[thechat] Building a New House

[Roger Austin]

Hershel Robinson wrote:
> I am in the process of closing the purchase of a new house. The house in 
> question is, in part, a 300-year old stone structure, built in the old 
> 'Arab style' of domed rooms. Another bit of it is more modern but that 
> part must come down and be rebuilt. The domed rooms are structurally 
> quite sound, but the rest of the house is in ruins and the entire thing 
> must be redone--all new wiring, plumbing, flooring, windows, doors, etc. 

> We might want in reality to put the VOIP box there maybe. And in 5 years 
> we might want to put the YOU_NAME_IT_THING_THAT_THEY_WILL_INVENT box 
> there as well.

One word: conduit.

  Conduit from a central location so that you can pull whatever
you want later. That is what many offices do and you have the
chance to bring a conduit for cable TV, wired networking, and
fiber optic into your rooms when it becomes available to
homeowners.
Another way to do it is to have a ceiling where you can get to
a chase for wiring. That way it would be easier to get to the
areas to pull wires if you need it.
  Put in duplex boxes in the walls where you will be putting the
A/V and net ports even if you only use one half at first. Put
in the best wiring that you can for all the items, i.e., best
coaxial and best networking. It will pay in the long run and
not much more expensive.
  Another nice thingy is a whole house vacuuming system. Not that
expensive, but really convenient if the house is more than one
story high. I wish we had it.
  A very weird idea I had when trying to unload stuff is to put
a loading dock on the house. (I see you laughing so stop it!)
Anyone who has had to muscle a large appliance off the back of
a pickup truck up into the house would appreciate that. I know
that a good designer could hide it when it wasn't in use.
  Another thing I wish we had was a whole house fan. I have one
at my old house and it was wonderful in our climate. You flip
on the switch and it would extract all the air out of the house
through the roof. I loved it and would like to retrofit one in
our new house.
  Enough. Enjoy, Roger
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