here he uses it as a little charging station so this is where we can easily plug in the ipads or we can plug in a charger for our phone so that they're not sitting on the counter all the time or something like that so i'm really excited about that can't wait to show you the final results on that but thanks dad super smart idea so that we can keep those devices out of the way and keep them charged the kids stay happy so that is the kitchen so again there's our low voltage for the shades there now here we have the back window i didn't actually ask them to put one here but they did so i need to find what to do there should i have a big shade that comes down and up so that it completely covers the window or is there another option where i have some vertical shades that i could put on that let me know in the comments if you have any ideas for that so then going into this room we have these giant windows and for privacy we have also added the smart shade electrical and i think they charged me 85 run for that as well now over here we have a fireplace and they again did an outlet as well as the smurf tube on the fireplace and that all runs down to here possibly we might possibly have some cabinets here so that will all be hidden one day but now we have the option to easily run that now the trick to getting a wire from down here to up there is to get a little string put some electrical tape on the end use a vacuum on one end and you can easily pull that through tie on your cable and then pull it through and i really like how big this smurf tube is that will be super easy to get a lot of cables through very easily so those are some of the things that we have added to the main floor now let's head in here into the laundry room one thing i'm really trying to decide maybe i'll come and do it is adding a second outlet down on the bottom possibly for a robot mop or vacuum having an outlet right there would be super nice and clean we also added a fan here in the laundry room to remove any moisture so pretty excited for that all right one thing i forgot to show you is over here when we enter in the garage i also added a ethernet cable back here for the possibility of adding a poe or power over ethernet wall control panel so putting a tablet on the wall it gets power from the ethernet cat6 cable and then when i'm leaving the home and going to the garage i can easily turn off all the lights or anything like that right from this panel so i haven't made a video about that there's quite a few out there which are pretty cool but i will hopefully be adding that as well now let's head into the bedroom all right so here in the bedroom one of the things i did was i mapped out where the bed was going to be and where our nightstands and everything was going to be and i actually had them move the outlet box over so that it wouldn't be wire strung all over the floor and such but i also had them add dual outlets behind the bed because i have a smartphone that i need to charge i have a google nest hub then i have a smart bed and i have a lamp so i need to be able to plug all those things in and having a dual outlet on each side was the best way to do that without having to add a power strip now i've also heard just add a power strip because that adds surge protection to your devices but i kind of like having just the four there again these will be wired and actually this is where i'd probably put blinds so far the other ones i'll put shades because those are able to fully lift up so that there is nothing in the way now over here we're planning to put a tv here i actually had to wire the outlet here for the tv and then again smurf tube going down to the bottom so that we can then put up any hdmi or whatever cables we need to do and here they put a coaxial and cat6 i ended up adding a second cat6 now a lot of the videos i've seen here about pre-wiring your home for a smart home they are adding two to three cables cat6 cables behind every tv now i would even say that's overkill in some ways but one of the things i did learn is that you can use the cat6 cable to feed audio for a sound system so i was like really interested in that i decided we're going to try that out for this room so here i'm excited that we do have those two ethernet cables i think that will come in handy now if you really want to be future proof i guess you can add a cat6a for video or add two of those for video but i would say sometimes less is more but also have you ever complained about wiring too many things i my brother brought that up i don't think that's possible so because we do have that extra cable i thought hey why don't we try out this cat6 audio system so what i've done here is i've also wired a full 5.1.2 sound system so we're going to have center speaker right here we're going to have our left speaker right over on the side of the tv our right speaker on the side of the tv and then coming around to the back here you can see that we have wired for a back right speaker and then we're wired for a back left and then down here i decided let's put the subwoofer under the bed why not so i've wired that as well i think i need to get an rca cable for that so uh we'll need to do that and then up here i also wired up some atmos speakers so i i saw this idea on a few of the other videos here on youtube about putting the cable back and forth so you can see it kind of going back and forth so that when i do eventually drill my holes in for those because i don't know what i'm going to put in that system they will be easy to find and i have a lot of extra cable if i decide to move it anywhere later down the road so that's kind of all that we've done here in the bedroom uh another thing i added a outlet in the closet there wasn't any in there and then oh look my tape measure now when doing things like this where i'm not actually installing it now one good idea is to get your tape measure which i just found and kind of show on video the tape where you have things versus the side of the wall versus the floor so you can easily reference it back and one of the things i also did was add those videos into a google photos album called pre-wire so i could then quickly reference those so i can see where everything is when i need it down the road so let me go ahead and take you out to the garage out here in the garage one of the main things is i wanted to add a camera so i ended up putting a poe or cat6 cable up there so that i can then connect a camera to there and look over the whole garage now while we were walking through added a few outlets in here but they also had the option to if i wanted a 15 amp outlet or if i wanted a 20 amp outlet so over here we decided to do a 20 amp um just in case if i'm using any power tools or compressors or fridge or anything like that that would be nice to have and then coming up to the front here now at the front i did decide to add a 240 volt 50 amp outlet here in case we ever do get a electric car don't have one yet but i may have one pre-ordered we'll see and uh so i decided to put that in now just because it's going to be way less due to that before all the walls are up and everything so i'm really glad that i did that now let's go ahead and walk around the house we added a few different can lights to the face of the home so that we can then easily turn those lights on planning to put some smart lights in there to uh add some color then next up here on every corner or eve of the house i ended up putting a poe cable for cameras so that i can have the whole house surrounded in cameras and then we also added outlets to the eaves so that i can then control those from a switch inside so that i can then easily turn on and off the christmas lights so i'll just put a smart light switch on that and the christmas lights can then automatically turn on and off so i actually did one on that eve one on this eve and uh one right by the porch so in case i have anything on the front of the lawn that needs to be plugged in it will be able to light up with that switch as well here on the back of the house you can see two more poe ports for cameras so one is able to see the backyard one is able to see the side yard then next i decided to add some different locations for floodlights so that we can light up the backyard for the kids so here we added one one here and one more here so i think that should be sufficient to light up the backyard and again more poe camera locations and here on the side of the house this is where the main coaxial comes in and then i also have cat6 going down to the network room so i guess some companies put the modem out here and then you could wire it in hopefully i can get the fiber wired all the way in the home when that happens but let's head down to the network room so then down here in the basement you can see where all the low voltage lines are coming through the cat6 coaxial as well as the shades and blinds then they come down here and they're strung up away from the electrical which is great to see and then all of this leads into the mechanical room so here we have the furnace and there we have all the electrical coming in to the panel and then next to the panel we have all our ethernet and coaxial coming into this patch panel not sure if there's enough spots there for all the networking that we have done here so i'll make some future videos on how i'm going to finish that up but then next to it this is where we have all of the window cables coming through so again i said lutron has 10 spots per each panel and just quick note about that lutron does not sell these you can't buy them on their website unless you call them first so that they can verify you're not going to wire these directly in to high voltage or you know 120 volts they there is a 12 volt panel and these are tied into the lutron panel which gives it the approp appropriate voltage so that we can then have the blinds and shades wired appropriately so that i no longer have to use batteries so then over here on the other side this is where we have some other network cables coming in i think i'm going to have my network rack right here so we'll have to patch those over to here but then this is where i have all of the wiring from the bedroom coming in for the sound system i'm going to have the receiver down here in everything so we don't need that box in the bedroom so that i can then tie this into my receiver and then we'll be able to have some awesome sound without having all the extra receiver and everything in the way and so that is how we have everything wired into the home i can't wait to get these all set up so there you go that is everything i have pre-wired in our new smart home to make sure this is the smartest house possible now a few things to mention um every time i wanted to add a new thing it was like oh that's another cost another cost so it is going to be a little costly it is a little bit cheaper to do it on your own but also time could get in the way so it might just be easier to pay them they're efficient they know what they're doing that worked really well another tip i have about this process is i actually use my insta 360 one x2 to go through and walk through the house and record all the wiring so that i can go back at any time and see that one thing i wish i would have done is kind of like walked right up against each wall so that i can have a 360 degree view of all the wires in the home and that's what is great about this camera so i do have that which is really cool and then again make lots of notes about where you put everything so i think i'm ready to order some shades once the drywall goes in that's going to be the next step very excited about that if you do have any further questions about this process please let me know in the comments below or recommendations i'm open for that and if you want to see the full build out of this home make sure you hit the subscribe button below thank you so much for watching see you on the next one

Channel: Tech With Brett

Views: 47,452

Keywords: Tech With Brett, Pre-Wired Smart Home, Low Voltage Wiring, Wired Serena Smart Shades, Wiring Under Cabinet Lighting, Wiring Cat 6 Cable in new home, New construction smart home, Building a smart home, Serena Shades Power Panel, Smart Home Wiring Tips, Pre-Wire Dolby Atmos Surround, Smart Home Walk-Through, Smart Home Network Room

Id: XTTKIekM-JU

Length: 23min 15sec (1395 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 03 2022