Home Automation Tips

Warning: Remember that electricity is very dangerous and will kill you in a heartbeat. Electricity can also start fires very easily, and fires can also kill you. The best way to get your home wired is by a certified professional who knows your local codes.

We have now a plan and we need to look at the design piece of our new Home Automation. The first step is to do an assessment by answering several questions:

• Wiring and Networking:
• What is the house status? (being built, being remodeled, old construction, new construction)


• The status will affect greatly the type of wiring we will select. We had a complete home remodeling and all the walls were open. We had the opportunity to install 1" orange cable tubing in every room, this allow pulling any type of cables within minutes. We have Cat6 cable, Fiber Optics, TV and audio/video cables.


• Existing construction may not offer the same flexibility and going wireless will become the solution.


• In old construction the quality of the power line is not high quality and will definitively impact transmission such as X10. Ask a certified electrical professional to help evaluating your existing wiring to make sure it's still meets 'code'. Don't be afraid to spend money on your electrical wiring, it will pay back later.


• For this project we will choose an existing old construction with up to local code wiring. The network will be wireless as well as security and monitoring. Z-Wave being too expensive, Home Automation will be based on Insteon and/or UPB equipment.
• Lighting
• Planning for this section is quite easy and interesting. We need to select for each room the type of switches we need and as we will implement security, monitoring and multimedia distribution we will use a control unit to manage all functions.
• Control Units - we recommend 2 different brands Cortexa Technology and HAI. The Cortexa is more IP network based while HAI is more versatile on the security part. For this project I would use HAI which offer two main lines: Lumina and Omni. The Lumina is more limited on the security side but it connects to existing security systems. The Omni offers a complete solution from lighting to security and fire system.The Omni IIe Pro will be my choice as it has the most features and won't limit our future ideas.
• Based on this control unit selection, the technology we will use UPB for lighting control. The cheaper X10 won't work very well in an old electrical wiring environment.
• Now let look at the need for each room to replace existing switches.
• Bedrooms - one switch and one or 2 side lamps
  The switch can be dimmer or non-dimmer, side lamps will need lamp modules dimmer or non-dimmer as well.
• Dining and Living rooms - one switch per room and may be some floor and table lamps with the same dimming status as for bedrooms.
• Play room - two high wattage switches and may be several floor and table lamps.
• Family room - three high wattage dimmer switches, several floor and table lamps and why not adding a nice LCD control panel to create lighting scenes.
• ...etc for each rooms including bathrooms
• Outdoor lights - replace existing switches with non dimmer high wattage ones plus two or three non-dimmers modules for Xmas lights as well.


• We have a list of material to purchase - but don't buy anything yet!
• Heating and cooling
• To plan this section we will base it on a 3 zones heating and cooling system. One for the main floor, one for the second floor and one for the basement.
• First we need to verify with a certified professional that the current heating cooling system can support multi-zoning and that the house and the furnace don't need too much modification.
• For this project all is needed is 6 motorized dampers, a 4 zone control panel for the furnace and 3 RC-90B thermostat as the furnace is a single stage. We can upgrade to RC-2000 with humidity control.
• Thermostats will need to be connected to the furnace control panel and to the HIA control unit. Some wiring to add here.
• The RC-90 and RC-2000 accept external temperature sensors. These sensors installed in bedroom will allow to adapt the floor temperature to the lowest or most important room - Master bedroom or baby's room for example - additional wiring will be required to these rooms.

Pierre Merlin owner of High Tech and More, LLC - We provide great deals on HomeAutomation including Home Security