Discussions with the Silverline Electric

Stephen and I met with Brad Tapani (Silverline Electric), who'll be doing the electrical work on the new house. We discussed wireless and wired, i.e., ethernet, data communications, and decided to stick with the plan of wiring most rooms in the house for ethernet. We'll employ a wireless network, as well.

With regard to audio, Brad's recommendation was that we go with a 5.1 surround sound system in the Great Room on the main floor, and the same in the Rec Room on the lower level, and we agreed. Brad said that he uses RG6/U quad shielded coax, as we described in the previous post.

We discussed putting the central wiring panel (CWP) or media panel in the Storage Room on the lower level. Brad said we should look for as centralized and accessible a location as possible for the CWP in order to reduce the length of wire runs to the various media locations, which is reasonable, as long as the CWP isn't obtrusive.

Brad gave us a run down on using CAT-5e vs. CAT-6e wire and we opted to stay with 6e.

The spec sheet addendum contained an item for pre-wiring a security system and we opted not to do that.

We are not going to prewire the entire house for stero, but will put dual speakers (with volume control) on the deck.

Silverline is also doing the plumbing for the central vac system, and we discussed the product line they're using, MD Manufacturing, which sounded fine. We opted to go with the "hide-a-hose' system on the main level.