Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater New home purchase

I am in a process of buying in a new home. The new home has a big loft on the 3rd level which I will turn into a home theatre/game room. I will be going into the Home Design studio this week to pick out upgrade/option for the new home. My friend recommend me to get the speaker wiring option for the loft and probably the whole house. I try to save money as much as possible so I am thinking about doing this by myself. Is it hard to do? If anyone know any upgrade/option that I can get at the studio (KB home) to prepare for the home theatre, let me know. Thanks.

vball_le,

Here is a suggestion from someone who recently ran into a similar situation on our new house.

If the contractor / builder will allow you to put in the wiring, by all means do it yourself. You want to talk to the salesperson who sold you the house...he may be of more "assistance" (as he is onsite in the subdivision) than the "technology" person at the design center, they are there to specifically upsell you add-ons...they usually do not even get into the field.

I ended up having to pay for having wiring installed (they would NOT let me do it) and the upgrade to 12 gauge from 16 gauge was more like 12 gouge...Insane the amount they wanted for four runs of 12 gauge wire...

Not sure about the situation with KB Home but Newmark Homes would not let me do it...

If neither work, sounds like a covert night job ...worked for me on some additional insulation...Do it after the electrical wiring has been inspected.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

WhatFurrer

What my friends did, and what I *should* have done, is have the builder run a couple of lengths of conduit where you think the wires will go and leave a string hanging out both ends so you can fish the good wire through at your leisure.

More expensive but way less hassle and more flexibility for the future.

My loft has 16ga wire going to what I later determined to be the wrong places (my fault), through a path too tortuous and twisted to allow pulling replacement wires. I have pretty green Home Depot jacketed 2x12ga wire on the floor and if you ask I'll say I planned it that way.

EDIT -- the covert night job is probably best of all

Heh, yeah I did the same thing with phone and coax cable at my last house. I added about one or two of those plastic junction boxes in each room and ran both phone and coax cable to each one. Drywall guys cut around them (they were just sub -contractors) so I don't think they really knew who did it. It sure was nice having all those extra outlets and didn't cost me the $50 or $100 per (if I remember correctly).

I had my home built almost a year ago. I was able to install all of my inwall speaker wire where ever I wanted. Make sure its UL rated in case you have an inspector that really cares. I personally used(12 gauge) Kwik 12 from Kimber Kable. I would recommend the use of 12 gauge for everything. Visualize where you would have speakers in each room. Be set up for anything in the future. Its easier to run your cables now!!

Take pictures of where you ran your cables, so you can reference them later.

I just recently built a house and here is what I would recommend:

1) If you are comfortable doing it and the builder allows for it, do it yourself. Caveat: A good starting design is key! Trying to figure it out as you go is not a good idea.

2) Whether or not you do it or a contractor does it, take pictures and measurements before the drywall goes up. Our contractor made a mistake when cutting a hole in the ceiling for a speaker only to find he was off by 2 feet. I had to live in a "bubble" while they re-texturized my entire main floor. Knowing where the speaker wire is terminated behind the wall is important when trimming/cutting after drywall is up.

3) Consider conduit. I did run some conduit from my main basement stack to my entertainment room stack but I wished that I had run more conduit to more locations in the house.

An advantage of conduit is that you can pull some wire after drywalling is complete. Speaker wire can easily get cut/terminated due to a drywall nail hitting it - which is the case in my house. My left surround speaker wires are both terminated 3 feet up the wall from where they should be terminated - most likely due to a nail. Now I need to punch a hole in the drywall, splice/patch the speaker wire and re-patch the drywall...what a pain.

I would use 16g wire for audio distribution and 12g for home theater/surround speakers.

Good luck!

Bryan

Thanks everyone for your recommendation. I just spoke to the builder today and he'll let me run the speaker wire before the dry wall goes up in the loft. I have 5 days to do so.