Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Power Circuit Panel When I Want Screen, Ideas?

I was looking at a house last night for when we move (hopefully soon) and there is a nice area in the basement for a home theater, the problem is that the screen would need to go where the power panel is. I have a nice Carada fixed screen, so it isn't something that I want to have to take down in case something "pops".

Ideas?

The unfinished room is 18' x 13'. I don't want to go with a "wide" theater if I can avoid it as I've been 12' from my screen before and I like the 14' distance I have now.

The only thing that I thought of would be something with a false wall or something so that at least the screen isn't right on top of the panel, but I hadn't even worked out the details of how to make it work with some sort of access or something. Plus that starts to eat away at the size of the room. Probably less than ideal.

Maybe hire someone to relocate the panel? But I have no idea how much that would cost. I like that the panel is in the basement because then I could run a dedicated circuit just for the theater.

Ideas?

My first thought was a false wall, too. If it's only enough room to squeeze in you won't lose much of the room. Plus you could incorporate an equipment rack into it, so your components are right below the screen, recessed into the false wall. You could use the space for easy access to the wiring.

I think relocating the panel would be your best choice. There are regulations governing how close something can be in front of the panel, such as 3 feet, and what can't be directly to the sides, such as a window.

I think relocating the panel is going to be expensive.

Just throw some money at the problem. It'll be fine.

I hired an electrician to put in a new/bigger panel with new breakers and it cost me $500. The panel is also where the elec enters the house from outside, so that would have to be moved also. You won't know for sure until you get some estimates. I got 3 estimates. One was $1800, one was $1500, and one was $500. The more expensive ones were going to do stuff that wasn't necessary.

Relocating the panel (unless you are very lucky) 99% chance you'll have a junction box in the same location to splice and extend the wires. And by code has to be acessable, 3' front clearance, etc.

How about the other end of the room for the screen?

Or hang/hinge your fixed screen so it's removable. How often do you blow a breaker. Not perfect but doable

Personally I like the "false wall so you can have a rack and access to the back of the equipment

By junction box, you mean a small breaker box that's wired off of the main breaker box?

Nope, if the incoming mains or branch circuits come from different directions, up, left, right, thru a wall... you would have to splice/connect and extend those wires/cables. Those spliced terminations by code need to be accessable. A junction box is just a big grey "rated" enclosure/box with knockouts and a cover.

There you go! Just hinge that thing at the ceiling. Nice work, Jeff.

OK.



Blue area is proposed home theater room, black area is family room since the stairs come into that room first and it would help to make things feel a little more "open".

The breaker box is just off-center a little, but not enough to be out of the way. The wall opposite won't work because it would be quite off-set to the right (as you face the screen) with a large doorway up front. I could make the doorway smaller (it is about the right size for some french doors) but I still don't like the idea of the door up front.