New house, wiring idea

[mfree]

I was thinking about this reading another thread on a tactical situation...

What would be the merits of wiring a house to where there was a single, overriding "on/off" switch for every light in the house? Have the switch in the master (safe) bedroom or other safe room where it's easy to start a sweep, flip the lights (perhaps siren as well) and start clearing the house?

Just an idea.

 

[JamisJockey]

I think its a pretty good idea. You should also have all your exterior lights hooked to it, or a seperate switch.
Alot of people will tell you that you're taking away your element of surprise, and that the BG doesn't know thier way around your house, so keep it dark. I think most BG's are like rats, and they hate being exposed to scruitiny. They prefer to do thier business in the dark and quiet.

 

[standingbear]

its very simple to do if you have basic wiring skills.I wired my porch lites to one garage door opener and the interior lights to another.I pull up in the car and can turn on outside or/and intereior lighting...same goes if I hear noise from bedroom..can turn the lights on from a remote.

i bought the triple button remotes from sears store and some wall switches that are either remote or push on/off.theyre kinda bulky but its better than falling over the cat or dog getting into a dark home.the instructions are fairly simple..push and hold the remote button and hold it next to the wall switch while pressing in the program button.youre set.

you can program different switches to different remotes much like your tv/vcr/dvd remote.wasnt expensive at all.took me less than an hour to wire it to the wall outlets and program it.I suppose you could wire it to your breaker box and turn on specific items as well...just make sure you turn off the power before you start anything.

 

[Fred Fuller]

You don't have to wire the house any differently if you use the X10 style remote controls for selected lighting. Control of a lamp or two will do in most situations to light areas external to the master bedroom, and you don't want to have lights on in there- you want to remain in the dark. An added advantage of these remotes is that they can be run on a timer, so lights come on and off when no one is home and giving more of the appearance of an occupied house.

You can see some of the products at Radio Shack or online a places like http://www.smarthomepro.com/ .

IMHO it is a bad idea to leave a barricaded position in a darkened bedroom and go out into a lighted house looking for intruders. It would be much better to leave it for the cops to do, some blue lights flashing through your windows will do a lot to keep things under control until you can let the local gendarmerie in to check things out. Clearing is a team job, doing it alone is suicidal if there is someone there waiting for you with 'bad intent'.

lpl/nc

 

[1911Ron]

I agree with Lee clearing a building is hard,it's harder when it's dark, yes home turf and all is good but alone not good. Try an experiment when it's dark, have some one act as a bad guy and you go look for them. Have the BG move around and try to get you, you may find out that you do alright or you find out that it's not as easy. Good luck

 

[foghornl]

Lee Lapin beat me to it, but the X-10 controls are very good for being able to remotely control lights, etc without extensive wiring. You can have a console set up in say the Master Bedroom, so you can do all sorts of neat things with lights.

 

[HankB]

Hmmm . . . master control in your bedroom to turn on all lights in the house except those in the bedroom. This ruins the night vision of everyone outside your bedroom.

Now you turn out all the lights again . . . and now you're the only one who can (sort of) see in the dark house.

This has possibilities . . .

 

[Harry Tuttle]

X-10 master controllers have an All in Zone X Lights on/off button

heck, a computer can monitor events and switch on the X-10 lights in the yard while it releases the hounds