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Ask HN: I'm renovating a house, what clever stuff should I build in?

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Re: Ask HN: I'm renovating a house, what clever stuff should I build in?

#51

Post by melling »

chopsueyar wrote: post #41

Spray foam insulation in attic and basement (cellulose based). Mini-split AC system (multi-zoned Mitsubishi or LG). CAT-6 wired, RJ-45 connections (two in each room). Electrical, instant-on hot water heater (no tank). Graywater system to save on toilet flushes. Double-gang outlet boxes (so you can have 4 outlets, instead of 2). Air-to-Air heat exchanger (they are called many things - it replenishes stale, indoor air…

Do instant-on hot water heaters work well? What are the best brands. I'm in an apartment with a small tank that I would like to replace.

Re: Ask HN: I'm renovating a house, what clever stuff should I build in?

#52

Post by varjag »

petervandijck wrote: post #25
bodski wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are burying cables in the wall you may as well spend the extra and go for Cat. 6a UTP as it's spec'd to carry 10 Gbit Ethernet. Watch out for the minimum bend radius though its often around 30 mm with Cat 6a (4x cable's outer diameter). More and more stuff can be carried down UTP like video (HDMI over Ethernet) and USB devices, it is also ideal for hooking up phones around the place too. You can never have too…

But isn't ethernet way faster than your internet connection, which is your true bottleneck? Unless you're gonna do heaps of local movie streaming or something?

Imagine someone putting coaxial for lightning-fast 10Mbit back in the 90s. It might have seemed an overkill back then..

Anyway, if you stream from a local server (e.g. a NAS in the basement), it might totally make sense even today.

Re: Ask HN: I'm renovating a house, what clever stuff should I build in?

#53

Post by TobiasCassell »

In the coming years the price of water will change considerably. You probably wont regret installing a rainwater harvesting system. Also, there is a way to finesse the wasted water that goes down the drain in the shower back into your toilet tanks.

Re: Ask HN: I'm renovating a house, what clever stuff should I build in?

#54

Post by chopsueyar »

melling wrote: post #51
chopsueyar wrote: post #41

Spray foam insulation in attic and basement (cellulose based). Mini-split AC system (multi-zoned Mitsubishi or LG). CAT-6 wired, RJ-45 connections (two in each room). Electrical, instant-on hot water heater (no tank). Graywater system to save on toilet flushes. Double-gang outlet boxes (so you can have 4 outlets, instead of 2). Air-to-Air heat exchanger (they are called many things - it replenishes stale, indoor air…

Do instant-on hot water heaters work well? What are the best brands. I'm in an apartment with a small tank that I would like to replace.

Stiebel-Eltron. You may have to add some extra circuit-breakers.

http://www.stiebel-eltron-usa.com/tempra.html

Re: Ask HN: I'm renovating a house, what clever stuff should I build in?

#55

Post by chopsueyar »

qjz wrote: post #35
roel_v wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, that's either because you didn't really adapt to induction, or because you had a crap stove. Induction is equally good or better than gas in every aspect but one: - Lower energy use - Induction responds equally fast as gas (i.e, instantaneously) - Standing over an induction stove doesn't get nearly as hot as over a gas stove - Induction is much much much easier to clean. - No need to find matches/lighter (un…

Note that portable single "burner" induction cooktops are available at under $100 for anyone who wants to investigate the technology before committing to it. It will remain a useful appliance, whatever your preference (warming plate, at-table presentations, cooking on the porch, etc.).

$70 from Target.com

http://www.target.com/Aroma-Induction-Cooktop-Black/dp/B0041...

Re: Ask HN: I'm renovating a house, what clever stuff should I build in?

#57

Post by jimmyswimmy »

I ran 4" electrical conduit from where the TV is to where the cable box etc. are. Didn't take more than a few hours to cut, join and mount it, and it is completely future proof.

To mirror everyone else's comments, cable everything you can. I ran 2x RG-6 quad shield, 2x CAT-5e to each panel and home-ran it. If I did it again I'd also run a CAT-3 (I won't use it but future buyers might want it). I've seen cables that have all that plus fiber - check out smarthome.com or similar.

Re: Ask HN: I'm renovating a house, what clever stuff should I build in?

#58

Post by smanek »

TobiasCassell wrote: post #53

In the coming years the price of water will change considerably. You probably wont regret installing a rainwater harvesting system. Also, there is a way to finesse the wasted water that goes down the drain in the shower back into your toilet tanks.

There's a (relatively low) upper bound on the price of water based on cost of desalinating water (turning ocean water into drinkable water).

It looks like, today, water desalination can be done for about a $1000 per acre-foot, which is only ~40% more expensive than current prices (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120053698876396483.html?mod=...). Granted there aren't desalination plants everywhere - but in the event of a serious water shortage many would quickly be built.

40% sounds like a lot, but water accounts for such a small percent of most people's current expenses, that it's practically negligible.

Current per capita total water use in the USA is about 180 gallons per day. That means switching to all desalinated water would cost less than $70 extra dollars per year per person.

Re: Ask HN: I'm renovating a house, what clever stuff should I build in?

#60

Post by pbourke »

adestefan wrote: post #32

Go pellet/corn instead of a true wood stove. I got so sick of splitting wood and cleaning a crappy wood stove that I replaced mine. Now I just dump in 40 lbs of pellets and let her rip. After a couple bags I just need to take my vacuum and 5 minutes later I have a clean stove. Plus I can keep the bags in the garage instead of lugging outside in the snow.

- IIRC you have to make special accommodations (battery backup?) to ensure pellet stoves work during a power outage.

- you can buy logs made of compressed sawdust for your wood stove. These are sized properly for most stoves, though I find you do need to split them in quarters or thirds to get them to catch well. Splitting a day's worth of pressed wood takes ~5 minutes with a hatchet and is light-duty work.

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