Splittings Switches from Controllers

[DevonSprings]

Hi All,

 

I wanted to share a method that is working really well for me of running Insteon / ISY-99 in the big rooms of my house. I live in essentially a 4 bedroom house. There are 3 really big rooms - the Master Bedroom (550 sq ft) the kitchen (520 sq feet) and the living room (750 sq feet).

 

In the really big rooms I put a dimmer at the end of each track and in the fans, lights all are on their own dimmer or their own embedded controller.

 

The light switches in these rooms have no load wires on them just a bank of switches that have the hot and neutral hooked up.

 

This is more expensive than doing it the standard wiring way but the house wiring is now VERY VERY simple. Through the switches of the large rooms there are no load wires just two wires entering each box.

 

In the rafters there are also just two wires leading up to the local dimmers and controllers in the fans.

 

When I was telling the electrician, what do you want going over to those tracks. Hot and Neutral just hot and Neutral. And at the end of every track there is a surface mount switch box with a dimmer in it.

 

I know it is more expensive. But I also know I can control any light in the 3 big rooms on and off in any way for any scene.

 

The switches are independent of the loads and i can reprogram everything via the ISY.

 

My electrician could not believe how simple it was to pull the wiring. "What do you want in this box" Hot and Neutral. And that one, Hot and Neutral.

 

In the small rooms that essentially have light, fan, and side lamp we did standard loads as it didn't make sense in a small room, but I can say the control in the large rooms is fantastic.

 

-Devon

 

BTW, the loads are all LED lights not that would make a difference to a 600W dimmer but most of the tracks have about 30-40 w on them.

[oberkc]

I like the theory behind your wiring. As much as I like insteon, I am not sure that I am ready to be completely dependent on expensive powerline-communication devices. I find comfort in the fact that I can return the house to the old-fashioned, tried-and-true, switches. Neither am I confident in my ability to sell a house so configured.

[DevonSprings]

I totally understand. I had nothing but trouble in my kitchen in the past. I removed all the v1 hardware, upgraded to V2 took out all the access points, and put in the passive crossover it worked great.

 

Using wireless technology to bounce around signals is basically flawed as much as I can tell.

[oberkc]

Since you were doing this from the start of construction, did you consider adding cat-5 wiring to your boxes and using one of the hard-wired control systems rather than relying on powerline for your control signals? What thoughts did you have that made you choose the powerline control?

 

Have you had any device failures? Do you keep spare devices so that you can rapidly repair any failures?

 

I really like your approach in that it allows extremely easy reconfiguration of you house lighing system.

[Goose66]

This could have been accomplished even with a convential house wiring scheme. What's more, it would make you house resellable. What you have now is going to cause you problems when you go to sell. I don't know where you are, but down here in the South, your scheme would not have been up to code, and you would have to get a variance of some kind.

[oberkc]

This could have been accomplished even with a convential house wiring scheme.

 

I think the OP knows this to be true, but is making the point that the wiring is simplified using his approach (which is true). Taken to the extreme, one could even wire in such a way as to maximize communication reliability. Cleary, there are potential advantages (along with the potential disadvantages) to wiring this way.

 

I must admit to wondering about the code implications. I was not sure whether code required certain wiring techniques, or simply the ability to control lights at certain locations. I thought it was the latter.

[Goose66]

As far as code requirements, code consists of some of both. However, it must be wired in a conventional way. For example, where I live, you can't have an unswitched ceiling box, even if you want to put up a fan with a pull chain. Stupid? Yes. But code is crazy like that. It probably has something to do with their measure of habitability of the house. Of course, the inspector may never ensure function of a switch for the ceiling fan, so you just have to wire through a junction box on the wall. That said, I think getting a variance is as easy as explaining the unique requirements of your installation (as long as the physical wiring is to code).

[oberkc]

For example, where I live, you can't have an unswitched ceiling box, even if you want to put up a fan with a pull chain.

 

I believe this is true in our area, as well. I am not sure that the proposed system fails this requirement, however. I have a switch at the wall near the entry. I have a light in the ceiling (controlled by the inlinelinc). The switch controls the light. What part is he not passing?

[Goose66]

The question is: what constitutes a switch as far as the inspector is concerned? An Insteon controller that controls a device installed in the ceiling box? Maybe. But seeing how inspection of new construction is done before the final electrical punch, the inspector may never see the insteon switch or the insteon dimmer device installed in the box. She may only see a ceiling box with a circuit running directly to the breaker box with no switch! Is she going to let that pass? In my experience, the answer is no.

 

Moot point anyway for the OP, the electrical is done. I just would not recommend anyone else wiring their house this way for the sake of Insteon control.

[Sub-Routine]

If you route the hot and neutral through the switch box on the way to the ceiling box you could always change to a conventional switch, right?

[Goose66]

Precisely. Of course, then you have a conventional wiring scheme, which is the point.

[Sub-Routine]

Right. But if it just passes through the box rather than being connected to the load wire we have DevonSprings scenario.

[oberkc]

Right. But if it just passes through the box rather than being connected to the load wire we have DevonSprings scenario.

 

I, too, was under the impression that DevonSprings scenario did NOT necessarily pass wires through the switch box. I thought power to the lighting fixtures were direct.

[Zick]

I just like to respond since our house is built similar to DevonSprings.

We built a new home last year and with help from my father-inlaw who is a master electrician, we have almost a 100% insteon home.

Like Devon, none of our light switches have the load wires hooked up.

Basically all the lightning wires run to a couple panels in our mechnical room that has a bunch of Switchlinc Relays and/or Dimmers. I believe this is how it's wire. (I'm not an electrician )

Then those Relays/Dimmers are controlled by Swithlinc Relays/Dimmers/Keypads throughout the house that work like normal light switches. Everything has been programmed vis ISY and any switch can control any light and so forth.

This passed our local codes here and everything is in conduit so it would be very simple to change if need be down the road.

One of these days I'll have to get a picture of our Relay panel that our father-inlaw build as it looks pretty impressive.