New Build: Advice for Power and Data Cabling

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90 posts

Master Geek

#3368347 28-Apr-2025 16:41

Scott3:

Entertainment
You are obviously aware of the trend to have wall mounted TV's with all the wires coming out behind them.
Note many items that would have traditionally been in a entertainment cabinet are now being designed to be hidden behind the TV. Sky pod, Nvida Shield etc. Ideally you would avoid swtiches & multiboxes and have 4x power + 4x Ethernet, + UHF behind the TV. Potentially you could do away with the cabinet all together and simply have a large soundbar feed the rear satellite speakers. If you do want a cabinet, then that should have power + Data + UHF also. Plus a conduit or similar to get HDMI and opitical cables from your cabinet to your TV in a hidden way.
Give some thought to speaker height, suggest your wires for your fount sides may be a little to low and your rears too high. If you want a super clean install, with a floating center speaker, the height of that wiring will need to be carefully selected also.
Consider if you will want TV's in other locations? Bedroom? office? somewhere you can see from the kitchen? - if so having power, data and UHF behind the possible location is ideal (but potentially ugly if it is just future proofing)
Lighting:

Not sure what is up with the lighting in the bathrooms. You want a mirror with integrated lighting, a strip light above the mirror, or a pair of spots in the ceiling in front of the mirror. Proposal appears asymmetric?
That pair of lights above the garage door is going to be blocked by the garage door when it is open, but will give great lighting when it is down, don't know if there is a fix for this, just so you are aware.
Outdoor lighting seems a little lean. Nice to have some spots that you can turn on that cover the outdoor dining (are there area's in both the top left and bottom right) & driveway area.
Heating, Cooling, Ventilation

If you intent to use the outdoor seating area's a lot, consider installing (or future proofing with wiring for those IR outdoor heaters.
Our house preforms poorly thermally, so I have just had a heat pump put in each bedroom and the office. In general the heat pump in the middle with the hope it cools / heats nearby rooms works poorly, but of course it is a lot cheaper solution.
Unclear if a mechanical ventilation system is proposed. Something to give some thought to at the build stage. avoid those such air out of the roof space ones
Bathroom's

Bathroom extractors - ones with inline fans are way quieter and mean the intake can be right above the shower.
If you have tiles, underfloor heating is really nice
Consider towel rails. We have a bathroom that is tight on wall space, but managed to fit in a pair of those vertical poles ones. Consider if you want a timer installed from the start (or just want to run them 24/7 to keep the bathroom a little warm and reduce mold risk.
If you are having cupbords (mirror cupboards are a trend at the moment), consider if you want to have power outlets inside (charge electric toothbrushes etc), or outside, or both.
EV Chargers

Give some thought to location - frustratingly EV makers have not unified on a single charge port location, so it is hard to future proof the location. Ideally the wall charger location would be such that it can work with any EV, and you have a charge port storage dock somewhere near your current EV's charge port location
Have each on a dedicated circuit.

Size of which will depend on what power incomer you have. If only single phase then you want this sized for 32A single phase each (40A breaker is recommended, but mine is 32A and works fine). If you have 3 phase, Personally I would run 32A 3 phase to each, meaning you can charge EV's like single phase only kona at 7kW, and 3 phase EV's like the ioniq 5 at 11 kW (and rare 22 kW 3 phase EV's like the recently released Cadillac Lyriq at 22 kW.
Much of the above is about future proofing. Our 2014 EV has a 24 kWh battery, Something like a mach-e awd (was selling for $55k for a bit last year) has a 100 kWh battery. Quite possible 200 kWh+ EV's will be common in 2035, for which faster charging than today EV's is highly desiable.
Many EVSE's now have DC leakage protection, making the extra protection from a type B RCD moot, given they are $350 and Bulky, I didn't bother with my EVSE install.
If you already have two EV's, I would skip the 16A plugs and go straight to having EVSE's installed. Tesla's gen 3 wall connector are well regarded. They are $850 each, can handle up to 22kW, and are capable of load sharing between mutiple EV's (but lack some more advanced smarts).
If you have outdoor parking spots, consider future proofing them for EV charging. Either by running a wire to the location. Or having conduit installed to bridge gaps that can't be done after the walls are closed in. in a surprising number of kiwi homes the cars get bumped from the garage in favor of other uses.

speaker heights and types will be largely dictated by SAF.

bathroom lighting - we had a convo about this last night actually. Will look into cabinets with lighting, as we have one like that now that doesn't work for my wife. Good point about bathroom cabinet power points. Have one of those now.

Will def have heated towel rails. Thanks for spotting that omission

mechanical ventilation and heating, bathroom extractors - see other reponses. That's one of the main design requirements for this house. :)

EV points will be either side of garage at a central point. Thinking of evnex. Will follow their lead on RCBO. We're happy with our EV charging now, and 7 kW is twice that! Charging requirements are related to usage, not to the size of battery.

Good point about outdoor charging. Would be a good idea to at least provide the capability for future.

tweake

2349 posts

Uber Geek

#3368349 28-Apr-2025 17:05

downdraft range hood? has this place got a basement? if not hows it been vented out? or are they planning on a recirc model?

downdrafts are terrible (pretty much pointless in high performance homes) and recirc ones in high performance homes is an old fashioned method that passive house went away from a long time ago. kiwis still do it to cut corners. neither are recommended.

the ERV, is there space for a whole home dehumidifier? ERV's keep the moisture IN as well as out. especially if using ERV to replace bath room fans.

SirHumphreyAppleby

2838 posts

Uber Geek

#3368356 28-Apr-2025 17:43

Twincamr2:

Just had a look and a spool of 300 m fibre is four times the cost of CAT6. I just don't think it's necessary at this point. Most of my current network runs at 100 mbit/s. Don't revoke my card please!

Admittedly, my price estimates were based on importing fibre from China rather than buying spools locally. E.g. A quick search on AliExpress will get you 100m of two-core fibre for under $US60. Add GST and the current exchange rate, and that's a little over $NZ1 per meter, BUT, if you use BiDi SFP modules, the dual cores gives you two Ethernet connections to a single location. If you buy fibre you can separate, then you get 200m for the price of one, or about $0.50 per meter, compared to around $0.72 per meter for locally sourced Cat6.

Fibre is light weight and compact, so it's easy and cheap to ship.

Scott3

3946 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3368413 28-Apr-2025 23:51

Twincamr2:

Wow, thanks @scott3! I'll break up my responses for ease of reading.

I haven't looked into changing the power (or any services) coming in - I believe it's 63A to the house we're knocking down. Not sure if it'd be cost effective to change. Definitely sticking to single phase though. No interest in charging EV's that fast.

Interesting ideas on the breaker/dist board. Will take those into consideration. Have never had any nuisance tripping.

Induction is a must, hoping to do downdraft extraction if we can find one at a good price. We've used it for the last ~10 years and would struggle to go back to a rangehood. Along with that, we've had the luxury of a 75 cm oven, but they're also hard to find at a reasonable cost.

Yes, under cabinet lighting is on the cards.

I had wrongly assumed it was a new development. Still might be worth looking into the cost to change to a 100A connection if you don't want three phase.

Looked up the max current draw on a 90cm induction cooktop (CI905DTB) and it's 43A, and for a 90cm (OB90S9MEPX3), and it it's 20.63A. I think you might be better suited to a 100A (or three phase feed). I'm sure your sparky will advise.

I have never used downdraft extraction, but to me it seems you are fighting physics... Make sure there is a duct route before you go to far down this path.

Twincamr2:

Oh, we're definitely doing 32A - that's on the left side of the garage. The 16A is additional to that. We've been a two EV family for the last five years or so and we've never (literally not even once) had a problem with our current pair of 16A EVSE's, so the upgrade to 32A + 16A will be already be significant for us. The question seems to be whether we need a special RCBO or not.

------------------

speaker heights and types will be largely dictated by SAF.

bathroom lighting - we had a convo about this last night actually. Will look into cabinets with lighting, as we have one like that now that doesn't work for my wife. Good point about bathroom cabinet power points. Have one of those now.

Will def have heated towel rails. Thanks for spotting that omission

mechanical ventilation and heating, bathroom extractors - see other reponses. That's one of the main design requirements for this house. :)

EV points will be either side of garage at a central point. Thinking of evnex. Will follow their lead on RCBO. We're happy with our EV charging now, and 7 kW is twice that! Charging requirements are related to usage, not to the size of battery.

Good point about outdoor charging. Would be a good idea to at least provide the capability for future.

For a single phase new build I don't see why you wouldn't put in 32A wiring for both. The cost of the fatter wire vs 16A will be trivial. Basically every wall mounted EVSE supports 32A regardless (and if you are going for a portable EVSE and caravan plug on this side, you can still wire it to the fatter wire to make for an easy upgrade if you ever want a wall mounted EVSE in the future

Need for a Type B RCD is driven by the charger type. Tesla & EVnex do not require: https://www.evnex.com/nz/blogs/ev-charging-and-type-b-rcds

EVnex chargers are are local, and have a heap more smarts than Tesla, including overload protection which the tesla charger lacks. Are a lot more expensive though. Could be quite useful if you are running a 63A feed, but note the need to run a twisted pair back to the circuit board from the server charger to get data from a CT clamp before the walls are closed in. Also note the cheapist of their range can't be the server for a multi charger setup.

Won't work for your layout, but as a note to other's dual EV chargers do exist: https://smartevchargers.co.nz/shop/wall-mount-ev-chargers/dual-output-ev-charger/

Get the point on EV charge speed being usage driven, not battery size driven (we did fine for 2 years with a leaf charged with an 8A charger out a window), but in my mind faster is better regardless if it is reasonably attainable:

Can fit a greater amount of charging into an off peak or free power window if you are on such a power plan.
EV's tend to be more efficient charging faster (overhead loads to enable charging are not turned on for as long).
Reduction of hours the coolant pump is running
Ability to top up faster i.e. if you run say 80km of errands in the morning, then return home for lunch, and to pack the car before heading off on a 400km trip in the afternoon. a 11kW charger will replace that 80km in a ~2 hours, where a 3.6 kW charger will add less than half of that in the same time.
Ability to do back to back long trips.

Of course you might never to the last two things (or do them so rarely that it is not a issue to swing by a fast charger).

Scott3

3946 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3368414 29-Apr-2025 00:02

Give some thought to the dryer in the laundry. if you are going for a vented dryer you will need to provision a duct. That said Heat pump dryers are becoming more common (but are heavier so can't be wall mounted),

Twincamr2:

toejam316:

I haven't really looked in depth, but my advice for these days - anywhere you're running data, run single mode fibre in parallel. Copper, you'll push 10Gbit at most, and it's a pain to get that in place.

SMF you'll push 100Gbit pretty easily, so if you ever find yourself lacking in bandwidth you have options. There's also a lot more applications for x-over-fibre than x-over-Ethernet.

Interesting idea, but although I like to mess around with it, we don't really do a lot of bandwidth/speed-intensive stuff. I get that it's future-proofing, but you have to draw the line somewhere. And in this case the line might be drawn at a drawline.

I am a big supporter of draw wires and conduits. We had a new house built in my childhood that was future-proofed for computers with a bunch of extra phone sockets. Complete waste of effort. Never used any of them before broadband became a thing (actually we converted the sewing cupboard to a computer cupboard, so dial up was done with a long phone extention cord we ran through a roofspace...).

Same house had wiring for ceiling fans added for future proofing. Ultimately ended up having heat pumps installed instead, and never will have a ceiling fan... Again future proofing money down the wire.

Thankfully those things are fairly cheap though.

Yet the same house has no way to link between the two major roof spaces, which would have made data wiring much easier.

Twincamr2

90 posts

Master Geek

#3368420 29-Apr-2025 07:39

tweake:

ventilation air flow is pretty small. i would never rely on it for heating/cooling/mixing. typically want a ducted heat pump for that (much higher air flows) or ceiling fans.

MVHR flow should be enough. A well -designed passive house should never have large differences in temp anyway. Ducted great pumps are very hard to integrate with ventilation for the exact reason you mentioned - they have vastly different flow characteristics. No real interest in ducted or ceiling fans anyway.

Twincamr2

90 posts

Master Geek

#3368422 29-Apr-2025 07:45

tweake:

downdraft range hood? has this place got a basement? if not hows it been vented out? or are they planning on a recirc model?

downdrafts are terrible (pretty much pointless in high performance homes) and recirc ones in high performance homes is an old fashioned method that passive house went away from a long time ago. kiwis still do it to cut corners. neither are recommended.

the ERV, is there space for a whole home dehumidifier? ERV's keep the moisture IN as well as out. especially if using ERV to replace bath room fans.

Downdrafts are amazing! We've used one for a decade. And they can be vented in any number of ways - no different to a range hood. Could be recirc or a motorized damper with makeup air. Haven't decided yet. There's no really good commercial solution for the latter, but that's a challenge! And it has little to nothing to do with any perceived shortcomings in the Kiwi character. ;)

It's not an ERV, it's an HRV.

Mighty Ape

Shop now on Mighty Ape (affiliate link).

Twincamr2

90 posts

Master Geek

#3368423 29-Apr-2025 07:52

tweake:

the zehnder is a pretty $$$ unit especially for an almost passive house. couldn't find cheaper units?

have they allowed room for a pre filter for the ventilation? common trick to keep prices low is to leave that out. matt risinger build show has a good video on that.

the other point is if your running ducting and have vents, change the heat pump to a ducted heat pump.

No, haven't found any other MVHR options in NZ that do everything we need. Stiebel Eltron is an option, but no real difference in cost. Happy to take suggestions.

Matt Risinger is a great salesman and seems a decent guy and serviceable builder, but he's not an engineer.

As mentioned previously, no need or desire for a ducted heat pump. :)

acsylaa

36 posts

Geek

#3368424 29-Apr-2025 07:55

Scott3:

Circuit board: (Switchboard, MEN BOARD)

Ensure it has a decent number of free slots in it
It is located somewhere you can get future wires in / out (if not have a few bits of conduit put in.
Consider having a whole house surge protector added - not super common in NZ, but I had one added when my circuit board was replaced in my house
Standard in NZ is to have a RCD for every 3 circuits, If you want to reduce the odds and impact of nuisance tripping (and save some space on the board), you could specify and RCBO for every circuit, but this will cost ~$1000 extra, so I didn't end up with that in the end.
Could consider a dedicated circuit for your fridge / freezer, or anything else critical (data rack?), to reduce the odds of being tripped by another load.
Check the location is somewhere aesthetically acceptable.
Bathroom's

If you are having cupbords (mirror cupboards are a trend at the moment), consider if you want to have power outlets inside (charge electric toothbrushes etc), or outside, or both.
Ethernet Drops

Ethernet Drops: is Very American way of saying Running a Data cable (Youtube Research), I still cant understand why they and many people refer to it as this, What happens if the cable is run under the house and comes up through the Floor? does it become an Ethernet UP then?

Bathroom: Power points, id make sure that they are on their own RCD and MCB or RCBO Ie their own cable run back to the Switch Board, also check the Zoning on those, i typically hate bathrooms for the Regs around them and some inspectors are really picky about Power Points in and around vanity's.

Switchboard: 100000% make sure you oversize the Switch board!!, Work out your cable runs and circuits back to the board, i usually like 4-5 outlets per MCB you can go higher but it tends to cause issues when you add more.

Another rule of thumb Split your circuits up in the kitchen, so if on one side of the bench you have 2 outlets on one circuit then on the other side you have another 2 on another circuit, that way, you can have both the jug and toaster running at the same time in the mornings and prevents nuance tripping. hell even split it up in to 3 circuits! but no less than 2 circuits for the Kitchen power.

Oven and hobs will be seperate cable runs and fused individually!

For the Switch gear, as mentioned RCBO's per circuit is my preference, While its Regulation now to have no more than 3MCB per RCD i still prefer to spend the Extra and put a RCBO per Circuit, as again it prevents Nuance Tripping and localizes the faults to that one circuit and saves a huge witch hunt should there ever be a fault.

The Resi9 Brand from Schnider has a new configuration Tool and a new method of connection all the single din (slim) RCBO's using the Max bar! i reccomend this as it saves a crap ton of soft wiring and makes the board look 10 times neater, also most of the Resi9 Stuff is rated to 6KA + which should be heaps pending on the Earth loop and distance from the tranny, but your sparky will work all this out.

I had a old BTL 12way ash shown below in my house when i brought it and i replaced that with a PDL DBF30 as that soon filled up when i split all the circuits up from the MCBs and replaced them with RCBO's,

Then i decided to put soalr in and now there is literally no more room left so it might be time for another upgrade in the Switch board area, I should have stuck with what i though and put a 45-60way in in the beginning as it would have left me with some mroe room and i could have tidyed up the cables even more as i would have had morelength on the sub circuits. (sidenote That is not the Maxbar system in this board as it wasnt out when i installed this)

Twincamr2

90 posts

Master Geek

#3368608 29-Apr-2025 12:05

Scott3:

General

Outdoor power outlets - much more handy than running a cord out a window if you do things like vacuum your car, run an electric leaf blower outside.
Spa pool - If you might get one of these in the future, consider having a wire run (or at least conduit to bridge any gaps that will be hard to bridge with the walls closed in
Hot water

Hot water heat pump is shown. These are good but fairly expensive, and arn't as durable as a boring resistance hot water cylinder.
If you are going solar, you may be better off with a large (300 or 400L) duel element cylinder. Bottom element run by a solar diverter, or a simple timer which turns it on at solar times (and perhaps off peak power price times). Top element on 24/7 power. One of the elements can be ripple controlled if you are in an area which still does that. Will likely work out cheaper upfront, and while 3x less efficient than a hot water heat pump, can soak up much of your solar output that would otherwise be sold back to the grid for peanuts.
For luxury, consider those loop systems where you don't need to wait for hot water to come from the tank. Costs a bit of energy, but saves water.
Solar / Battery

I understand that residential solar is quite cost effective, if you can swing the capex at the same time as your house build I would have it installed while the roofing scaffold is still up, and go as big as your roof (or your lines company will allow).
If not provision a means to get the wires run later.
Battery is typically not cost effective yet, but some make the case for its value in providing backup power in times of a grid outage.

Data:

Hub / rack etc:

You need a central place for data distribution.

UHF
Satellite (if any)
Data
Camera's (can be part of the data system or separably)
Security System (if any)
These don't need to be at the same place, and better access for future cable runs is more important than being physically centrally.
I when with one of those white recessed panels, but For a new build I would be keen on a rack. Consider how on rack mount hardware (like your ONT would be mounted).\
Provision power.
Note that to get 10GBe over cat 6 runs need to be less than 55m
Somewhere that noise / heat is not a big deal (if you might run servers / NAS at some point).
Ethernet Drops

Put in heaps, so you can avoid local switches.
Camera locations
If you want to be really hardcore, you could future proof for 60 GHz wifi which will require an AP in every room as it sucks at penetrating walls.
Consider if you want home smarts. Access control, smart blinds etc.

Other:

Master walk in wardrobe:

Unless all the racks /cabinets are going to have doors on them, a window in the walk in wardrobe is a risky idea. Can lead to exposed portion's of garment becoming faded over a few years. Consider eliminating this, having a opaque pane installed, or some kind of black out blinds / shutters

Outdoor power - great idea. Noted. Spa... Will never happen. :P

Heat pump hot water: still on the fence about this. I don't like the idea of using a less efficient system, but putting the money into more solar would probably give a better ROI. Ring main hot water: I don't think that's in budget.

Solar will def go on at build time. Battery... I like the idea, but not the ROI. Wife is very keen, so it may happen.

Hub/rack: yep to all of that. Planning a 12u or similar rack or enclosure in the upstairs utility room. Any thoughts about rack vs enclosure? Needs to be reasonably large to accommodate a full tower case for the server.

Ethernet yes, smart home... Not really. I've not really seen a convincing case for us.

WIR: good point! Will talk with SO.

Twincamr2

90 posts

Master Geek

#3368658 29-Apr-2025 12:17

SirHumphreyAppleby:

Admittedly, my price estimates were based on importing fibre from China rather than buying spools locally. E.g. A quick search on AliExpress will get you 100m of two-core fibre for under $US60. Add GST and the current exchange rate, and that's a little over $NZ1 per meter, BUT, if you use BiDi SFP modules, the dual cores gives you two Ethernet connections to a single location. If you buy fibre you can separate, then you get 200m for the price of one, or about $0.50 per meter, compared to around $0.72 per meter for locally sourced Cat6.

Fibre is light weight and compact, so it's easy and cheap to ship.

You are close to convincing me to run fibre alongside the CAT just for fun...

Scott3

3946 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#3368659 29-Apr-2025 12:18

Another little thing, my general power circuits have 16A breakers. Many modern homes have 20A breaker. Suggest going for the latter, for reduced risk of tripping again.

Twincamr2

90 posts

Master Geek

#3368663 29-Apr-2025 12:32

Scott3:

I had wrongly assumed it was a new development. Still might be worth looking into the cost to change to a 100A connection if you don't want three phase.

Looked up the max current draw on a 90cm induction cooktop (CI905DTB) and it's 43A, and for a 90cm (OB90S9MEPX3), and it it's 20.63A. I think you might be better suited to a 100A (or three phase feed). I'm sure your sparky will advise.

I have never used downdraft extraction, but to me it seems you are fighting physics... Make sure there is a duct route before you go to far down this path.
For a single phase new build I don't see why you wouldn't put in 32A wiring for both. The cost of the fatter wire vs 16A will be trivial. Basically every wall mounted EVSE supports 32A regardless (and if you are going for a portable EVSE and caravan plug on this side, you can still wire it to the fatter wire to make for an easy upgrade if you ever want a wall mounted EVSE in the future

Need for a Type B RCD is driven by the charger type. Tesla & EVnex do not require: https://www.evnex.com/nz/blogs/ev-charging-and-type-b-rcds

EVnex chargers are are local, and have a heap more smarts than Tesla, including overload protection which the tesla charger lacks. Are a lot more expensive though. Could be quite useful if you are running a 63A feed, but note the need to run a twisted pair back to the circuit board from the server charger to get data from a CT clamp before the walls are closed in. Also note the cheapist of their range can't be the server for a multi charger setup.

Won't work for your layout, but as a note to other's dual EV chargers do exist: https://smartevchargers.co.nz/shop/wall-mount-ev-chargers/dual-output-ev-charger/

Get the point on EV charge speed being usage driven, not battery size driven (we did fine for 2 years with a leaf charged with an 8A charger out a window), but in my mind faster is better regardless if it is reasonably attainable:

Can fit a greater amount of charging into an off peak or free power window if you are on such a power plan.
EV's tend to be more efficient charging faster (overhead loads to enable charging are not turned on for as long).
Reduction of hours the coolant pump is running
Ability to top up faster i.e. if you run say 80km of errands in the morning, then return home for lunch, and to pack the car before heading off on a 400km trip in the afternoon. a 11kW charger will replace that 80km in a ~2 hours, where a 3.6 kW charger will add less than half of that in the same time.
Ability to do back to back long trips.
Of course you might never to the last two things (or do them so rarely that it is not a issue to swing by a fast charger).

Sorry - I should have mentioned that it's a tear down and rebuild project.

16 vs 32A: Fair, as long as there's not a huge marginal cost. I just can't see the use case - We almost never charge both EV's at the same time now, but even if we did, having one of the going a bit (relatively) slower doesn't seem like a big deal. My thinking was not so much the cable, but the cost of the bigger RCD/RCBO.

EVnex vs Tesla - I refuse to give any more money to Elon Musk. Ever. I'm ashamed I ever did. Happy to pay more to support local innovation. I need to do more reading about the EVnex system and how it integrates with solar.

Charging - points taken, especially about the coolant pump and charging window. Our family situation means that long trips are a rarity, and I commute by bike most days. But we can't know what the future holds...

I'm thinking we need to get a sparky engaged pretty soon. Builder is going over plans ATM. Will see who his preferred subcontractor is.

Twincamr2

90 posts

Master Geek

#3368664 29-Apr-2025 12:36

Scott3:

Give some thought to the dryer in the laundry. if you are going for a vented dryer you will need to provision a duct. That said Heat pump dryers are becoming more common (but are heavier so can't be wall mounted),

I am a big supporter of draw wires and conduits. We had a new house built in my childhood that was future-proofed for computers with a bunch of extra phone sockets. Complete waste of effort. Never used any of them before broadband became a thing (actually we converted the sewing cupboard to a computer cupboard, so dial up was done with a long phone extention cord we ran through a roofspace...).

Same house had wiring for ceiling fans added for future proofing. Ultimately ended up having heat pumps installed instead, and never will have a ceiling fan... Again future proofing money down the wire.

Dryer - vented dryers are a no-no in passive houses. Which makes me sad as the payback period for a heat pump dryer is stupid long. And even worse for a condensor dryer. Could still do another motorised damper with makeup air... 🤔

Twincamr2

90 posts

Master Geek

#3368669 29-Apr-2025 12:43

acsylaa:

Ethernet Drops: is Very American way of saying Running a Data cable (Youtube Research), I still cant understand why they and many people refer to it as this, What happens if the cable is run under the house and comes up through the Floor? does it become an Ethernet UP then?

Bathroom: Power points, id make sure that they are on their own RCD and MCB or RCBO Ie their own cable run back to the Switch Board, also check the Zoning on those, i typically hate bathrooms for the Regs around them and some inspectors are really picky about Power Points in and around vanity's.

Switchboard: 100000% make sure you oversize the Switch board!!, Work out your cable runs and circuits back to the board, i usually like 4-5 outlets per MCB you can go higher but it tends to cause issues when you add more.

Another rule of thumb Split your circuits up in the kitchen, so if on one side of the bench you have 2 outlets on one circuit then on the other side you have another 2 on another circuit, that way, you can have both the jug and toaster running at the same time in the mornings and prevents nuance tripping. hell even split it up in to 3 circuits! but no less than 2 circuits for the Kitchen power.

Oven and hobs will be seperate cable runs and fused individually!

For the Switch gear, as mentioned RCBO's per circuit is my preference, While its Regulation now to have no more than 3MCB per RCD i still prefer to spend the Extra and put a RCBO per Circuit, as again it prevents Nuance Tripping and localizes the faults to that one circuit and saves a huge witch hunt should there ever be a fault.

The Resi9 Brand from Schnider has a new configuration Tool and a new method of connection all the single din (slim) RCBO's using the Max bar! i reccomend this as it saves a crap ton of soft wiring and makes the board look 10 times neater, also most of the Resi9 Stuff is rated to 6KA + which should be heaps pending on the Earth loop and distance from the tranny, but your sparky will work all this out.

I had a old BTL 12way ash shown below in my house when i brought it and i replaced that with a PDL DBF30 as that soon filled up when i split all the circuits up from the MCBs and replaced them with RCBO's,

Then i decided to put soalr in and now there is literally no more room left so it might be time for another upgrade in the Switch board area, I should have stuck with what i though and put a 45-60way in in the beginning as it would have left me with some mroe room and i could have tidyed up the cables even more as i would have had morelength on the sub circuits. (sidenote That is not the Maxbar system in this board as it wasnt out when i installed this)

Great info, thanks. Will take that on board about the switch board, especially sizing! Good point about jug and toaster. We have had a similar problem with espresso machine + jug. Will check out the Schneider link - but I guess the sparky will need to be on board.

I like 'drops' - it's pretty clear what it means. Language evolves. 😄

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