Fulham

Project time and cycle: 6 months - Value: £80,000

Our Involvement:

• Initial design & specification
• Total system design
• Cable run out schedules & CAD designs
• Managing & overseeing the first fix works
• Second fix installation & equipment supply
• System programming & Commissioning
• Supply of Cyber Homes operating system manuals
• After sales training & support

Almost 4000 square feet created from one of the famous Nichols ‘Lion’ houses in one of Fulham’s prestigious residential areas. This property had a total refurbishment including the basement being dug out and expanded to the very back of the garden.

The house was molded into a distinctive Scandinavian style, by removing the Victorian
split levels and multiple small room layouts, and creating singular open spaces with
high ceilings.

In addition, a basement was created under the entire house, front and rear gardens, providing additional entertainment, utilitarian and living space. Under floor heating, thermal and acoustic insulation, wide-board character-rich oak floors, air-conditions throughout the property.

We were asked to provide an intelligent automation/audio visual system with an
emphasis on security, CCTV and lighting control.

In addition to this the client asked for high definition pictures to be distributed to every plasma TV within the property.

This client was recommended to us by an existing client from a previous job.

The key elements included:

• Hardwired and wireless networks
• Multi-room music system
• Audio/Video distribution
• Surveillance monitoring
• Lighting control
• Intercom and access control
• In particular, it was essential that it could all be controlled in a convenient way

The controls should be comprehensive enough to provide “blanket” coverage of all systems, yet intuitive enough to allow use by all in the house - even the less technically minded!

In order to fit in to the carefully planned decorative finishes of the house, it was decided
to use Brass in wall key pads and touch screens to control Audio and Lighting, with bespoke surround bezels to match all the other electrical fittings. All speakers were
in-ceiling Speakercraft 8” drivers, with their grills and surrounds painted in the same
finish as the ceilings they were mounted in.

Being a large house over four floors, filled with young children, it was essential that people can communicate with each other as well as be observed for safety and security purposes.

This client was recommended to us by an existing client from a previous job.

Audio systems
An 8 zone multi-room audio system was provided and distributed throughout the house
to in ceiling speakers and rock speakers in the garden; a hard disc sound server was
used to store all the clients’ cd’s and album information which was then viewable on any plasma around the home. In wall and wireless colour touch screens provided full control
of all the equipment stored within the racks room (ie Dab Tuners, sky, Dvd, Sound server) and audio within each zone.

We also provided two 5.1 home cinema areas, one in the basement and one in the family/kitchen area, the latter having plaster and paint over invisible Amina speakers as the client did not want to litter this part of the house with viewable technology.

Visual Systems
The client wanted to be able to view Sky HD in all the main viewing areas within the home so we used a ‘Gefan’ Digital HDMI distribution system to send the signal over Cat-5 cable to Pioneer plasma televisions. The pioneer plasmas were the first TV’s capable of receiving full and true1080i High definition signals and was able to show pictures like we have never seen before.

One of the more unusual requests was to have a Danish television receiver installed and distributed around the property; we had to find a specialist satellite dish installer to erect the 100 cm dish in such a way that it could not be seen from the ground.

All the plasmas were capable of viewing any one or all of the 7 CCTV cameras around the property with full control of recorded footage. All the other viewing areas like guest rooms and kids bedrooms were supplied with from a Scion Pro 6000 distribution system again over cat-5 with access to more limited parts of the system.

Lighting, Blind and window control
The lights, blinds & windows were also integrated into the system, offering scene control from any of the in wall or wireless touch screens. Velux roof windows in the main areas could be open and closed from a simple touch of a button and electric blinds remotely operated to create shading when needed. Two light wells were installed with red, green blue colour LEDS that were programmed to sequence through the many different colour ranges when remotely turned on. All the stairs in the house have floor lights which are activated by movement sensors after a 11.00 at night creating illuminated walk ways without the need to press a switch.

On leaving the property the house would go into occupancy simulation and play back every light that had been turned on or off the two weeks prior in that order. The system also used an astronomical clock to tell when it is day or night and allowed for daylight savings. This gave an exact copy of the owner’s routine to leave potential burglars no doubt that there were people at home.

Security & CCTV
There were seven cameras in total external and four internal. The client specified that he would like to be able to view his children playing in the any of the main rooms and also their bedrooms from any plasma within the home. We installed discrete cameras that looked like security movement sensors, in fact they were working movement sensors that were attached to the main security panel and acted out two jobs. All the cameras were set to record only when triggered, at night the external cameras were able to see in the dark as they had built in infra red LEDS to illuminate the area in black and white.

We set up the camera system to be viewable over the internet from any computer by
just typing in a web address into Microsoft explorer. Access was only given when a full password was entered after which there was full access available to live and recorded footage.

The security system was set to dial out to the client’s mobile phones when there was a break in or fire. The door phone/doorbell could even dial out to a mobile phone to and have a full two way conversation with somebody at the door. This is a very useful tool to catch someone that you may have missed and also can be used to pretend that you are in when you are actually out.

Products used:

• Lighting Control - Rako Controls
• Security/Automation - Comfort Home Controls
• Multi-room Audio - Xantech
• Touch screen control - Xantech & Universal MX 3000
• Speakers - Amina & Speakercraft
• Cinema Audio products - Denon
• Heating control - Heatmiser
• Windows - Velux

A special mention to Justin Harris
Although a self-build project, the owners relied heavily on the expertise of their project manager, in enabling their vision to become reality. Contact Justin Harris at Menthon Design - info@menthondesign.com