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A Technology Closet can be very compact, but it also must be easily accessible.
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By Michael Stram
I've learned a lot about wiring homes during my career designing wiring infrastructure for many different applications. But first, about that toilet ...
High technology
Back around 1905, the most advanced technology you could bring into a home was a toilet. Like all innovations, it had a ramp-up time to get all the architects, designers, builders and homebuyers on board, though.
Of course, prospective homebuyers wanted this new technology in their dream homes. As they brought their plans to a toilet showroom, the salesperson checked to see if there was a place designated for his product. I'm sure that in most cases, there wasn't. So in his effort to get these toilets into new homes, a creative toilet salesman came up the idea for a "water closet"–a simple modification to the floorplan to designate a place for the toilet.
Eventually, of course, the water closet expanded to include other new-fangled devices, such as plumbed sinks and tubs. The water closet grew into a bathing room, which eventually became standard in all floor plans.
Location, Location, Location
Then came electricity, bringing with it telephones, radios, televisions and eventually alarm systems, stereos and home computers. Each new technology needed wiring, of course. However, each was wired and set up with thought about what the next magical invention might be. After all, as the first electricians ran wiring through the homes of "early adopters," no one would have believed that it would someday lead to high-definition TV or access to an international Web of almost limitless information.
And so it went: the phone company wired the telephone in the kitchen; the TV-antenna or cable wire went to the living room; and the alarm wiring was "hidden" in the master bedroom closet. The result is that most homes have pieces of "communications" equipment that can't communicate with each other.
Fast forward to the mid-'90s and the advent of structured wiring, which was supposed to fix all our wiring blues. The problem with structured wiring systems, though, was that their manufacturers failed to tell everyone where to put them. The stereo and video equipment was in the living room, but all the telephone, network and TV wiring was in the structured wiring panel–out in the garage.
There's a common-sense solution to the problem, though. Put the structured wiring system with the equipment it serves. In fact, we’re going through a technological revolution that's similar to the water closet right now. We need a place for the wires and electronic equipment–a Technology Closet?.
This closet works well with only 3' x 3' of floor space closed off by a standard interior door. The structured wiring panel is in the back wall of the closet, along with a dedicated 20-amp circuit. All wires should come here; it is now the official head-end of all structured wiring items: TVs, speakers, alarm wires, phone, data network and even distributed HDTV wires.
This idea is so simple that I can hear contractors all over the country slapping their heads and saying, "Why didn't I think of that?" I believe it will become the new standard in how we wire homes.
After all, who wants the toilet in the garage?
Michael Stram is president of the Home Theater Gallery, Tampa, Fla.,
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