step by step guide for inter terrace

[EricTan100 0]

3 hours ago, petetherock said:

Electrical should be 30-40k for such a large rewiring job.

Make sure it's a licensed person. I had a very smart chap, who even helped with the internet fibre cable. He also labelled every power socket and did the same in the DB. 
Suggest you have a DB on each floor or at least on the three main floors...

Thinking to use mesh router for the whole house. hopefully speed do not slow down too much when reaching level 3.

 

[EricTan100 0]

Any comments are welcome. I will only get my house key in 3-4 months time. In the mean time, will be learning from whatever comments you guys have. Thanks in advance.

[petetherock 13]

47 minutes ago, EricTan100 said:

Thinking to use mesh router for the whole house. hopefully speed do not slow down too much when reaching level 3.

 

I can't put a link, but look up "pete's write" and search for Mesh.... 

Also it's best to add more lights and not re-use stuff like electricals, pipes and plumbing - save the pennies and pay a lot more later.. 

As I said before, you do need a builder to give you more advice.. that's what a good one must do even in the discussion phase. I had long conversations with my builder and talked to various ID too even though mine was largely an internal renovation... not even a A&A. 

[snoozee 98]

I would suggest to just paint the external as well since you are doing renovations now. exterior paint is not meant to last forever which is why you see normally HDB flats get a fresh coat every 5 or 6 years. also the only protection from exterior water seeping through the concrete/bricks is the exterior paint. so better to do a new coat of exterior paint as well.

unfortunately if you want to do concealed lights, then the only way is to do a false ceiling. not sure if your 9 LED would be overkill or not unless you are getting those low wattage LED lights. you might be better off getting 4 slightly higher wattage LED lights and then configuring the light switch to have them turned on/off individually. do note that a "normal" fluorescent tube of 40W gives out about 3000 lumens of light. so you will need to work out how much brighter you want for the rooms and then calculate the wattage of the LED lights you want to get. the higher the wattage of the LED lights, the bigger they are. but if you want to add another light to the room without adding ceiling can always hack the ceiling and extend the existing wire to add on another light. but this is subjected to the existing loading of the breakers in the DB.

since you redoing wiring, might as well add on network points for each room. pay TV are all using internet now so it is good to have at least one for each room. personally I don't believe in using mesh or network extenders unless there are really physical constraints. for my own house, I would be using enterprise grade wireless access points for my WIFI solution. this would eliminate the speed losses which are a common problem with mesh network and wifi extenders.

for aircon, you need to check what is the existing type of gas that is being used for the units. some old aircon are using R22 gas which means the pipes can't be used for R410 aircon models. but I do know of at least 1 major aircon manufacturer which touts that its R410 aircon can be used on R22 pipings.

[petetherock 13]

I would add LAN - minimum one point per room, but more in areas like the living room, den, and don't forget one in the front and rear porch...

False ceiling allows you lighting options... but do fix your fan on a hard point. BTW, they will charge more for fans that aren't fixed to a concrete ceiling.

 

+1 on the painting. Re paint the place. You won't regret it. I think you must budget enough and not go too tight... have a realistic budget, unless you are only living there for like a couple of years..

[yc_mw 1]

6 hours ago, snoozee said:

I would suggest to just paint the external as well since you are doing renovations now. exterior paint is not meant to last forever which is why you see normally HDB flats get a fresh coat every 5 or 6 years. also the only protection from exterior water seeping through the concrete/bricks is the exterior paint. so better to do a new coat of exterior paint as well.

unfortunately if you want to do concealed lights, then the only way is to do a false ceiling. not sure if your 9 LED would be overkill or not unless you are getting those low wattage LED lights. you might be better off getting 4 slightly higher wattage LED lights and then configuring the light switch to have them turned on/off individually. do note that a "normal" fluorescent tube of 40W gives out about 3000 lumens of light. so you will need to work out how much brighter you want for the rooms and then calculate the wattage of the LED lights you want to get. the higher the wattage of the LED lights, the bigger they are. but if you want to add another light to the room without adding ceiling can always hack the ceiling and extend the existing wire to add on another light. but this is subjected to the existing loading of the breakers in the DB.

since you redoing wiring, might as well add on network points for each room. pay TV are all using internet now so it is good to have at least one for each room. personally I don't believe in using mesh or network extenders unless there are really physical constraints. for my own house, I would be using enterprise grade wireless access points for my WIFI solution. this would eliminate the speed losses which are a common problem with mesh network and wifi extenders.

for aircon, you need to check what is the existing type of gas that is being used for the units. some old aircon are using R22 gas which means the pipes can't be used for R410 aircon models. but I do know of at least 1 major aircon manufacturer which touts that its R410 aircon can be used on R22 pipings.

HI Snoozee,

Can I know what is this enterprise grade wireless access points? "I would be using enterprise grade wireless access points for my WIFI solution. this would eliminate the speed losses which are a common problem with mesh network and wifi extenders."

I'm currently using mesh for my apt, and the speed loss is pretty horrid for a 1500sqft unit. So, I really need viable solutions. Appreciate your sharing as usual.

[snoozee 98]

8 hours ago, yc_mw said:

HI Snoozee,

Can I know what is this enterprise grade wireless access points? "I would be using enterprise grade wireless access points for my WIFI solution. this would eliminate the speed losses which are a common problem with mesh network and wifi extenders."

I'm currently using mesh for my apt, and the speed loss is pretty horrid for a 1500sqft unit. So, I really need viable solutions. Appreciate your sharing as usual.

unfortunately for WIFI extenders or mesh, you always need line of sight between the nodes to get optimal performance. so with walls in between the nodes, you will always experience signal loss which results in loss of bandwidth/speed.

with enterprise access points, you have a dedicated physical wiring connected to the access point which leads back to the data switch/router. each access point needs a physical wiring. so with this, no matter which access point you are connected to, you can get the optimised signal as long as your device have line of sight with the access point. even if your device does not have direct line of sight (eg : access point is outside the room), the signal loss would not be as great as the access point simple received the signal from your device, sends it down the wire to the router, then upon receives the data from the router via wire, sends it to your device. compare to a mesh or WIFI extender where the node has to receive the signal, send it wirelessly to the next node, then the next node may have to send it to the next node or router before sending back the data to the original node and sending it back to your device.

of cos one way to improve the speed of mesh/wifi extenders is to buy more nodes and add them to the network. but this just increases your upfront cost as well as running costs as each node will use electricity. but an enterprise grade access point does not come cheap as well with some models in the 4 digit price range. however one need not shell out a bomb for these high end models as they are usually used for areas where there is a need to serve a few hundred people per access point. an entry level enterprise access point could cost about the same as a home mesh networking kit.

the main drawback of using enterprise access points is the need to pull physical cables to the location where the access point is to be located. even though some enterprise access points can perform WIFI bridging (similar to mesh/wifi extender), one would face the same problem as mesh networks when using this mode. also one would need networking knowledge to set up the access points properly when there are multiple access points in a home such that the signals don't interfere with each other.

to know what models are available, just google "enterprise access points" and there would be plenty of models from various manufacturers.

 

[petetherock 13]

I don't know if my Google Mesh is enterprise, but it allows "Ethernet Backhaul" if the term is correct. 

So I don't need line of sight. I use one on each floor, situated at the landing of the stairs so it is right in the middle of the house. 

I get 3-400 mps on my handheld devices in the rooms with the doors closed more than 5m away, higher on desktop devices. 

So I'm a firm believer of this. Just put enough LAN points in your new home. At least one in each room with a power point nearby as a minimum. 

Like I said, we can't post links here, otherwise see my previous post Eric.

Mesh works well esp with backhaul. 

[EricTan100 0]

Thanks for all the info. I will look at it and will ask you guys more in few months time when i will get the key to my house.

[snoozee 98]

47 minutes ago, petetherock said:

I don't know if my Google Mesh is enterprise, but it allows "Ethernet Backhaul" if the term is correct. 

So I don't need line of sight. I use one on each floor, situated at the landing of the stairs so it is right in the middle of the house. 

I get 3-400 mps on my handheld devices in the rooms with the doors closed more than 5m away, higher on desktop devices. 

So I'm a firm believer of this. Just put enough LAN points in your new home. At least one in each room with a power point nearby as a minimum. 

Like I said, we can't post links here, otherwise see my previous post Eric.

Mesh works well esp with backhaul. 

Google Mesh is more of a home device. With Ethernet Backhaul, the data is transmitted via the cable instead of wireless so the node now acts as an access point instead.

Again the important point is that there needs to be a network point in the room with pre-laid ethernet cabling for this to work.

the latest building regulations from IMDA specifies that there needs to be at least 1 Cat 6 network point in each room and kitchen, 2 for master bedroom and 2 for living room. But I'm more kiasu and am providing more than the required points. :P In any case, my telephone points are also run using cat 6 cables and can be converted to network points if needed.

[petetherock 13]

3 hours ago, snoozee said:

Google Mesh is more of a home device. With Ethernet Backhaul, the data is transmitted via the cable instead of wireless so the node now acts as an access point instead.

Again the important point is that there needs to be a network point in the room with pre-laid ethernet cabling for this to work.

the latest building regulations from IMDA specifies that there needs to be at least 1 Cat 6 network point in each room and kitchen, 2 for master bedroom and 2 for living room. But I'm more kiasu and am providing more than the required points. In any case, my telephone points are also run using cat 6 cables and can be converted to network points if needed.

Very very wise thumbs up!

Likewise I have phone points too in case.. 

[petetherock 13]

By the way, if you are keen on having a home theatre for your new place, you can search for my entry on "pete' write" at blog spot. I have info on this, getting that mesh up and other matters that you may find helpful for your new home.. 

 peteswrite.blogspot.com/2020/03/constructing-home-theatre-den 

Edited March 27, 2020 by petetherock

[petetherock 13]

By the way, if you are keen on having a home theatre for your new place, you can search for my entry on "pete' write" at blog spot. I have info on this, getting that mesh up and other matters that you may find helpful for your new home.. 

 peteswrite.blogspot.com/2020/03/constructing-home-theatre-den