The Advantages of a Structured Wiring System
Structured wiring refers to a whole house wiring system meant to replace the wiring systems of old. Today, most consumers have strong networking needs relating to data transfer, computer systems, home security systems, remote controlled HVAC systems, and video entertainment capabilities. Structured wiring systems are intended to meet these demands, efficiently streamlining and distributing a variety of data signals throughout your home. Here’s some information regarding how a structured wiring system works, as well as the advantages this type of setup holds over traditional wiring systems.
How a Structured Wiring System Works
In a traditional electrical wiring system, electricity enters your house via a main power cable. This cable connects to the circuit breaker box, which in turn directs that energy flow through small electric lines that lead to the outlets placed throughout your home. A structured wiring system works similar to this, in that all external data lines—such as cable television, telephone, DSL, cable modem, and security system—are connected directly to a central control box that splits the signals and sends them to multiple areas in the house via high-performance cabling. These lines run to multimedia outlets placed throughout the home which all of the above systems can be plugged into. A second cable line carries the signal back to the control box, allowing that signal to be amplified all over the home. One of the advances in this type of system is the configuration in which the wiring is set up. Each cable run goes directly from the control box to the outlet, eliminating old setups where wires would run from one location to the next to the next as the signal quality deteriorated toward the end of the line.
Advantages of Structured Wiring
Structured wiring offers many advantages over traditional forms of home wiring and is tailored to today’s technology-savvy world. This type of system essentially coordinates all your home systems, allowing you to, for instance, play a DVD in one room and watch it from any TV in the house, or place security cameras inside or out and monitor them from any home TV or computer. Distributing cable TV, Internet, telephone, and audio signals throughout the house not only offers convenience but gives you more centralized access to parental controls. It even makes automation technology possible, so you can operate various appliances from anywhere in the home and even remotely online. Many experts credit this type of system with making homes “future ready,” or better able to handle future technologies as they develop. Given this, it’s not surprising that structured wiring increases the value of your home.
Although structured wiring does require an initial investment, particularly if you’re rewiring an existing home, it offers much in terms of convenience, security, and comfort. And once your home is future ready, you’ll be free to enjoy all the wonders that technology has to offer.