Updated 2013
This is a page about my communications closet in our new home. As most know you know I love technology and when it came to this new house I wanted to add a few extra feet of cable to make sure I could add things later. Well some 5000′ of cat6, 1500′ of RG59, and around 800′ of Siamese cable later I realized I may be creating a monster. Fortunately my wife is understanding and who really needs an entrance closet that hold jackets. Would it not be a better place to store all of your homes electronic equipment.

Equipment:
• 10 Station Intercom including the front door.
• Whole Home Audio System with 6 zones and 2 sources/Apple Express to allow music share via Iphones Ipads.
• 1 30mb down-5mb up Time Warner Modem
• 1 10 port 100/1000 switch
• 1 linksys home security switch
• HP Home Server sporting 6TB of storage with a 2TB external backup drive.
• Asus Mini PC for streaming to Family Room TV
• Apple TV Streaming to Family Room TV
• 2 Blue Ray Players 1 for Family Room TV, 1 For Master Bedroom TV
• 3 DirecTV Whole Home DVR’s
• 1 Night owl Home Surveillance 8 Camera DVR System, Streams to IPhone or computer, Master Bedroom and Family Room TV,
• 1 GE Alarm System with Smoke, Carbon Monoxide, 6 Motion detectors and all doors and windows.
• 200cfm fan to keep the room cool.

My Goals of the communication closet:
My goal was to keep all of the electronics in one area, to keep the clutter down in the master bedroom, family room and my office.
The plan was to run cable and conduit from the comm closet to each of these locations. This allows me to control all the audio and video of the TV’s from one room. The Master Bedroom and Family Room TV’s are mounted to the wall but the nice thing is we don’t have to run cables down the wall and have them visible to equipment located near the TV. All of our cables go back to the comm closet. We are able to continue to use our normal remotes too with the handy little IR repeaters I have installed. These little devices have a small receiver you attach to the TV and then they are connected via cat 5 back to the comm closet. Then there is a little IR repeater in the closet.
DVRs: As for the DVRs it seems like the kids are always trying to record something when I want to record something so I decided to go with the whole home DVR from DirecTV. I ordered 2 DVR’s and 2 receivers. This allows me to record and play up to 4 things at one time and with whole home DVR it does not matter where it is recorded it will play to any of the 4 TV’s.
Alarm: Alarm system is a GE Alarm that I installed myself. I have added 6 motion detectors to cover almost every inch of the downstairs of the house. Along with glass break sensors and door sensors for the balance of the house. It also has multiple fire and smoke detection along with carbon monoxide detection.
Intercom: The intercom was a great addition to the house. We added 10 stations to cover the entire home. This is very covenant when you need to get someone’s attention without having to yell.
Home Server: Our home server stores all of the home movies, music, DVD’s, photos and is also the central backup point to all the computers in the house. With 6TB of data storage it has plenty of room.
Whole home audio: I have installed the new A-Bus Multi Zone, Multi Source Audio system in the house with 12 speakers covering all areas of the house. I have also installed an Apple Airport Express to be the main source of audio. This allows any one in the house to stream music from the server or any phone or ipad throughout the house. I have also added a direct source Ipad doc in the bonus room. If the kids prefer to play different music while in the bonus room they can just plug in their iphone or ipod and enjoy their music while I stream other music throughout the house.
Video Surveillance: The Camera system was a great addition. I love the ability to check in on our house while we are away from home or if one of the kids are home alone we can keep an eye on things from our phone or computer. Any time motion is detected in range of the cameras they start to record that on video that can be reviewed later. I also have the camera system hooked up to the family room and master bedroom TV’s.
NEW COM CLOSET SETUP:

Old Com Closet Setup.