- First of all, the best lesson to be learned up front. A smart home can only be as smart as the homeowner. Yes, in an ideal world, a home could be smarter than its owner, but for the time being, we have to rely on this unifying assumption: if the homeowner doesn’t do at least some kind of maintenance, even as simple as calling another professional to do the maintenance, then things are going to run downhill and become dumb again.
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All rooms need “cable trays” where telecommunications cables can be run, removed, and easily upgraded. Cable trays must be deliberately desgined to support running low-power lines for telecommunications equipment through them.
When smart equipment is not in use, “smart plugs” must be supported to cleanly cover up the “smart holes.”
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Use conduit! Even inside the walls.
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Smart cabinets: Every cabinet needs “cable trays” too, for data and power hookups. Quite often, this might just mean “smart holes” drilled in the cabinets to support smart equipment. Oh, also with the “smart plugs” in case smart equipment is not in use.
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Plumbing: All plumbing should have analog metering at the consumption end points, at an easy to access area. The analog meter needs a visual meter and an analog electric coupling hook-up that can be used for connection to smart home equipment. Otherwise, we “gracefully degrade” to only a traditional analog meter for manual regular inspection.
With all endpoints metered, and the mains metered, it is possible to detect a leak in the water supply pipes.
Detecting a leak in the sewage pipes? Often times this is not as critical, as supply pipes are continuously filled but not sewage pipes, nor are sewage pipes in use when no one is around. Plus it is more difficult to handle metering at sewage, and it can be prone to clogging. Not good.
UPDATE: Detecting flow in the sewage pipes. You can’t use a flow meter because solids need to go through too and you don’t want to create extra complications for that, but you can use force sensors at the pipe mounting points. This is because the sewage pipes are empty most of the time, except when they are being used, unlike water supply pipes. However, this is still tricky as you need to be sure you isolate spurious vibrations that might come from things like heavy trucks outside causing the ground to rattle.
Relating to water supply pipes. Another nifty idea would be to have monitoring on intermediate pipe points too. Unfortunately, there is no way for you to “gracefully degrade” such a system: either it’s fully smart or it’s not there at all.
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How about electricity? Well, game on! Yeah you can do this for electricity too in order to verify that there aren’t any faults, but the particular problem with this is that often times the fault can be located in consumer equipment like an extension cord, or the consumer electronic device itself, both of which would need their own metering. Unfortunately we know the state of affairs in this. There are no standards for communication on this, so you don’t know if the energy is being used correctly, being wasted safely, or being wasted dangerously due to a fault.
Suffice it to say, it’s a good idea in theory, but it can’t be implemented in practice, given the lack of standardization today.
Yes, you can use hoses with faucets, but for most users such implements do not have their own flow control valves, are not filled up with water, and do not sit around long-term, hence they don’t pose the same hazard as conventional water pipes to plumbing fixtures or power cords.
Quick fix solution for the consumer: if there is a switch right at the source of every power outlet, this can significantly increase safety, albeit at a loss of convenience. “Smart power plugs” that feature a switch on the end of the plug. Or a “smart cage” that plugs into the end of a power outlet, provides switches, and protects against crimping by furniture.
Now, it turns out there are already such “smart switches” on the market. Again, we need to take the same approach here: there is an “analog couple” for the smart switch, so we can fall back to the manual method. Probably in this case, we’d just either stack or replace the “wall warts.”
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Good point! I really like the “smart cage” design, although it will need additional structural mounting beyond just the plug ends themselves.
Oh! Really good idea. This solves my problem for finer-grained control of stand-by power consumption around my computers!
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UPDATE 2020-01-23: Backup power wiring. There should be separate power circuits for equipment that should be connected to backup power even during mains power failures. Everything else is left unpowered when mains power fails. The idea is that you want to minimize the load on the backup power system, whether it be batteries, a generator, and so on. Also, there should be a dedicated plug outside the house where a generator can be connected to supply power.
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UPDATE 2020-01-23: 240 volt electricity to the garage is a must, for electric vehicles. Also, especially in the case of an insulated/heated garage in cold environments, there should be a water drainage system so that water from melting snow and ice off the car does not puddle up on the garage floor.
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Also must-have, but on the consumer side rather than the home builder side. Power strips? You need a slick outlet cover for that to prevent dust from settling inside unused outlets. That’s one of the disadvantages of having a vertically resting power stip, as opposed to ones that rest horizontally.
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Thermostat? Measure both temperature and humidity! Keeping humidity in bounds is very important, independent of temperature, because too much humidity can cause the critical structural wood to rot and compromise the safety of the structure, not to mention that everything contained within will also get ruined before the core structure starts getting damaged.
Humidity is the primary source of damage to archival materials, more so than temperature. So the same can be said about preserving the structural integrity of a house.
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Initial construction: The initial construction process must have plenty of documentation of the internal structure: precise post-construction measurements, photos of internal structure partially assembled in steps, videos. 3D scans. Yes, advanced media materials like this, and detailed “as-constructed” plans, not just “as planned.”
How do you verify that such information will be collected up-front during initial construction? Be clear to the construction crew that you also want a survey crew of a sort throughout the process, and document the components that you want surveyed. See my More house systems blog post for more details.
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Initial construction: A sturdy foundation below both the house and the garage is a must. There must be no stray metal beneath the basement floor, so that project work involving metal detectors can be done in the basement without signal interference. Therefore, metal detectors must be used during initial construction to remove any stray metal objects from the ground, and the construction crew must be particularly diligent not to drop and loose even but one stray nail or staple.
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Lighting electrical supply must be able to support enough current to power traditional incandescent light bulbs, even if the current fixtures are more energy efficient alternatives.
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No cheap heat vents! No plastic bags or twisty turns, straight vents that are designed by air flow principles.
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Custom design on anything that requires hand and arm reach? Simulate it first with foam mockups and real people, in the real world, before building the final model. Avoid doing too much on paper for these things.
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Bathroom mirror metal supports should be conformal coataed or chrome coated so that they do not rust.