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| | Structured Wiring Overview:
Every home has some structured wiring. If there’s a wire running from your TV to the cable connection outside, you’ve got at least a minimum amount of structured wiring. That may have been adequate years ago but it isn’t anymore. Structured wiring refers to the wiring infrastructure in a home that supports the electronic devices in that home. Such devices may be TV’s, computers, music systems, a home theater, telephones, the security system, touchscreens, lighting controls, or even surveillance cameras.
Let’s digress for a moment. What about wireless technology? Isn’t it true that everything is going wireless so we won’t even need structured wiring? Wireless can indeed be a wonderful way for devices to talk to each other. Will the day come to pass where we don’t need wires? It could happen but it’s unlikely and it definitely won’t be soon –if it happens at all. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first one is limited bandwidth. There are a finite number of different signals that can be transmitted through a given space. There isn’t enough wireless spectrum available for every device in your home to have its own exclusive wireless frequency. Secondly, there is the problem of interference. Devices like microwave ovens and cordless phones can interfere with wireless transmissions. Things like ductwork, plumbing, and walls interfere also. Additionally, wireless signals are less secure than hardwired transmissions. Suffice it to say that you are going to have to run a bunch of wires in that house of yours and there’s no getting around it!
OK, so we’ve agreed that we’ve got to wire the house but what kind of wires and how many? The answer to this question will depend on desired functionality but it’s always smart to wire for anything you or the next homeowner may want now, or in the future. A good assortment would be to wire for phone, data (computers), TV, music, and security. Then, to “future-proof” your installation, run a series of flexible conduits to critical locations in the home and leave them empty for now. This allows for any type of wire that you may want to run in the future. We usually run conduits from the head end (the head end is where all of the home’s wiring originates and is usually in the mechanical room) to the home theater, the home office, the media head end (in the family room for example), the attic, and any other location that has a media head end. By the way, a media head end typically refers to a location that has several pieces of audio and video equipment. For example, if you have a TV in the family room with a surround receiver, and a DVD player; that’s a media head end.
What Types of Wiring should you install?
For phone and computer, we always use Category5e wire (called “Cat5e”). Cat5e wire is a Standard used for computer networking and will carry data speeds of 1 Gigabit per second. We already wire many of our networks to utilize this full rate of speed so it’s definitely not “overkill.” What about phones? Do they need Cat5e wire? No, they usually don’t but the reason we always wire phone with the same wire is so that the phone jacks can become computer jacks and vice versa. We wire all of our phone and computer jacks to accept either a computer or phone plug. That way, you simply have an even more versatile wiring system in your home. Each phone or computer jack can easily be switched over to whatever is needed in that spot.
Wiring for Cable & Satellite TV
For TV, we run RG6QS which is a coaxial, shielded cable. RG6 is the designation for the cable and QS refers to the quad shielding that’s beneath the cables insulation. There is also such a thing as dual shield but we recommend quad shield since it rejects interference better and has slightly less signal loss (than dual shield). RG6QS can be run for both cable and satellite TV signals; it can also be run to your roof antenna. When wires are run outdoors (for example, to your satellite dish), we use what’s called a “flooded” cable. This means that the cable is specially-treated so that it doesn’t deteriorate when exposed to the elements.
Smart Wiring Techniques
Before we move on to the music system wiring, let’s talk about “star topology”. What on earth is that? Star topology refers to the way we run wires in your home. The two main ways to run wire are using the “daisy chain” technique and using “star topology” which is also known as “home run” wiring. In the old days (and, sadly, we still see it today in some homes), phone and cable jacks were daisy chained. This means that the phone wire came from the source (called the demarc) and went to the first phone jack. From there it went to power the third jack, then to the fourth jack, and so forth. The problem with using a daisy chain is that if there is any kind of break in the wire, it effectively “kills” all of the jacks that are after the break. If the break occurs after the first jack, then all of your phone jacks, except for one, are out of commission. What if, instead, we used star topology to wire our jacks? We have a wire coming from the source that goes to the first jack; that’s it for that wire. Now we have a second wire coming from the source again and going to the second jack, and so on. Each jack has its own line that takes it directly to the source. If a wire gets compromised, you only lose one jack! It’s also much easier to troubleshoot a problem with star topology. Unfortunately, there are still some companies that wire using the daisy chain method. We wire all of our phone, data, cable, and satellite using exclusively star topology.
Wiring for Music
For music, you’re going to need speaker wire and control wire. Cat5e is usually well suited for the task of control wire while 16 or 14 gauge stranded copper wire is usually used for the speaker runs. Once again, only star topology should be used for music wiring. Wire gauges refer to the thickness (cross-sectional area) of the conductor. A smaller gauge number is actually a thicker wire. On shorter wire runs to speakers, 16 gauge is fine. If you’re going to go over 100’, I’d recommend increasing to 14 gauge wire. To each room, we typically run 16/4 or 14/4. The “4” refers to the number of conductors. Since we’re wiring stereo speakers, we need two wires for each speaker (channel) for a total of 4 wires. We want to have a music control keypad in each zone so we run the 14/4 along with a Cat5e from the head end (the head end is where all the music source components are located such as amplifier, tuner, etc.) to the keypad location. Then we run a 16/2 from the keypad location to each loudspeaker. In some homes, we’ll have a touchscreen to control the music as well as many other home functions such as security, lighting, video, etc. In those cases, we run extra wires to accommodate the additional functionality.
Wiring for High Definition TV
Now that we are in an era of high definition, it’s worth thinking about how you’re going to watch HDTV since it will impact your structured wiring scheme. In some homes, we’ll place a few high definition satellite receivers in the mechanical room, in a rack. These HD satellite receivers are then shared throughout the home via a matrix switcher. A matrix switcher is really an elaborate switch that allows each TV in the house to access any one of the satellite receivers. The other way to watch HDTV is to have a dedicated receiver at each television. Some people opt for the shared receivers because it reduces their cable/satellite subscription bill and they feel they don’t need more than 3 or 4 different channels at the same time. If you opt for the shared receiver design, you now have to wire for distributed high definition wiring. This utilizes yet another type of wire called “serial digital”. Serial digital is a type of coaxial cable made for transmitting video signals. It’s very similar to RG6 except that it has a solid copper center conductor while RG6 has a copper clad steel conductor. The solid copper is much better at transmitting HDTV video signals. To distribute HDTV, we need to run 3 conductors of serial digital to each TV location and back to the receivers at the head end.
Wiring for Security Systems
Security systems use fairly inexpensive 4 conductor wire that is usually 22 gauge (in other words, thinner than speaker wire). Security wires are also “home run” using star topology. A wire runs from each device, such as a door contact or smoke detector, and back to the security panel.
In Summary
Now that we’ve covered the basics of a structured wiring system, I think you can see that there can be a lot of wires! Proper labeling of wires is extremely important. We need to know where every wire comes from and the destination for every wire. Another topic I will just touch on is how important it is to handle and install all of these wires correctly. For example, if a wire is kinked or even turns a corner too sharply, it can render that wire completely useless. Skilled installation technicians know the maximum bending radius for each type of wire and know how to pull it carefully to eliminate kinks.
Structured wiring is a critical part of your home; it’s just as important as your plumbing. You wouldn’t want your plumbing to plug up or leak, would you? A similar concept applies to structured wiring. Rely on the licensed and certified professionals at Connect Home Theater and Automation to design and install your structured wiring.
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