Smart Home Construction

The integrator programs it, and we build for it

Automation, whole-house audio, networking, cameras and motorized shades are designed and programmed by a systems integrator. What they need from the builder is a house ready for the cable: boxes where the keypads go, conduit where future cable will run, blocking behind every screen and speaker, power at the window heads for shades and a closet that can hold a rack of equipment. Nearly all of it has to be in place during framing, before insulation and drywall. Adding it afterward means cutting finished walls.

Steve's approach is to treat the integrator as part of the team from the start. If you already have one, we meet with them before framing is finished and walk the house with the drawings. If you do not, we build for the systems you describe and leave the house ready for whoever you choose later.

Licensed trades handle their own parts. Your electrician does the line-voltage work, and the integrator and their licensed technicians pull and terminate the low-voltage cable. We build the structure that carries it all and run the schedule so each trade gets its window before the next one covers their work.

The pre-wire walk before the walls close

The most important hour in a smart home job is the walkthrough after rough framing and before insulation. We go room by room with you and the integrator, marking every keypad, touchscreen, speaker, camera, wireless access point, sensor and television. Heights get set against the actual furniture plan. A keypad beside a door that a bookcase will later block, or a television box behind where a headboard goes, is easy to move now and expensive later.

Then the boxes, conduit and blocking go in to that plan, the cable is pulled and labeled, and the town's rough inspections happen before insulation. Low-voltage cable is kept separated from line-voltage wiring where it should be, and penetrations through top plates are fire-blocked as required.

Before drywall, we photograph every wall and ceiling with the cable, conduit and blocking visible, and we give you the photos. Years from now, someone looking for a wire will know exactly where it runs.

Insulation is the next trade in, and it is where pre-wire work most often gets damaged. Spray foam can bury boxes and fill conduit ends, and batts get stuffed tight over cable. We cap conduit ends, mark every box location on the framing and check the walls again after insulation and before drywall, so nothing the integrator needs has disappeared. The insulation inspection under the stretch energy code many towns have adopted also expects penetrations to be air-sealed, so every hole drilled for cable gets sealed rather than left open.

Inspections go through your town's building department at the stages the permit calls for.

Conduit for equipment that has not been invented yet

Cable standards change, and a house outlasts every networking standard it will ever see. Empty conduit with a pull string from the equipment closet to the attic, the basement and key spots like the main television walls lets future cable run without opening walls. It is one of the simplest things to add during framing and one of the hardest to add later.

In an existing house, especially an older one with plaster walls and balloon framing, we look for chases: stacked closets, an abandoned chimney flue, a plumbing wall. Balloon framing can make it easier to fish cable from basement to attic because the wall cavities run unbroken, but those same cavities need fire-blocking wherever walls are opened. We tell you what is realistic in your house before you commit to a system design, and where wireless equipment will serve better than opening plaster.

New construction and additions are the easy case. When we are framing anyway, we build chases on purpose: a vertical run stacked through the floors near the equipment closet, sized with room to spare.

Blocking, boxes and the equipment closet

Every wall-mounted television, in-ceiling speaker, projector, shade bracket and camera needs something solid to fasten to. We add blocking between studs and joists wherever each one goes, sized for the hardware the integrator specifies. In-ceiling speakers need clear space and sometimes back boxes, and we make sure they do not land on a joist, a duct or a plumbing line.

The equipment closet is where the network, amplifiers and control processors live, and it makes heat. It needs power from your electrician, a clean path for every cable coming in and ventilation or cooling so the equipment does not cook. We frame it with room to work, a door that closes and a backboard or a floor that a rack can be fastened to.

Motorized shades need power and a pocket or blocking at the window head. Those decisions change trim details, so we settle them with the integrator before the casing goes up. Outdoor cameras and speakers get the same treatment on the exterior: flashed mounting blocks and weatherproof boxes, placed before siding goes on.

How we keep every trade on the same page

You get a written scope listing what we build for the systems, separate from the integrator's scope, so it is clear who is responsible for what. When the integrator's plan changes, we update our scope in writing before anything is built. Inspections go through your town's building department at the stages the permit calls for.

Steve started his company because of communication, and a smart home job tests that more than most, because so many trades depend on each other's timing. You get updates on what is done, what the next trade needs and when they are coming, so nothing gets closed up before it is ready.

When the drywall is up and painted, the integrator comes back to trim out: devices on the boxes, speakers in the ceiling, screens on the walls. We patch and touch up anything their trim-out disturbs, and we walk the finished house with you so you know where the closet, the conduit runs and the access points are. If the system plan changes after the walls are closed, we can tell you exactly where the conduit is to pull new cable, which is the reason it was put in.

See the rest of our luxury work, or browse the gallery for rooms we have finished.