iNest Newsletter

Wiring Your Home For Communications & Entertainment

Dena Kouremetis
A veteran of the homebuilding industry, Dena Kouremetis is the foremost real estate columnist specializing in new home issues, trends, products and designs. Her columns appear in the New York Post as well as other newspapers throughout the U.S.

The new wave of home wiring now goes much further than an extra telephone for the teenager. Homebuilders routinely offer technologies to their buyers during the construction of their homes our parents might have considered 'space age' in their day.

Larry Moore, owner of Astrosonics, a Sacramento-based firm offering installations from pre-wiring to entire electronic systems, says, "Networking your new home may be one of the most important 'behind the walls' upgrades in which to invest." What systems, you may ask? Systems that can expand your basic wiring to deliver entertainment and communications, with multi-room television programming and whole-house stereo. They'll equip you to watch your children by closed circuit monitors and enable you to see who's at your front door. They can link computer terminals within your home and even let you access your entire system from your place of employment.

Let’s say you're at the office and the kids are home from school and you'd like to check up on them. You nonchalantly pull up your home's web site and click onto the option activating the camera outside your family room sliding door. On your screen, you see your two younger ones having a fight in the family room. So what else is new? You breathe a sigh of relief just to see they’re home safe and sound, but wonder where your teenager is. You then click on the kitchen camera to find your teen on the phone, totally oblivious to the noise.

Now it's 7 p.m. Dinner's over with, and your youngest wants to watch a movie you rented yesterday before it's his bedtime. The VCR is in the family room and you’re not really in the mood for Power Puff Girls after a long day at the office. You'd rather sit in your family room with your feet up, grab a good book, and listen to music. No problem! Your networked wiring system can transfer the VCR transmission to any of the other television sets anywhere your house!

Sound a bit George Jetson-like? These new systems can take antenna or cables signals and pass them through your commercial grade amplifier to enhance the picture. They can take the signal from any of your audio or video equipment and create a new station on your FM dial. By tuning in to that station, you will hear high performance stereo sound throughout the home. This is a great feature when you're watching a movie and want home theater-like stereo in all the viewing locations. And, with a remote-controlled system, you get total control over your network, letting you pause, rewind, or stop the action on a video tape, laser disc or DVD disc from the TV you're sitting in front of.

Although this may sound like a truck load of sophisticated equipment, Moore assures that it is not. "It’s difficult for people to believe that once your have the home set up for an integrated system of structured wiring, they’ll only need one VCR, cable box,or satellite receiver to entertain up to five TVs. It eliminates the need for duplicate equipment, complex hook-ups and wiring with an entirely ‘in-wall’ system," notes Moore, who says most builders are armed and ready to offer their buyers all the technology they can handle in their new homes.

What should you to watch out for in a purchase of this type? Be sure your builder uses experts for this type of wiring. The normal electrical sub-contractor is usually not familiar with the structured wiring nuances needed for this type of installation. The cost of one these systems, and especially the pre-wire for it, may be less expensive than you'd think, when you consider how many electronic devices you may save on in the long run.

Many new homebuilders now routinely include a basic pad which can be upgraded to more sophisticated networking possibilities later on. It is not uncommon for new home neighborhood developers to have the basic infrastructure for more and more high-tech options included in their overall plan, readying the grid for consumers to take advantage of these space-aged conveniences.