Rating Digital Homes, Part 1: The New Standard?
This time around, structured wiring is king and builders rule the castle.
Source: DIGITAL HOME Online
Publication date: 2009-04-13
By Dan Daley <i>Note: In part 2 of this two-part series, we ask builders and installer for their opinions of the new rating system.</i>
Getting "certified" with a diploma from the Wizard of Oz caused the Scarecrow's sense of self-worth to skyrocket. The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is hoping to have that same effect on builders as a result of its newly revamped TechHome Ratings System (THRS), introduced in mid-March. The new iteration of the CEA-backed rating system does away with a matrix of numerical values that builders and systems integrators found cumbersome, the CEA acknowledges, in favor of a "good-better-best" approach based on the home's cabling infrastructure.
Connected Technologies, Colorado Springs
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"One of our main goals with the revision was to give builders an easy blueprint to how they can add a technology infrastructure to their homes that will allow homeowners to have access to the variety of installed home technologies," says Kerry Moyer, senior director of strategic relations for the CEA. "Our surveys show that consumers want technology in their homes, and that builders are adding structured wiring to more homes each year. But not all structured wiring is the same, so we've created a set of guidelines that standardize it in a way that can be certified and presented to homebuyers."
The Basics
The new ratings system starts off by establishing a baseline pre-wiring specification that calls for RG6 Quad for over-the-air antenna and cable, along with five runs of RG6 Quad cable for a satellite dish for video and RG6 Quad for an FM and satellite radio antennae. It also calls for 22AWG shielded wire for an AM antenna and a Cat-5/Cat-6 network interface device for telecommunications. After that, three tiers, designated Bronze, Gold and Platinum, provide for gradually more complex and sophisticated wiring designs and cable types:
<i>Bronze</i> provides for the basic technology infrastructure needed in most homes, such as the distribution of TV and video signals to multiple rooms, and networking and communications capabilities over two separate runs of Cat-5/Cat-6 cabling. It also specifies cabling for digital, component, and composite video, as well as audio speakers and subwoofers.
A <i>Gold</i> level rating adds advanced functionality, such as provision for multiroom audio distribution to a larger number of rooms, as well as wiring for security, controlled lighting, and home automation functionality.
<i>Platinum</i> calls for cabling for a home office space with full networking and communications, as well as wire runs for wall-mounting video displays. None of the tiers provides for any fiber-optic cabling.
You can download a PDF of the rating system here.
Changing Awareness
CEA officials explain that input mainly from small to mid-sized regional builders, contacted through the NAHB's Home Technology Alliance, contributed to the HTRS's revisions, along within feedback from systems integrators and CE products manufacturers (the same channels CEA plans to use market the ratings system back builders and installers). Moyer says this version places more emphasis on builder input in hopes of getting builders to use it more than they did the preceding one.
"Awareness [of the prior TechHome Rating System] was low," he says. "It was admittedly a low-profile program [for the CEA]. It was product-centric and targeted consumers. This time it's focused on fundamental wiring infrastructure and presents builders and their homebuyers with a clear-cut hierarchy."
The new THRS had a lengthy gestation. An early version was developed by the CEA's Integrated Home Systems division around the turn of the century. After CEA absorbed the Home Automation and Networking Association (HANA) in 2002, the organization applied the TechHome rubric to it and began developing the first THRS, which was rolled out in 2004. Moyer says the most recent version was a year in development.
The ultimate goal is to establish a consistent and easy-to-understand system that builders and realtors can use to differentiate homes while assuring buyers that the cabling meets certain fixed standards and can support a certain level of home technology riding on it.
Such an approach addresses one of the major hurdles to selling wiring infrastructure to homebuyers: it's hard to emphasize the importance and justify the cost of something you can't easily see. Creating a certification backed by the CEA's imprimatur is akin to the certification plans used successfully by luxury car manufacturers with their pre-owned sales, reassuring buyers that it's all good under the hood. In fact, says Moyers, the certifications can be applied to as yet-unsold homes in builders' inventories, which could help sell the backlog of houses, as well as those still in planning stages and under construction.
The first home to be certified under the new THRS is expected to a home built under an initiative called Green Life Smart Life. That project, a 4,350-square-foot home overlooking Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island, is touted as a synergy of green building techniques and materials, and smart home technology. It's backed by a group of companies that include building material manufacturers like National Lumber and Eldorado Stone, but also by home technology companies, led by the CEA's TechHome division and including HP, whole-house audio maker NuVo, OmniMount, and power management product maker APC.
According to a spokesperson for the CEA, the house is being wired to the TechHome platinum-level rating. The wiring installation will be photographed and videographed, as will various types of home systems that can use the wiring infrastructure. This information will be available, when the home is completed, on TechHome.com.
Getting Certified
Actual certifications are awarded based on information builders input into a dedicated page on the TechHome Web site; neither the CEA nor any other body besides the builder and the systems installer that did the wiring inspects the work. Moyers believes that market competition will discourage cheating, though he expects the CEA will also develop and attach a disclaimer to the certification to minimize any potential liability.
The THRS is the spear point of what Moyers says will be an ongoing and widening campaign. CEA will develop and distribute additional materials, including videos and brochures, later this year that builders and realtors can use to explain the benefits of structured cabling in general and the tiered ratings system in particular. Moyer also says that the ratings system occupies a more prominent place on the TechHome Web site than did the previous one.
The initial TechHome rating system was introduced in the middle of a bull housing market; the latest version arrives in the eye of a housing recession. The CEA's own research shows that consumers want home technology and that it influences their home-buying decisions. Getting a workable way for builders to present it to them has never been more important.
<i>Note: In part 2 of this two-part series, we ask builders and installer for their opinions of the new rating system.</i>
<i>Dan Daley is a frequent contributor to Hanley Wood's DIGITAL HOME. He's based in Nashville, Tenn., and New York.</i>
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