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Electrical contractor James Duggie has used Hager’s Tebis bus system to simplify the transformation of an old Scottish farmhouse near Inverness into a futuristic home full of smart technology.
Using the Tebis bus cable it is possible to have multiple control scenarios with out the disruption of multicore cabling from a conventional hard-wired solution. The solution enabled the property to be ready for Christmas.
The homeowner can control the building’s services in isolation or in groups. So, for example, activation of a smoke alarm will turn on lighting to aid escape and a master switch by the front door will turn off all of the lights in the house and the heating down to frost protection on leaving.
Says Duggie: “Smart home technology should enable people to use their homes as they wish. It makes it easier to control scenarios at the flick of a switch, or automate functions such as staggering the timing of heating in different rooms for efficiency.
Any control scenario is possible; the trick is to gear the solution to the final user. Often people want to live in the home and then decide in detail what functionality they need.
“Using a bus system means that all of this is possible from a single twisted pair cable that runs throughout the property, and in this case to services outside the property. Having to provide such a solution using conventional hard wiring would have involved multicore cabling and a lot of disruption, if it were possible at all.
“Once the bus line is installed the control scenarios are virtually limitless, it is simply a question of programming which input devices communicate with what output devices.
“Using this system the technology is invisible, so for example we have used toggle switches in most of the rooms to retain a period feel with the property.”
One key area in the farmhouse is the entertaining area centred around the kitchen. Here the owners can choose from one of several lighting scenarios to set a mood. In the future they will also be able to switch on external mood lighting and a water feature in the garden.
While all of the control is decentralised, the owners also wanted a master control panel with indicator lights showing what services are on or off. This was important for the outhouses, where there is an office and in another building the boiler. With all of the boiler controls in the out building, Duggie only had to run a single bus line rather than multicore cabling, another option would have been to use RF technology.
Says Duggie: “Using Tebis helped us meet our deadlines because of the simplicity in installing and commissioning the system. You can also add more control or functionality at a later date with minimal disruption so the owners are not faced with an ultimatum, they can change their minds later.”
For further information contact:
Hager Sales Office
Hortonwood 50, Telford TF1 7FT
T: 0870 240 2400 F: 0870 240 0400 E: sales@hager.co.uk W: www.hager.co.uk
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