Browse Forums Home Theatre & Automation 1 Apr 07, 2009 3:03 pm Hey guys, Construction has finally begun on our house today (concrete is being layed). We have one particular room in the house as a dedicated home theater room. I would like to put a projector and hook it up to a home theater PC(HTPC), once we move in. Now wiring the projector and surround sound speakers after construction has finsihed would be a pain in the bum. So I would like to get the wiring done during the construction stage. Just wondering how this should be approached? If I give the site supervisor the cabling for the projector, would he/she run that cabling from the roof (projector) to where the HTPC would reside? Same applies for the cabling for the surround sound system (i.e. from the back of the room to where the HTPC would be). Sorry, I have never built a new house before! Thanks for any advice. Re: Building new house and cabling for a home theater system 2Apr 07, 2009 6:57 pm hi Dilan, we are doing the same wiring as you. it is a bit easier for us since we are owner builders. we asked our electrician to put a power point in the ceiling for the projector, pre-wire all our speakers around the room (so that we can install them when we can afford it ) and put conduits in the walls so that we can always update our cinema equipment. if your builder is not willing to accomodate all these features, may be you can find an electrician yourself who will do just the cinema wiring, a lot of them now specialise in that kind of work. the main thing is to coordinate your electrician, if you find one, so that he can get in at the right time ie before your plastering goes on. Nina "The fearless are merely fearless. People who act in spite of their fear are truly brave" - James A. LaFond-Lewis Re: Building new house and cabling for a home theater system 3Apr 08, 2009 12:50 am Perhaps this thread would be better in the Home Theatre discussion board? After 2 false starts, a year living overseas, two more world trips and 3 years of uncertainty we are now starting the build process again - hopefully for real this time! Re: Building new house and cabling for a home theater system 4Apr 08, 2009 7:29 am We had a home theatre guy supply the cables and come put them in a week before plaster $1300. The HDMI and component (older projector) were stolen in flash - more than likely by a tradesman. Then I paid the home theatre guy for new cables $ 600 with the intention of putting them in myself. When I turned up to do this the next morning the room had been plastered. Then I had to get the electrician to knock holes in the plaster and pull the cables through. I'm not into home theatre - I don't know how to cable but read your projector manual and work out how far to put your projector away from your screen and do it yourself. Don't forget cables to a subwoofer and rear and centre rear speakers. Or get your electrician to do it at the last possible moment. The electrician is a good call as he can pull them through when he does his cabling. Consider some data cabling to your projector location as well from the main data point in your house. You may not require it now but possibly in the future. Fi has moved in!! Re: Building new house and cabling for a home theater system 5Apr 11, 2009 9:30 am we had our done 6 months ago after handover; very happy with his workmanship esp the price. We installed a 52 inch LCD on wall, 5.1 surround sound system mounted with all wiring hiddlen inside wall, this include conduits board on wall so when we upgrade to different speakes we can connect it back on to the board and connecting HDMI cable to LCD,blue ray and dvd player. P@house wanted to charge us over $1000.00. He did it for half the price. Let me know if you want his contact detail. Re: Building new house and cabling for a home theater system 6Apr 11, 2009 8:36 pm No wonder I didn't see this until today (looks like it was in the wrong area - thanks to whoever moved it here ). If you are going to organise this yourself or ask one of the 'non-HT' trades to do it for you during construction, please be aware of what you will and may be running in there and cable for them all accordingly. I'm currently speaking to a guy who has built with (ahhhh - nearly said it...) and got he sparky to run the HT cabling. The sparky even said "everything you need has been run... However, owner moves in and finds that sure, all of the speaker cables have been run... but what about the HDMI cable (or any video cable for that matter) for the projector? Too bad the theatre is on the ground floor of a 2 storey house and the guy can't run the HDMI cable now without making some big holes in finished surfaces..... - Remember power, for everything (don't forget the projector AND the subwoofer). - unless you plan on parking the subwoofer right next to your AV Receiver, consider running a subwooofer cable to your preferred location (a subwoofer cable is not normal speaker cable...). - know what video cable(s) you need to run. I call myself "The Cleaner". Too often I'm called in to fix up what other guys, who claimed to know what they were doing, screwed up royally... P.S. wow - this Aldi Pilsner (beer) aint half bad at all.... Re: Building new house and cabling for a home theater system 7Apr 13, 2009 9:48 am I think that Rod is right - if in doubt, seek professional help (which is I guess what you are doing by asking here!) You get one shot at this, as any screwup will be difficult and possibly expensive to fix. Having said that, when we built our place I asked the Site Supervisor about wiring the place up. He was cool with it, so I planned what I would need, and ran speaker cables from the wall to all 6 speaker points - I didn't run a cable for the centre speaker as a knew it would be very close to the av amp. Two of the speakers are outside in the alfresco. I also ran a couple of HDMI cables through the ceiling to where the project was going to be - after my first ones got stolen I made it hard for someone to knock off them off again. We arranged to the sparkie to put a power point on the ceiling near the projector (this was on the plan). All in all, the whole thing was pretty good. If you trawl back through our blog entries you can see the cable being laid. Cheers Re: Building new house and cabling for a home theater system 8Apr 13, 2009 10:32 pm perryr I also ran a couple of HDMI cables through the ceiling to where the project was going to be - after my first ones got stolen I made it hard for someone to knock off them off again. Can you elaborate on how you made it hard for someone to knock them off again? I'd like to avoid this happening to us if possible. Cheers, PN Re: Building new house and cabling for a home theater system 9Apr 14, 2009 8:20 am purpleninja perryr I also ran a couple of HDMI cables through the ceiling to where the project was going to be - after my first ones got stolen I made it hard for someone to knock off them off again. Can you elaborate on how you made it hard for someone to knock them off again? I'd like to avoid this happening to us if possible. Cheers, PN I basically made it hard for the mongrels to pull the cables through by tying them around the roof rafters, and securing the cables with cable ties where I could. I also waiting until the day before the plaster was due to go on, to make the timing harder. The down side is that you need to make sure that you have enough length in your theatre, as you won't be able to pull any more through. Cheers Re: Building new house and cabling for a home theater system 10Apr 14, 2009 10:15 pm perryr I basically made it hard for the mongrels to pull the cables through by tying them around the roof rafters, and securing the cables with cable ties where I could. I also waiting until the day before the plaster was due to go on, to make the timing harder. The down side is that you need to make sure that you have enough length in your theatre, as you won't be able to pull any more through. Cheers Thanks for the tips - I never even considered someone stealing the cables until I saw it mentioned on here. Cheers Re: Building new house and cabling for a home theater system 11Apr 15, 2009 11:10 am Our builder has a second sparky that they use for HT setups, so we are going to do the cabling through them. I know exactly what and where I want things which makes it easier, they will also be doing the network cabling for me aswell. Setup is fairly standard for most people I would say, for a basic setup anyway: Extra power to where HT equipment will be (4 total, which yes is fine, subwoofer yes I know you will mention it ) Power in roof for projector HDMI run to projector (Dont have an AV reciever yet, but 99% of input will be from HTPC which can do HDMI) cabling for 7.1 (HT gear at rear of room, so 3 sets of speaker cabling to the front (LF, RF, C,) and the rear set will be across the floor for now (will only be 5.1 at the start anyhow). 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