Wiring – running sprinkler wire over ground

In most US jurisdictions, from a legal perspective, the work in the basement would fall under the local building code and its permitting, licensing, and inspection requirements...e.g. a splinkler contractor could not run the pipes inside the house and a plumber would be required, building department fees would be applicable, etc.

The pipe running through the basement that conceptually would be part of the irrigation system, is both legally and from a life safety standpoint part of the domestic potable water supply [it may be possible to get the building department to treat it as a domestic non-potable system, but that's less likely than a flat "no" from the building department]. Even if you get it approved, you'd still want a vacuum break where the pipe exits the building and there's a risk of contamination.

Anyway from a practical standpoint, one thing you're facing is the standard practices of the irrigation installer tradebase. They own Ditchwitches and shovels. They don't usually dress for walking across homeowner carpets and aren't in the habit of pulling plumbing permits. This is pushing things outside their business model...and reducing their revenue. Maybe you see a portion of whatever savings the contractor realizes, maybe the contractor just passes on the job [it depends on how much work they have, and you want the person who is busy].

Placement of speakers for a surround sound system can get very specific if you care about it.

By far the most important speakers are the front 3 (center, left and right). The center channel is the most important for movies because most of the dialog comes from the center speaker. Left/right speakers are more important for music but still used a lot in movies.

Ideally all 3 of those speakers would be at the same height and lined up as close as possible with the height of the screen. That means putting the center speaker directly above or directly below the screen, and the left/right accordingly.

Also, ideally the left and right speakers should be about 30º to the side of the center speaker. The exact distance will depend on the position of the seats.

Rear speakers are used mainly for ambient affects and are not nearly as important. I think ideally they are mounted slightly above ear level and 100º to the side of the center (i.e. more to the side of the listener than behind), but ceiling mounting is probably fine as well.

So as you can see you do not want the speakers "equally spaced", although there may be some benefit to wiring your room that way if you want flexibility about future layout.

A few other things to note:

• If you are using an AV receiver to process the surround sound, many of the mid- and high-end units include room calibration modes that let you compensate somewhat for oddly-placed speakers.
• If you are going to be using a computer to play movies, note that getting surround sound out of a computer can be tricky. Even for computers/sound cards that support surround sound, it's not always as easy as it seems like it should be.