How to Install an Intercom System in Your Home
While the installation might be easy on a wireless system, the programming of all the units will take its toll on the costs. Programming is not a simple process with the wireless or the hardwired. With Intercoms, nothing is straight forward.
When planning the installation of the wireless units, you will want to take into account where the master unit will be. How many slave units you will need, and where they will be placed. In most cases the master is usually placed in the kitchen area. That will be your main place of operation and from there you can reach or be reached from all the other slave units.
The rest of the slave units might go at the front door, the back door or patio area (if you have one) garage, bedrooms, and maybe the bathrooms. With wireless systems you place them in an ideal location, a place that you can live with. With wireless, moves or changes are not susceptible to wall damages as hardwired slave units are.
When it comes to programming the units, you have to follow the manufacturers instruction booklet. You will have to do all the programming from the master unit. When programming, do one unit at a time. Once you have finished with the first slave unit, go to that particular unit and test all the features that you programmed into it. A lot of the times the programming does not take and you will have to start over with the programming, the programming is tedious and slow, so if you do all the units at once and it does not come out the way you wanted it, you will have to start over and that is why I recommend doing one unit at a time.
With hard wired Intercom Systems, you will need to run wire to each slave from the master panel. Each unit requires four wires. Usually a thick grade wire, which is rated at 16 to 22 gauge. The lower the better. Take note of the color code on the wires, and verify that you connect the same wire color to the same screw on both the master unit and the slave unit. If one of the colors is off, the whole system will not work and you will have to do some trouble shooting before you are up and running.
To install the wire for the intercom, you want to hide the wire, usually in the attic and inside the walls. Try to find easy areas to drop the wire down inside the walls. In the kitchen area, the inside walls or middle of the room walls would be the ideal spot to put the intercom and wires. The master unit will be installed inside the wall between the two studs, so the wall would be opened up about neck high from the floor. That would leave a straight shot up the inside of the wall into the attic. In the attic you would make an appropriate size hole in the 4X4 stud to get all the wires through to the slave units. Do not make the hole so tight that the wires can not be pulled up or down easily. While in the installation process take care NOT to nick the insulation on these wires. Shorts between wires will stop you dead in the water and troubleshooting that kind of mistake is very hard to find, if not almost impossible.
Most intercom wire comes in rolls with the four wires strategically wrapped around each other, for interference purposes. If you can find wire that is in a sheath, that would be your best bet for easier installation. In the case of the sheath, the sheath would take the brunt of the abuse when installing the wire through the attic, nicks would not be much of a problem.
When installing the slave units, you would do the same as the kitchen unit and place them flushed, inside the walls. The hole in the wall of the other areas would not be as big as the master unit, so you would have to have mounts to hold the slaves in place. Use the studs to place the mounts as best you can to secure your units. Try to keep the holes for the units as small as possible so that the units will slip in and not wobble too much.
When the face plate is installed it will hide the hole perfectly. When running the wire from the attic to the units, you will need a long drill bit to not only make the hole into the attic but you can also use the bit to pull down the wire from the attic. When running the wires in the attic, try to put some “O” rings on the attic roof studs to keep the wires off the attic floor. Distribution will look neater and wear and tear will be lessened. Take each wire from the slave to the master or from the master to the slave, either way you want to do it is fine as long as you do not snag the wires on sharp objects or tight corners. While installing the wires, make sure you label each wire as to which slave unit it is connected to. This way if trouble comes up you can troubleshoot the system by disconnecting units from the master until the problem clears, and that will give you an idea as to where the problem lies.
Once the installation of the hard wired intercom is completed you can proceed to the programming part. Follow the directions as stated above for the wireless system. If you have trouble getting the system to set up and you think that you have shorted some wires, use an ohm meter to check all your wiring. Disconnect all the wires from the master and the slaves, put your ohm meter on ohmsX1000 and test between all the wires. Connect one probe of the meter to wire number one and touch wire number two with the other probe, if the needle of the meter moves, that is where your trouble lies, check which slave unit that wire is assigned to and either replace that wire or find the short in it, somewhere in the attic. If the needle does not move, keep the probe on wire number one and touch wire number three and so on until you find the problem. If all the wires are good and you find no shorts check for other reasons that the system is not working. Follow the guidelines on the installation manual of the intercom unit. The manual is always your best bet for guiding you to doing the job right.
Happy installing.
