Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Time for a BIG update

Well its about time I updated our Blog. We have been very busy over the past two weekends. Going back to work was like going on a holiday. So what has been happening? First of all we would like to thank Dean our family sparky for spending the weekend wiring up the whole house. We now have wiring for all the down lights in all the downstairs rooms, more power points than clipsal – outside flood lights and sensors, more two way switches, stair lights, future cameras, data comms everywhere and coax cabling. So lets have a run through the pictures.

Here is the study with the black electrical cable we put in. The builder's is white - can't see any, thats because we only get 1 power point in each room. I can probably put 15 in if I wanted too. This room will have all the PC gear in it and I hate having all the plugs lying around. You can also see some Cat 5e which is throughout the house.
This is looking through the Rumpus room wall. All the speaker wire is in place. I have setup wiring for a 7.1 setup.
The house has Bradfords Soundscreen Plus R 3.0 insulation in between the floor. We hope that this reduces the noise from upstairs when all the M&Ms are running around. ;-)
Closer look at the rumpus room or Theatre to be. The purple cable is Cat 7. We have added in Bradfords Soundscreen Plus R2.0 in this wall. The builder added in Bradfords Soundscreen Plus R1.6 to other rooms like WC, bathroom and Ensuites.
All the wires run back to Bed 4 - the same as Perry and Bernadette's. Originally I wanted to run it all back under the stairs. Running them back to Bed 4 was a lot easier.
How much cable did we use? More than I thought. At a rough guess - over 250m of power cable and that again for the lights. 600m of Cat 5e, 300m Cat 7, 400m of RG6 Coax and 300m of speaker wire.
The taps have been changed to mixer taps.
The roof on the back has been finished.


The brick work is almost complete. Just the balcony to go and under some of the windows.
The chippies worked on Anzac day to finish the back wall. They have also straightened all the walls. They were also finishing that off the previous Saturday. Very messy process - wood everywhere. I spent an awfully long time installing extra insulation. We bought extra to do a few rooms and the builder left quite a few bags left over. I had to use them all up. Kept me busy all weekend. Oh it gets very itchy. Below is the Games room which we are going to put a desk with a spare PC.
Looking at the entrance to the ensuite and WIR. We changed this on the plan to give us more room in the WIR.
What is that??? Yep its plaster. Plaster is up. This is the view towards the stairs yesterday.


Ensuite insulated.
Ensuite plastered.
The plaster bulkhead were delivered on Saturday. The Plasterers (if that is how it is spelt) started on Monday and I could not believe how much was done. There was 6 blokes going crazy...
Looking from Bed 4 at Bed 3 and 2.
Master WIR with Vacuum outlet cutout.


Um, well I had a little accident late on Sunday. When I was drilling through a beam near the stairs, to add some speaker wire, I drilled right into the water pipe. Water everywhere. You sould of seen how fast I ran to the water meter!!! I was dreading ringing our SS to explain what happened. I rang first thing Monday morning and left a message. SS rang soon after from the house asking about what happened. The plaster guys were there putting up the ceiling plaster. SS was very calm and has had it repaired today. I expect that we will have to pay for the damage.

Dining room has been transformed.
Rumpus bulkhead. We didn't want to have one. There was plaster here on Monday and now it has been removed. The bulkhead has been made for where one is supposed to be but there is no frame. I spoke to the plaster guys who will fix it up.
If you think you should give the place a bit of a clean up - like we did. Forget it. The floor looks trashed after the plaster goes up.
View from dining towards the front door.
It is very hard to get good photos after work because it's almost dark. We hope that we will still be able to get in the house before we get locked out.

I'm looking forward to having a weekend. Oh boy almost midnight, better go to bed.




19 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi

Quote "The builder added in Bradfords Soundscreen Plus R1.6 to other rooms like WC, bathroom and Ensuites."

Is this a standard with PD or an upgrade ? if upgrade, how much does it cost ?

Thank you

Mike & Marita said...

This was an upgrade. We were charged for the soundscreen around those walls and also between the floors. We were also charged for the insulation for the external walls but we should have waited to see if this was required for the 5 star energy rating before adding this as a variation.

Toni said...

A BIG update.......how about a HUGE update. My goodness, what a transformation! Yes you've been very busy indeed, well done! You'll be right for plugs when you move in!
Plaster makes such a huge difference, really transforms the rooms into.... well rooms! You must be pleased to see so much progress. Enjoy your "break" while at work! How many mini M&M's will be running around upstairs? Toni

Awallace said...

Wow love the update, very nice. All coming along nicely. Lots of wiring, reminds me of our home theatre wiring.

It will look very different once the plaster is on.

Note: Ask the insulation guy, to leave any spare bags so u can install yourself around numerous internal walls, ie around pipes, toilets etc.

Anonymous said...

Hi Andy, The plaster is already on, only took 2 days (pictures down the bottom of this very long post). PD did leave around 15 bags of various insulation, Mike used all of it :-)

T&L said...

WoW - what an awesome task! I thought I was looking at the inside of a 'Data Centre' with all that cabling. I hope our builder leaves some bags of inslualation lying around. Thanks for posting all of the pics, you've done a great job.

Petal said...

Woah - I've never seen so many cables in one place!!! DH wondered if you were in IT, it's all so complex and state-of-the-art! And you'll have the cosiest house around with all that extra insulation...hope they leave us some extra! Really taking shape with the plastering started!

Carolyn Childs said...

I knew you'd been busy but MY GOODNESS !!!! I'm tired just looking at it all.
It looks like you've shoved insulation into every place you could possibly find. I'll be checking my coffee cup before I drink at your house !

Anonymous said...

For all those that are curious, I originally was a Telstra Tech and today is the start of my 13th year. Whooh, its a long time. I'm now a Product Service Specialist for IP Products. So when all the Mini M&Ms are running around the house we can all get networked together and have a real good Deathmatch on unreal tournament or maybe play a good stategy game like Warcraft....

Carolyn Childs said...

I'll leave you and your children to kill each other while Rita and I sit in the most insulated theatre room in Melbourne to watch a `chick flick'. Is that OK ?

Anonymous said...

Well that just wont do. I'm afraid that the rumpus room is secretly a battle command centre. I will require big screen and Big sound to take on the hords of evil enemies!!!

Anonymous said...

Excuse me, mini M&Ms??

Carolyn Childs said...

That's OK. Rita and I can operate Star Command and Mission Control.

Toni said...

You guys are very entertaining!

Anonymous said...

So you think to can run the star command centre. Hmmm, think you are up for the challenge. Trev my Star Commander will take my side and we will capture all the high tech remote control devices and use them against you. Be warned, young novices, you don't stand a chance...

Carolyn Childs said...

You underestimate the forces behind us led by Josh. And we have a professional remote stealer who operates from ground level. And the other two, well they're just sneaky !!

Carolyn Childs said...

And then there's the tall one (who looks quite like you) who we'll commission at a critical moment to take on all of you ! Look out !

Supreme Commanders who order pink garage doors don't scare me.

Back to the house - it's looking great !

CC

Anonymous said...

A nice bit of cabling. :)

I'm curious as to why you chose a mix of Cat5E and Cat7, rather than just going, say, for Cat6 throughout?

Did you do one run of each cable type to each room, with the Cat7 just for future proofing (in case somewhere in the future you need 10 gigabit ethernet between rooms!?), or was the Cat7 for a specific purpose?

Do you have any suggestions on the brand/model of RJ45 sockets & faceplates that are not too expensive?

In the end, what was the cost difference between the 5E and 7 cable?

Thanks in advance.

Mike & Marita said...

Hi Richard, Good questions. Why did I mix them up?

When we run the cables - say to a bedroom we would tie a Coax, 2 cat5e and a Cat 7 cable together to each point. Each bedroom has two points where ever a desk may go.

Cat5e is cheap whereas the Cat 7 is expensive. The Cat 7 will be for future use. Yes this is a bit of overkill, but this is the only opportunity to install the wiring throughout the house. It can't be done in the future.

The cable is Siemon Tera 1000MHZ.

All the cabling was purchased at trade prices rather that retail which saved the dollars due the family electrican. I think the Cat 7 is about 4 times the cost of std Cat5e.