Electrical Wiring For Your Smart Home

July 5, 2023

Debbie and I just finished up our electrical wiring plan for our new home. It was the last step before finalizing the plans with the architect. As we’ve spent a lot of time — if not agonized over some elements — I wanted to do a deeper dive on the electrical plant. I’m specifically speaking to those of you who may be thinking about building a home or planning a renovation. So why spend so much time on all the pre-planning? Have you ever been in a home and wondered why a light switch was where it was (or where it should be)?

Now that the plans are complete, the next step is to get copies of the plans in front of prospective builders to get their bids and projected timelines based on materials and labor. There are two critical plan sets they’ll want to see — plan view with switching and locations of receptacles and lights. And these need to be as detailed as possible to avoid issues once the framing, plumbing and HVAC are complete. Elevation drawings are also extremely helpful as they’ll show how high outlets should be mounted on a wall for example, to be hidden behind a wall-mounted TV or where on a backslash above a countertop.

You’ll be able to tell if your builder has hired a good electrician as the best and most experienced ones will mark up the entire framing of your house to match your electrical plans. All of the switches, outlets, lighting and ceiling fans should be marked up on the studs, preferably with tape in case there were errors or questions on exact intended locations. The majority of the mark up will be box locations so the electrician can start drill-out and run wire.

Before you or your builder gives the electrician the green light to start running wire you should do a physical walk-through with both of them. Bring your plans and go room to room inspecting the locations of the framing mark up. This is your opportunity to make sure all of the locations for outlets, switches, etc. are correct. Don’t ignore this step and take the time to do a thorough inspection. No home build is perfect and remember electrical comes AFTER plumbing and HVAC. This very often limits some locations electricians can place things. Another thing to keep in mind during your walk-through is that the plans may not be clear on floor or wall thicknesses or special finishes that will affect the completed aesthetics you’re looking to achieve — so make sure they understand your finished vision.

Time spent here and working with the electrician and builder could save you some serious money later in change orders or wondering why a light switch was placed where it is.

Starting with the electrical point of entry for our home, we’re all familiar with those ugly, gray breaker boxes that are usually in some hard to find place when your power goes out. By code it has to in proximity to the meter which needs to be visible from a distance for reading. So we’ve chosen a location in our garage on an outer wall. The really exciting part about the breaker box is I’m planning to take the traditional, old analog breaker box and make it smart. We’ll be installing a smart power panel by Span.

This option is a little more expensive than your traditional breaker box but offers so many more benefits short- and long-term. Span replaces the traditional breaker box in your home with powerful smart technology that lets you manage your home energy and circuits from anywhere via their app. The Span Smart Panel is also purpose-built for clean energy upgrades like solar, batteries and EV charging. So, whether we build our home with or without an alternative power source, like solar, we’re ready for it. Plus compatibility with home batteries and the eventuality of the need for charging an electric vehicle will already be in place. The downside is currently it will not pair with a generator. My hopes are they will accommodate this in future software upgrades if we decide to integrate one into our plan.

Once you have power into the house, there’s a long list of other things related to electrical we’ve worked into our design:

• 50amp 240v plugs in garage for EV charging — placed between the garage doors to reduce the length of feeder plug to attach to electrical vehicles. Make sure you have the required width between the garage doors to accommodate the unit(s). The added benefit is more room between the vehicles for opening doors.
• Plugs in the soffits for holiday lighting — this is another convenience thing to avoid the messy extension cord look or eliminate cord trip hazards around entries. I’ll probably use smart rope lighting so I can control the colors and patterns of the lights. This will enable us to use the same lighting for any holiday (orange for Halloween, red/green for Christmas, etc.). Additionally, connecting all of the soffit plugs to a smart switch will give us better control via an app or voice.
• Remember to address specialty locations for power. Things like garage door openers or jamb switches require unusual placement. We are considering jackshaft type garage door openers to free up the ceiling space above the cars or better lighting so the outlets to run them will need to be nearby. We also plan to install door jamb switches in the closet door frames in the foyer and mudroom. These are simple, inexpensive pressure switches that will turn the closet light on when you open the door (and off when it’s closed).
• I’ll be deploying network wired POE cameras, eliminating the need for electrical wiring on the exterior of the house. But there are plenty of WiFi cameras that can be powered with an outlet nearby.
• The boxes that are installed in the framing for terminating your outlets, switches, ceiling fans, etc. will also require special attention. As we will be installing a LOT of smart switches they usually require deeper boxes than the standard ones usually installed. Smart outlets tend to be the same way.
• Electrical outlets with USB ports for charging phones and laptops. These will be placed above counter tops, kitchen island, office shelving unit, walls near where bedroom headboard/night stands will be placed, etc.
• In-floor plugs under locations for couches or desks like in the great room and office. This will prevent unsightly and dangerous electrical or extension cords crossing travel paths in the larger rooms.
• Electrical outlet in the attic for antenna amplifier for over the air HD broadcast. See my previous post on cutting the cord.
• Transfer switch for generator — this will be ported to an outer wall where we’ll have a concrete pad to support the generator along with a gas line so there will be no need to store gasoline.
• Wire the whole house with 12/2 for 20A circuits (Romex copper) — it’s slightly more expensive than 15A but the benefits are that circuits will trip less often with multiple devices running.
• Specialty wiring — particularly low voltage, which is usually installed by the same crew that will install wiring for network and audio, for things like motorized/smart blinds and window shades (indoor and on the patio).
• #2 gauge copper between sub-panel and main panel (not aluminum) — the cost is $8–10 per foot but the run is generally short and worth the investment.
• The physical wiring and plumbing in the framing will have individual holes for each wire/pipe — we will have the contractor use Fentrim 430 tape instead of spray foam to seal holes in framing for wire. Outdoors we’ll have them use Prosoco Fast Flash (Red) to seal wires through zip sheathing. This will help better seal the home to prevent issues with water, mold and insects in the walls and make the heating/air conditioning more efficient.

Additionally I’ll stub out conduit to the attic from the Span box for future electrical needs in order to prevent having a lot of expensive (and messy) work later if we need to add electrical elsewhere in the house or yard. The same will apply for the Office for future electrical and network needs to avoid framing, drywall and finish renovation work.

As far as protecting the electronics driving our smart home, the first thing that comes to mind for most IT people are UPS’ (Uninterruptible Power Supplies) and surge suppressors. I’ll have UPS’ in my equipment racks so let’s talk about surge suppression.

Power surges in your home happen so quickly that you may not notice they take place. A quick outage in the kitchen due to a toaster overheating or a microwave having too much power for an outlet can cause surges that only last for a second until the outlet reset is triggered. The majority of homes experience many small power surges throughout any given day. Most of these power surges are internally generated but even small surges sent through the wiring can cause damage to smart home devices.

A whole home surge protection system can help mitigate those surges that can cause damage to devices or worse, start fires. Internally generated power surges are considered very short in nature and come from appliances in the home, such as air conditioners, electric ovens, microwaves and toasters. A few small surges won’t cause any major damage to a home’s electrical system, but over time these surges can degrade the performance of appliances and electronics.

A whole-home surge protection system’s main purpose is to protect appliances, electronics and smart devices from harm. It also protects the home’s entire electrical system. When a small surge occurs from an appliance, it will send the surge back to the breaker panel where it is shunted. This protects all of the other existing electrical devices in the home. Having a power surge protection system protects every outlet in the house.

Homes today have more electronic devices and electrical equipment than ever before. Modern appliances have circuit boards that need to be protected from power surges. Even LED lights contain circuit boards that are sensitive to surges in power and can be easily damaged. Households also have an increased number of computers, tablets and other devices that hold personal information. These devices can be safeguarded and protected from losing information in the instance of a power surge by a whole-home protection system. The system will ensure that the outlets where devices are plugged in are protected from internal or external power surges.

Having a layered system directly connected to the electrical panel and at the point of use will provide the best protection for your home. The best option with surge suppression to handle shared circuits will be a power conditioner that acts as a buffer between the outlet and the system.

There are several whole-home power surge protection systems for various voltages on the market. The average home with 120-volt service can use an 80kA-rated surge protector because surges over 50kA are not typical. An average sized home should not be receiving surges over 10kA. Homes with subpanels need to seek protection of half the kA rating of the main electrical unit. However, if the home is located in an area prone to lightning storms (like where we live in Texas), then a surge protector with an 80kA rating would be the best system.

Hopefully this has been helpful with electrical considerations for your home renovation or new build. I was surprised to find through my research here that there are so many options and what the benefits of having your entire home protected could be. Where our development is new, rural and susceptible to severe weather it makes sense to build this into our plan. As it looks like electrical demands could increase over time it aligns as well to be prepared — to avoid future issues and costly upgrades.

As we worked through the electrical plan alone, there were some really interesting insights gathered. I’m curious what you’ve found particularly interesting here. What’s your favorite? What would you do differently? What would you add to this that we haven’t considered?

Let Debbie and I know in the comments, DMs and emails as we really enjoy hearing from you. Thanks again to all those following Debbie and I through our home building journey. It’s great to hear your success stories and suggestions as we move through the process. And if you like the content I’m posting each week, don’t forget to ‘Like’ and ‘Follow.’

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