Smart Wiring Your Home (Infrastructure)

It is increasingly necessary to have your house wired properly a.k.a. smart wiring as technology in the 21st century keeps evolving.

Structured wiring refers to running cables through the walls of your home that can carry all of the different signals required to integrate computer networks, home entertainment systems, cables or satellite TV, telephone, climate control and even home security systems, all operated by a central control or remotely through the Internet.

What technology you want in your home will be strictly controlled by the wiring infrastructure you install. Get the smart wiring right and everything else is easy.

Electrical Codes

The first concern with our infrastructural wiring relates to electrical codes. The National Electrical Code (NEC) prescribes the following properties of the wire to be used in your walls:

• Reduce the spread of fire and smoke.
• Prevent shock.
• Comply with other requirements of the NEC. 

What's Behind The Walls

All wiring used behind walls, under the floors or otherwise installed as a structural component of the building must be properly rated. Even speaker wires that go inside the walls have to be rated as either Class 2 or Class 3.

Next you need to decide on wiring gauge and conductor count. How do you know what's right for the job? Well, let's look at the speaker wire for instance.

The distance from the audio amplifier to the speaker location is a major factor in deciding which wire is right for the installation. Every foot of speaker wire adds more resistance, capacitance and inductance to perform equation. Shorter runs of wire that are twisted and shielded a certain way yield better sound quality.