As of late Smart Houses, Home Automation etc. are a hot topic in the Building Industry.  To many it is overwhelming and confusing. But it doesn’t have to be. Think of it this way, wouldn’t you like to be able to offer to your clients the ability to do the following:

- Hear stereo quality sound in every part of the home with individual volume controls.

- Being able to talk to people at the front door from any phone in the home while at the same time viewing them from any TV.

When the children come home, receive a message signaling their safe arrival.

- Being able to control lighting and heating systems, arm and disarm the alarm system, check if there have been any events while away, opening and closing garage doors, by simply using any phone either in or out of the home.

- Being able to answer the front door through a telephone giving the impression that someone is home.

- Being able to control the entertainment center from any room in the house. From a cost saving point of view it is a real savings buying one DVD player but being able to view it from any TV in the home.

- Networking of home computers.

These are just a sampling of the things that can be done though the use of structured cabling.

Because of the specialization of laying out the cables, and the nature of high-speed wiring, it is very difficult to retrofit an older residence. So when building a new home or doing major renovations it is very important to give very serious consideration to the cabling needs.

One of the driving pushes for smart-home technology and wiring in new construction is resale value. We expect smart-house technologies and home LANs to take off -- in a few years everyone will want in. Then, homes that do not have structured wiring will be less desirable. Today people are willing to pay more for a house that has polarized and grounded plugs and is fully wired for cable television. Structured wiring for smart homes is a natural extension of this.

Structured Wiring

Structured wiring refers to the wiring backbone of the house, a sort of central nervous system. A standard bundle of structured wiring can support up to four phone lines, an internal data network (Internet service), television (cable or satellite), and video distribution throughout different locations in the home.

We give homeowners greater potential for not only entertainment, but also offer increased security of the home.

Most homes today are still being wired like they were 20 or 30 years ago. People nowadays want to plug a phone or a TV in every room of the house.  Maybe parents don’t want a TV in a child’s room today, but when they go off to college, that room may be used as a home office or entertainment center. Going in afterward and wiring those rooms is difficult and more costly than doing it as the home is being built.

Many families have more than two phone lines, they may have a family, line, a kids line, a fax line, and internet line as well as a business line.  The use of four wire phone lines, as what were standard, cannot handle this type of an environment, structured wiring gives the ability to have multiple phone lines going to every room.

For newly constructed homes, while the walls are opened up, it makes good sense to get the low-voltage wiring in.  Once this infrastructure is in place, it’s possible to even call up the home and tell it to turn up the heat or turn on the hot tub.

Studies show that homes not being wired for low voltage will have a reduced market value of five to 15 percent in the coming years. It is estimated that 40 percent of all new homes by the year 2005 will have structured wiring. 

Our biggest challenge is to try to educate new homeowners about this technology.  They need to understand what options are available today, so they don’t kick themselves later down the road when they realize they want a system like this.

What is Structured Wiring

Structured Wiring is a whole house wiring system for communications, entertainment, security and control that works with the systems already in the home, anticipates technological advances and lays the groundwork for future home technology and smart home enhancements.

Advantages of Structured Wiring

• The home is future-ready.  Imagine storing your entire music collection on a home computer and accessing it anywhere in your home. Imagine hanging a Flat-screen TV almost anywhere in the house. Imagine being able to see your child in his/her crib from a computer at work. Technology moves fast and provides solutions in ways that were previously unthinkable or impossible. Although it is very, very hard to completely future-proof your home, a wired home gets your client future-ready.

Investing in your home.  A proper structured wiring installation increases the value of your home by 1 to 2%. A wired home is also easier to sell to prospective buyers.

From the phenomenal growth of the Web to the ever-growing number of people working at home, a host of new services are overloading already inadequate in-home wiring. More than a decade after the problem was identified, nine out of ten homes are still not wired adequately to properly access the services of today, let alone those of tomorrow. It can be said that our homes reflect our lifestyles whether it features a home office, advanced lighting controls, or an enhanced security system. A house that centrally manages these subsystems and others is not a technological dream. A house whose subsystems — security, lighting, entertainment, heating and cooling, and more — work together in harmony, enhancing each others capabilities, is a necessity for today’s lifestyles. A house that accomplishes all of this, with minimal additional wiring, but capable of supporting the future, is, in short, a Smart House. 

Nine out of ten homes built today are not wired adequately to take advantage of the interactive services available to homeowners today, let alone tomorrow.

From a builder’s point of view, making certain the homes built are technology-ready not only protects them from obsolescence, it also gives a competitive edge in the marketplace.  Partnering with Hillside Services is a very smart move.

Smart homes are not just the wave of the future; they are the wave of the present. Recent innovations in digital technology allow building designers to integrate expandable wiring and cable into newly built homes. This smart wiring allows the homeowner to instantly view a home’s temperature, visitors, security status, and lighting at the touch of a finger or at the click of a mouse.

Smart home wiring should be established in the house while it is being built, in order to cut initial costs, as well as to enable the wiring to work at full capacity.

By cutting costs and avoiding the establishment of a wiring hub during building, homeowners who decide to install a smart home wiring system post-building will face diminished wiring capacity and speed.

In other words, a viable smart home wiring system is built with an open architecture. The wiring motherboard is expandable and can accommodate any new developments in wiring technology in order to enhance or customize the entire system. Unlike most home computers, which, though they allow for some innovation and addition, eventually become obsolete and must be discarded; a good smart home wiring system can handle any new software or digital wiring updates without necessitating an overhaul or a complete renovation. This saves the homeowner, and the builder, money later on in the game.

Hillside Services designs, installs, and services networked home systems.  A networked home electronics system is easy to use, reliable and performs useful daily functions either automatically or triggered by a single action like arming the security system or pressing a single button.

Our expertise lies in making the most of home technology by providing integrated systems where lighting, heating and cooling, security, and other home systems work together. 

Hillside Services will work with the homeowner from start to completion to ensure their satisfaction and quality service.  By paying attention to the details in design, installation, and scheduling, the job is done correctly the first time, the finished product looks good and we are on time to assure proper and thorough follow through to the project completion.

 A new home is a "dream" home, every facade and detail that one has thought about most of their lives. So when you design, and plan your new home, you want to ensure that one has all of life's luxuries, that one can afford.

RESALE NECESSITY

When we buy our new home, the last thing we think about is when we are going to sell it? Smart Home owners do have some inclination, that maybe one day down the road, they may have a bigger dream. Ensuring that your home has Structured Wiring to accommodate the future may be an important part of the resale value. 

Building a smart home is a necessity not an option, don't get left behind.  

HOW SMART?

Why do so many Builders/Architects build a "dumb" house?  Ask them why?  Demand for Smart Homes will not occur until builders incorporate and accept this as one of the necessities for building a home today.

At the very least you should be installing "low-voltage" structured wiring, when building, remodeling or upgrading a home. 

Smart Homes allows the possibility of integration of items in and around the house that already exist: Telephone, TV, Stereo Receiver, Computers, Lights and Security Systems.

With the popularity of the Internet, there are now more ways that a homeowner can control the home and lifestyle that you never have dreamed of.

Structured wiring allows for more flexibility and can be combined with a computerized system that runs from the central location to each room and terminates in a single outlet. It contains two RG 6 cables for transmitting to TVs, VCRs, satellite dishes and security cameras; two Category 5 twisted pair cables for distributing signals to telephones, computer modems and fax machines; and two fiber optic cables to meet future wide band technology needs.
Structured wiring means you can plug in a computer anywhere in the house and set up a family local area network. 

The real plus to the system is that the homeowner has complete flexibility to change the use of each room without rewiring. The six wires connect to a wall outlet called a Multi-Media receptacle, a simple gang outlet with six modular connection ports. An extra bedroom can change from the nursery, with a mini-cam to watch the baby, to a home office with three phone lines: one for fax one for Internet and one for telephone; to a computer lab with four stations, one for each family member. One of the biggest selling points is that structured wiring in new homes attracts computer literate buyers and improves the chances of resale. The price of the home doesn't reflect the complexity of the project, but people's interest in updated technology.