Putting internet in everything | low voltage walkthrough | House Files Episode 24

Aaron takes us on a walk-through of the low voltage cable install.
We're building a triplex in Portland, Oregon and we're documenting the process here.
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[@HistoricHomePlans]

4:00 Re. LEDs - They are surprisingly bright for their wattage. You may find that 4" are more than bright enough and 6" may be too bright and cause glare. If you have access to a showroom where they have them working, on display, I'd encourage you to check it out. Glare is the biggest problem with lighting design and LEDs are more prone to it than older style fixtures. 7:28 plug strips are great, especially in kitchens! Good choice. But then all your choices are good choices. 14:30 I would never build a house without a sprinkler system these days. It's like you said earlier. It's so much cheaper to do it during the initial construction. Sprinkler systems save lives. And most insurance companies give sizable discounts on insurance policies for sprinklered homes. 18:00 I'm thrilled you're doing the individual stair lights! I remember you talking about that at the very beginning of the design phase. And now it's happening!

[@douglasdollars]

+1 to the LED note. I also recommend buying a few spares. I found out this spring that the "modern" LED dimmable discs over my porch were made for a few years but haven't been manufactured for the last ~4. Required some not-great rewiring on my part when one of the discs stopped working.

[@arteeFartee-e9]

6:00 It might seem like 3 days to terminate the wires, but after you get through the first 25-30 of the terminations, you'lll get faster at it. Ask anyone who has had to make home-made patch cables in quantity.

[@gregmckinley5178]

Are you going to be using keystone jacks or RJ45 connectors. If you are doing the second option use the RJ45 easyz connectors.

[@TVJAY]

The electrical panel isn't as crazy as I thought it would be.

[@aaronpk]

Same tbh! I was imagining it was going to be a lot more wires for some reason.

[@svenlakemeier]

I have never heard of Radon mitigation before, very interesting to read up on it, it is even a thing over here in parts of the country. Regarding the access to the attic: Why not put a door upstairs, as there is already proper stairs up? And about the light up stairs: Why a separate cable to each step instead of a data bus and addressable lights?

[@aaronpk]

The only place for a door at the top of the stairs is where the electrical panel went. We could have put the panel elsewhere but this was a pretty convenient place for it. For the stair lights, I did think about an addressable strip, but I've had mixed luck with them before. This would actually be a really long strip (3ft * 16 steps per staircase = 48 ft) and voltage drop on a strip that long would start to be a problem. Plus it would mean a lot more work installing them, involving soldering on both sides of each step. The strips we're using don't require soldering so installation will be a lot cheaper.