Wiring the house

Moving to a house from an apartment made me realize you have new things to consider.

– How much money is spent on heating?

– We have a 45-year old, huge water boiler in the basement, how much does it cost to keep it running? Would we save money by replacing it with a modern one?

– It is said that return-on-investment on air-air heat pumps is quite short, around 18 months is often mentioned. But before installing such a pump to reduce the need for electrical heating it would be great to have a system in place measuring how much electricity is used for electrical heating before and after the pump is installed, and how much energy the pump itself uses.

– How do you measure the above, collect the data and present it in a good way?

– After installing radio controlled switches across the house, how do you control them in a good way? The included remote works ok, but a computer interface is really what is needed to create more advanced lightning setups.

In the coming posts I’ll sum up the experiences made in planning, building, configuring and running the above services. Having searched the net for information and experiences from others I have found some, but not a whole lot. Hopefully my findings will help others with similar plans and ideas.