Modern Homes: Have I Gone too Hi-tech?

I think that is a great idea and a very cool home. I too have future plans for similar devices. I also know a guy who routed his walls with pneumatic tube and rigged pneumatically controlled window blinds that used PLC control. As far as marketability it depends on who you market to. There is a market for so called 'future homes' but it is still very niche. But after all that work would you want to sell it?

Cool!

I've been thinking of doing that to my house but not the present one. I've just one point for you to consider if you're planning to sell it or going into business building such homes for other people.

Think economy. Convenience is great but may come at a price and I'm not referring to the one-time type of price here. All that automation consumes electricity, hence, additional cost over time. If you could design things so that it works economically as well as conveniently, you'd have a better selling point.

By the way, how about a car port with a turntable so that after you drive your car in, it turns around, and your car's ready to go out again. Batman lives!

thanks for the reply, most of the "things" ive done have been in hopes, of making the house more efficient, like the controling the furnace, it uses the fan to even the temps out between floors, so it might not have to turn on the gas, but then like you say, it takes elec, to run the fan, toss up? we have a wood stove and it also has sensors to let the controler turn on the fan in furnace to circulate the heat, this also takes power, but then it makes the house heat more even.

the question still in the back of my mind is, if im just making the house more unsellable, " limiting the market" as they say, but then i hear about all the things that builders are installing in new homes, and think, it might be a wave/trend of the new generations, but will they be able to figure out the programs that im writting,or want to have to deal with it? and what if there was a need to modify/change/repair it? but as you say most of the gadgets/things that we put into a house are to make it easy-r on life, and, end up costing you more in the end, which goes back to is it worth it? i keep tossing around all these ideas, but then get set back by the, do we really need to have this?? but its cool,, you see all these houses on tv that have cool stuff,,(new hi tech) i guess since im not thinking about selling the house at the time, i shoud just do the things i like to it and worry about the selling when the time comes,, right!

WN: Are you documenting everything you do so that an average buyer could operate and maintain all of your features? Without a good manual, all of your bells and whistles would be a liability. DickL

The comment here is right inline with the thought of selling the house. Support the improvements. If there is a documented promise of support for the system then you could probably not have too much trouble selling. Just tech support is a great seller for most automation equipment.

This is an engineering website. Your house is going appeal to 99% of the responders. I would not be afraid to buy, I would just want to understand the computer platform, be it PLC or PC.

Non engineers would need re-assurance that there is a "manual mode" so do not burn any bridges, when it comes to automating fundemental utilities (ie. water-heat) For every automated process there has to be a plan to handle sensor or feedback failure, and it's impact on the operation of the process.

If I worked on automating my house, and was told "you will never sell it" I would reply: "Of course not, why would I move out of the perfect home"

Personally, I don't think it's going to be "unsellable" in the real sense of the word. If you do decide to sell, there will always be people who will buy a hi-tech home over the usual, run-of-the-mill, ones.

I don't know if you have records (you must have) but have you checked if your electricity bills have gone way up or up just a little or down. This is the only way to determine if your efforts are going in the right direction. Of course, some aspects will not be apples-to-apples like, if your home had rooms that were cooler than others but now the temperature's more even. Your bills may say it's more expensive but the even temperatures are worth it. If the temperature's are more even and your bills have gone down, then that's a good selling point.

I worked in the automation business automating skyscrapers many years back an the saving in running costs that can be achieved were well worth it. The payback time was measured in months rather than years. What I found is that most people didn't used 10% of the capability of the systems they were having installed yet they were still happy and saving money.

As somebody else said a manual is essential and you also need to document you thinking and the theory behind what you are doing. If you come back to work on something some years later it can be difficult to understand what you were thinking of at the time so a third person has no hope. I personally have looked a pieces of code that I had written many years earlier and for the life of me I can't see why I did it that way, all I know is it works.

So I guess my advice would be to automate as far as you like, but make sure you document it properly and can prove that your are saving money on the running costs. If you do automation can be a selling plus rather than a minus.

thanks for the replys,, yep i have to print out the programs as i write them, so i can see (and keep a book) of whats going on, some of the programs interact with others, so you have to watch what your doing to the variables, i also bought the books to the unit on how to use it, and the books on installing it, and the guy i bought it from gave me a cd with sample programs, as one of the replys stated if i write a program, and dont look at it for a couple yrs, then want to go back and add or make a change,, it takes a couple minutes to figure it out again, but with the print outs, and a little head scratching, i figure it out, but thats what im thinking would be a scarry deal to those that dont know about programming, (there is a bit of logic flow needed),

i have tryed to install a manual switch for most things,, like the furnace,,, but for things like the nite lites, i felt they were not that important, and yes this site is probably not a avarage group of people, for a common feed back, but on the other hand, this is a good group to get a feel for a modern,tech house, if you dont feel its a good thing then im in trouble when i go to sell it,,

but, it's neat to have the automated things, most people that come over, just kinda think its a bit scarry,, but is neat,

as for the energy savings, its hard to tell, the rates change from yr to yr,, along with the change of enviorment, (things you have plugged in) but the avg bills seem to be inline with what other houses our size pay, so it dont seem to be making it worse, and were benifiting from the perks!

thanks again, have a great day, and make it fun!

In the housing market, the technology is difficult to sell. I just moved from a town with a very hot housing market. The only house that had not sold was built by an technology architect. It had everything including fully automated windows (to control light). It basicly did not sell because of the lack of curb appeal. Some major points to take into consideration.

1. If the modifications do not meet building code, it will be difficult to insure, and even more difficult to claim on an insurance claim. (thus not easy to sell)
2. Any modifications must look professional, most buyers do not want to see wires all over the place.
3. Regardless of how advanced the upgrades, a place will be virtually unsellable if it the house does not look good.
4. All new buyers want; little or no maintenance, technology to be fully automated, reliable, and proper documentation.

This reminds me about an article I read about trying to get hired by Microsoft. This question was asked by the interviewer: "If you were to build a house for Bill Gate, what would you do to it?" Some of the reply were to put automateic sensor in the house that will turn the lights on when sense a presence in the house, or to have answer the telephone thru voice command, etc.

Sound to me like this would be a good house to sell to Bill Gate.

MidniteFighter

As long as the house itself (location, size, # of bedrooms, etc.) is desirable I don't think you would not be able to sell your house. I don't think you will get enough of a premium over a similar house without your cool gadgets to recoup the costs that you will spend installing it though. But hopefully any cost savings and the convenience (and fun) of having it while you live there will make it worthwhile.

Shawn

you should make the porch light and camera motion detected instead of through the doorbell. If it is dark you should just have to walk out there and the light will come on. I mean, if someone is in the house trying to sleep and you come home, are you going to ring the door bell just to get light to find your keys (which should be in your hand already if you just got out of your car.)?

hi, yes that would be nice, i already have a motion detector, set up for the front yard, but cant seem to find a unit(as of yet) that seems to cover the area good, its kinda located at a bad spot, but was where it got installed at, if i set the range to far it picks up cars driving down road, and if i set it shallow it don't seem to pick ya up till your on the sidewalk about to enter the porch, but still trying different models,

the motion would be nice, have to try to get that set up, its not so much finding your keys, it more finding the key in the lock, and motion would be better for security, if i can get the detector to work correctly, have to start limiting my fun, I'm getting close to running out of inputs and outputs, i can always buy more pcu's,, each one has 8 inputs and 8 out, and the controller has 16 in and 8 out for a total of 32 outputs and 40 inputs,, i think i have about 12-14 inputs left and 10-12 outputs,, enough for some more fun, but getting close,,!!

i have lots of ideas but just need to get the time and the method of making them work, story of our lives,,huh,,

have a great day and make it a fun one!!