# House build, cabling questions



## scottboarder (Dec 7, 2010)

Hi
I am having a house built, electrical rough ins due soon.
I have 50" plasma which will be wall mounted with a face plate behind hosting 1x cat5e, 4x female HDMI ports, power and a lower face place with the other end of the HDMI ports, cat5e etc... conduit through the wall connecting them. Is there anything im missing?

Also the floors are hardwood floors. Does anyone have a recommendation on how to run speaker wire for this? I intend to have floor standing speakers. 

See plan attached
Any recommendations/advice appreciated.


----------



## eugovector (Sep 4, 2006)

If the house is being built, then you get a chance that most of us don't: to get it right the first time. Wiring your house for proper AV will not only make your life easier, but will also increase the appeal of your home when it comes time to resell.

Have everything run in wall before the sheetrock goes up.

First, the specific location you're asking about. Because you're inquiring about running speaker wire, I've assuming that you're going to have a standard 5.1 set with a TV, AVR, and sub. The AVR will be sitting below the TV?

In that scenario, your AV will do the signal switching, so you only need a single HDMI cable to the TV (especially if you are using the Audio Return channel of the HDMI cable to send sound back from the TV to the AVR when using built in tuners or media streaming). If you're a belt and suspenders guy, do 2 HDMI 1.4 w/ ethernet cables, 2 cat5 (make sure there is an adjacent CAT5 connection to provide networking to your central locations, see below), and a single Co-ax for OTA.

Run speaker wire (14AWG based on size of room) inwall from the central location under your TV to your speaker locations. From the layout of the room (I'm assuming the furniture is moving), you don't have a lot of good locations for side/back surround speakers. I'd probably go with in-ceiling speakers rather than having speakers on stands in the walkway. Don't forget your sub. If that's going to be at the front of the room, you won't need an inwall cable, but if it's gong to be in the back corner by your deck, you will.

Beyond you AV, make sure the entire house has CAT5 run from livingrooms, bedroom, and even the kitchen (multiple locations in each room), to a central location, often a closet. I like the top shelf in a laundry closet. Get power up there as well. Now you have one central location where you can place a router, media server, or digital phone line and feed whatever other locations you need. Wireless will simply not be good enough as the quality and quantity of digital services increases.

Will you have common area upstairs as well?


----------



## nholmes1 (Oct 7, 2010)

Honestly these days I would just recommend running a 2" conduit between the upper and lower plates as it is the only future proof option. I would also recommend running 2 cat cables as you could use it for a variety of options such as baluns, IR, network etc...

And as moonfly said, run cat5/6 everywhere, its cheap enough and so many things need network that it makes sense to do it now.


----------



## scottboarder (Dec 7, 2010)

ok so I will have cat5e and power behind the TV, and then a conduit for anything else such as component, HDMI etc...
I will be running Telus optik to the lower faceplate so I dont need OTA to the TV. 
There will be a router/switch in the garage which is below the kitchen and bedroom. From there a star config of cat5e will be run to each room. 
My main concern is the speakers.
I would prefer floor standing, not a big fan of ceiling speakers. so if I can two rear floor standing surround speakers, how can I run wire to them? I dont having a hole in the hardwood floor. I guess the left rear I could run under the sofa and the right rear under the baseboard? (although there will probably be a baseboard heater by this window)

Thanks for the advice


----------



## scottboarder (Dec 7, 2010)

ok here's a revised plan, any further recommendations?

Now directly underneath this room we have an office, is it possible to split the rear speak cable down to provide in ceiling speakers for the office also or is it best to run a new line from the AV to the office? 
lastly do you recommend any in ceiling speakers in the $80 range (ea)


----------



## nholmes1 (Oct 7, 2010)

That room is tough, if you are not comfortable with floor boxes for the speaker wires I see no way of effectively putting in floor standing speakers. Unless you are big into multi-channel music I don't think you will get much of an advantage with floor standing speakers for rears anyways. You could run 4 conductor wire for the rears and than split that off to the for the office below, they would still need to be on separate channels of the AVR though.

Whats the middle speaker connection for? Sub or Center? If sub I would try to make it more center on the tv location.


----------



## scottboarder (Dec 7, 2010)

yeah so im swaying towards in-ceiling speakers due to the shape of the room.
the far right corner speaker would be sub. I didn't think about centre speaker. Is there a particular height the centre speaker is recommended to be located?


----------



## nholmes1 (Oct 7, 2010)

Sorry I meant if center it needs to be as close as possible to center of the screen, if you don't want in-wall for center you have option of either a center stand or a wall mount above the flat panel.

The sub you will be using is active or passive? If active then you need an RCA connection which can be accomplished by running coax for that connection.


----------



## scottboarder (Dec 7, 2010)

I dont actually have the amp or speakers yet, still planning that. Is there a preference for sub? I assume if passive I need a power point for sub?

Its a party wall so I cant have in wall speakers on that wall. 
I guess for the centre speaker I can run the cable through the conduit behind the TV?


----------



## nholmes1 (Oct 7, 2010)

Yeah you could run the speaker wire for the center to the tv location, but be careful about how close to the electrical wires you run the wire as it could pickup interference that way.

If using a passive sub you would run speaker wire and need a separate amplifier just for the sub. If active you would need an electrical outlet near the sub location.


----------

