Home improvements?

dorokusai

MikeC78 wrote: »

I've guess the stuff I seen was different(older?), you could never make a 90 with it.

Yea, that's older. You could tie a knot in some of the fiber we use at work.

unc2701

Jstas wrote: »

Not every "contemporary" house is built on a slab and honestly new construction is way easier than trying to run wires in a house 150 years old with plaster walls.

Contemporary, referring to the housing style... aka modern. They tend to have a lot of joined, open spaces and bigass LVL's with things cantilevered out... As in no place to run wires :rolleyes: Throw in a slab first floor and it's a logisitical nightmare. I've done two houses of that style and both times it was a major hassle. Got lucky on the one and found an empty space where I could put in an access panel, cut a hole in the subfloor and run the wires on top of the ceiling over to a centrally located wall on the first floor. The other house took putting in crown, but his wife was happy.

Totally agree on the recent vs old house. Helped my boss put in some wiring on plaster & lathe walls. If that wasn't enough of a pain in the ****, there was blocking all in the stud space.

I've only pulled fiber once in a house- only had one "oops", but it was costly.

bruss

I am curious as to how you terminated all those runs.. A switch capable of handling more than say 4 Fiber runs would start pushing the price point too high for home use... Maybe I am wrong..

Jstas wrote: »

I have run fiber, not in my house but in a friend's house. It was quite simple. We pulled the cable all the way up from the basement into the attic. We then ran lines to the various walls and did drops straight down the walls. Worked out peachy.

If he had a slab or a crawl space, I'd have mounted the network equipment in an upstairs area and still ran it into a closet.

Aside from the value other than my own, what other value should I be looking to recover? If I run it and use it, I got all the value I need out of it. If I sell the house and get value out of it, great. I doubt I would lose value though.

Jstas

bruss wrote: »

I am curious as to how you terminated all those runs.. A switch capable of handling more than say 4 Fiber runs would start pushing the price point too high for home use... Maybe I am wrong..

Does it matter how it was terminated? You think that gear is out of reach?

Here, Brocade Silkworm switch, 8 port fiber channel, for $499 Buy It Now. How much stuff is listed in the Flea market here for 3 times that and you're going to tell me that it is out of reach for the average home user?

http://cgi.ebay.com/BROCADE-SILKWORM-3250-8-PORT-FIBRE-CHANNEL-SWITCH_W0QQitemZ180255195301QQihZ008QQcategoryZ80221QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


Here is another one for $300 BIN.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Brocade-3250-8-Port-2Gb-Fibre-SAN-Switch-w-SFP_W0QQitemZ160252730913QQihZ006QQcategoryZ80221QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

The listings change daily. You can also go to any number of liquidator sites where resellers buy up gear coming off of leases or from companies folding up shop, refurb and sell equipment that is less than 3 years old in most cases for a song. I got an HP ProCurve switch with dual gig modules for about $300 shipped. My Cisco equipment (router and switch) I picked up for just over $600 total. I picked up an older Compaq storage array, just like this one:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Compaq-RA4100-Fibre-Channel-Storage-Array-146013-001_W0QQitemZ180257102880QQihZ008QQcategoryZ80217QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

for about $450 shipped to the door and it was chock full of good clean drives and the liquidator even wiped the array and restored the RAID before they shipped.

My SCSI bridge came from Crossroads and it was a $148 shipped to my door as a factory refurb. Only has one module in it but that was all I needed. That was a SCREAMING deal on a $900 piece of equipment!

There is a ton of stuff you can do on the cheap. You don't necessarily need new stuff. Fiber optic stuff has been out for a long while now in computer years and stuff that is 3 years old is already in to the newer standards and generations of equipment. Do the research, take a look around. Bargains and deals are everywhere and you can put together some real powerful systems for pennies compared to new.

bruss

lmao

disneyjoe7

Jstas wrote: »

Mine isn't overkill for what I'm doing with it. I'm working on a distributed media system to share media across a network to multiple computers. Added benefits include large, network attached storage space and shared resources. If I can make it easy and viable, I might be able to turn it in to something.

What I'm saying is that if you where to sell your house tomorrow... Would this add to the sale? I say not overkill how would this connect to my TiVo, AVR, Voip, Alarm panel, Refrigerator, other computers, printers. If you need to be a super greek to understand it that's hard to sell as an improvement, what that is a improvement to you and no one else. Is that wrong no, but I say if its hard to get your money out of it if sold, its overkill.

george daniel

shack wrote: »

Stripper pole and a rotating mirror ball?

Then you can change your name to Pacman (since Adam is no longer going to be using it).

add a trapeze and some lighting and you're good to go.

Jstas

bruss wrote: »

lmao

If it's so funny then why not enlighten us? You made a claim that was untrue and instead of backing it up, you're going to "laugh". If it's the "termination" question, it honestly doesn't matter. The fiber optic switch a friend and I installed in his house and then ran fiber optic cable for came in on a lease return. It was a $5500 switch new with 8 ports on it. It was from SMC I think. I think it was a Tiger. I don't remember for sure. He got a screaming deal on it because he works for a smaller networking company that supplies gear. Kinda like a CDW. It came in on an end-of-lease deal and wasn't in inventory. So he gave them $1100 for it and walked out the door. Has 8 ports and the fiber optic cables were terminated at shrouded wall plates to protect the ports with ST Single Mode Simplex style connectors. He sourced all of his equipment through his company. But you don't need to pay that much for a switch to do fiber to a room or two. A 3 year old unmanaged switch can be had quite cheap.

Jstas

disneyjoe7 wrote: »

Is that wrong no, but I say if its hard to get your money out of it if sold, its overkill.

It honestly depends on what you are doing with your network. If you are going to put something together that is going to tax a Linksys WRT54G then you need what you call "overkill". But again, like I said before, it may not add value in the amount you put in to it but it certainly won't detract from the value.

But a "networked house" does not necessarily come with network equipment. It just already has all the cabling and terminations in place to allow the next owner to do what they wish. Fiber optic or copper, doesn't matter, as long as it is laid, it has the potential to add value.

But if I was setting up an extensive network in a house and I dumped thousands into hard core networking gear and ran my own fiber, I sure as hell would NOT leave that gear there. The cable, yes, 'cause that's fairly cheap. The gear, no. Especially if the guy who was buying the house had no clue what he was looking at. No perceived value, no perceived use, it then becomes a hard sell. But nerds like me need houses too and to me, that kind of network in a house is a selling point. It takes all kinds and just because you don't think it's worth it doesn't mean someone else won't. But I have a cousin that is a Realtor and she has yet to tell me that anyone has turned down bidding on a house or lowered a bid because of networking installed. She has called me to ask for a description of what is in houses she has sold.

madmax

I'm not going deep into the pc wiring. This house already has a massive setup that I won't understand for a long time.

I've always liked built in vacuums. One thing I will certainly do is a mouse hole in the kitchen. That is a hole in the cabinet molding in a corner with a shop vac (downstairs somewhere) attached to it. Basic operation is flipping a switch then sweeping the kitchen floor towards the hole which sucks in all the debris.
madmax

disneyjoe7

Well a vacuum mouse hole in the kitchen... Ok that's about as non greek improvement. You're you sure you don't need a toaster to get information from the web to toast your bread to the beautiful toast color?

Jstas

disneyjoe7 wrote: »

Well a vacuum mouse hole in the kitchen... Ok that's about as non greek improvement. You're you sure you don't need a toaster to get information from the web to toast your bread to the beautiful toast color?

You really need to work on your spelling and sarcasm there because you edited that post and it still doesn't make any sense.

amulford

Whole house vacs are pretty cool. There's a few different brands.

madmax

Could I get an image of Jesus toasted into my bread if I choose the right optical cable with super fast data transfer and let my fridge handle the control?

amulford

Can you imagine the highbeams associated with internet **** posted to the fridge???;)

Jstas

amulford wrote: »

Whole house vacs are pretty cool. There's a few different brands.

Yeah, I heard they really suck!





HAAAAAA!

disneyjoe7

Jstas wrote: »

You really need to work on your spelling and sarcasm there because you edited that post and it still doesn't make any sense.

Sorry on the misfiring.

disneyjoe7

amulford wrote: »

Whole house vacs are pretty cool. There's a few different brands.

Have you seen the ones which go on when you hit the little mouse vacuum door?

markmarc

1. Crown molding is a terrific touch.
2. Interior paint, personalizes the space.
3. Changing to raised panel doors
4. Gazebo or arch in the backyard with seating.
5. Full auto sprinkling system, including plant areas, and a fountain.
6. Upgrade the room lighting
7. Cornices over the windows

SCompRacer

madmax wrote: »

I've always liked built in vacuums. One thing I will certainly do is a mouse hole in the kitchen.

AKA toe kick vacuum pan. Ironing centers built into the wall are also convenient.

madmax

Always wanted one of those plasma lifts (cabinet with remote control lift). Something like that might be cool in the bedroom.

I'm thinking moldings and other types of woodwork might be a pretty reasonable and fairly cheap upgrade if I can do it myself. Usually with the right tools its not real hard to cut properly if you are not afraid to mess up a few times.
madmax

exalted512

Dude...I'm in the process of buying a new house...and there is an absolute perfect spot for a TV lift...I don't know how I didnt think of that before...only problem is I'm not sure theres enough depth to do it.
-Cody

exalted512

On second thought...I just saw how expensive they are...ouch.

Theres some cheaper ones on ebay in the $400 range...a lot more affordable than the $1-3k range at the website i was looking at.
-Cody

Squidmon

Crown moldings and thick, high baseboards are in right now.
For return on money, its always the kitchen and bathrooms.
Tumbled marble in the shower is really cool. Another thing is to match your cabinetry n countertops throughout the home. Don't go cheap on your countertops, solid surface at the least.

madmax

exalted512 wrote: »

On second thought...I just saw how expensive they are...ouch.

Theres some cheaper ones on ebay in the $400 range...a lot more affordable than the $1-3k range at the website i was looking at.
-Cody

Yea, the one I saw at a furniture store was $3200. Although nice I had to think if I had $3200 to spend I'd buy a projector instead.
madmax