Most of the electrical has been run throughout the house, although we’re not quite finished yet. The city is coming this week to connect the meter, and the panel hasn’t been installed yet… but everything else is looking pretty good.

While we had outlined an electrical plan very early on, you really need to walk around the site to get a good sense of where the lights and switches should be placed. I’d say we followed the plan relatively closely, although we definitely made a few changes.

For the most part, we’ve used low-voltage MR16 recessed lights throughout the house. While we haven’t purchased them yet, the goal is to use LED lights wherever possible… although I continue to read mixed reviews of the technology (which has me a little wary of purchasing them for the entire house). Are LED lights really ready for general consumption? I certainly like the benefits of LED technology, I just don’t want to invest in a bunch if they don’t really work.

I’ve watched enough Holmes on Homes to know that moisture is a bad thing, so we also invested in high-quality Panasonic Whisper Green vents for the laundry and bathrooms. These things weren’t exactly cheap, but I think they were a solid investment. God help me if I discover mould in the future.

From a networking standpoint, we’ve run cat-6 (internet), coaxial (cable) and cat-3 (phone) throughout the house, all of which terminates in the mechanical room. The cat-6 will be connected to a gigabit switch, along with a modem/router to create a fully networked house. Of course, I’ll also connect a few Airport Express extenders to ensure we’ve got wireless coverage as well.

As I mentioned in my previous post, we have a few electronically-operated windows in the clerestory. While the control unit is still incredibly ugly, I discovered that you can actually control both windows with a single unit… which means we have 50% less ugly to deal with. I also picked up a remote control for the system, which happens to have an integrated thermometer in it. This means we can automatically open the windows and vent the heat should the clerestory reach a certain temperature. Coupled with the integrated rain sensor, hopefully the system will take care of itself in the summer (if only technology was actually this intelligent). I’m sure I’ll tinkering with it after 2 months.