I have tinkered with some parts of the installation for a while but it is now in full-swing. The installation of the infrastructure is in two main phases: upstairs and downstairs which aligns with the other works in the house. However as the house has a solid ground floor all the downstairs cables have to go into the upstairs floor cavity, so while the upstairs is progressing, I won’t be able to finally put the floor (or floor coverings) down until everything is finished down stairs too. I am working top down trying to work ahead of the builders as they tackle the structure of the building putting insulation in, sorting out the rot etc.
The pictures show the transformation of one of the 2nd floor bedrooms, first ripping out the existing ceiling so that new SuperQuilt insulation could be installed.
Loft room originally
The ceiling was pulled down to allow insulation to be installed
The picture below shows the pod I had built that Idranet (yellow), door and window sensor (white) and light switch (grey) cables are routed to. This will eventually house an MFP or DFP. I am using the coloured band cable- labelling scheme but while it is effective it is slow to label each cable this way and laborious to check what a cable is for (what was that colour code again?)
Space-age insulation plus a DFP pod
Node-I (idratek) was the first to be cabled. It started life as an airing cupboard.
The airing cupboard that will become Node-I
As the bedrooms were cabled, the other ends were dropped into the region Node-I would take (it got very dusty up there!)
The first cables being dropped into Node-I are visble through the doorway
As the dormer was built I had to retrieve all these into the loft to protect them
New dormer, happy builder, cables safe in the loft
I initially installed ~50mm waste pipe in the eves as conduit with draw strings added using a vacuum cleaner sucking a rag with the string through the pipe. However while I have access to the eves it has been easier to run the cables directly into the eves between Node-I and the bedrooms.
Conduit installed, but un-used
Next the work moves down to the first floor.
