New homes are going up fast across Brevard County, from Viera West and Addison Village to the new phases off Borrego Drive and the subdivisions spreading through West Melbourne and Palm Bay. If you are building or buying one of them, you have a short window where smart home wiring is cheap and easy: the weeks after framing, before the drywall goes up. Once those walls close, the exact same wiring costs two to three times more and involves cutting, patching, and repainting.
So what should you actually have wired when building a new home? Builder structured wiring packages are usually bare bones, often just one coax and one data jack per room, and rarely placed where you actually want them. This guide covers what we recommend pulling before drywall, based on the new construction pre-wire work The Electpros do every week across Viera, Melbourne, and Palm Bay.
Why Pre-Wiring Before Drywall Is the Best Money You Will Spend
At the rough-in stage, wire is inexpensive and labor is fast. An installer can pull a Cat6 run through open studs in minutes. After drywall, that same run means fishing walls, cutting access holes, and working around insulation and fire blocking. That is why a retrofit typically costs double or triple the pre-wire price.
And even in a Wi-Fi world, the wired backbone still matters. Video calls for work, remote school, 4K streaming, gaming, and security cameras all perform noticeably better on a wired connection. Wi-Fi access points themselves need wired ceiling drops to work properly, especially in the larger two-story floor plans common in Viera West and Addison Village. We covered how to design a network that handles a busy household in our home network installation guide, and every principle in it is easier and cheaper to apply before the walls close.
What Should You Wire for When Building a New Home?
Here is the pre-wire checklist we walk through with new construction clients:
- Network drops (Cat6): two at the home office, one behind every TV location, one per bedroom, and one at any spot you might put a desk, printer, or gaming console. Professional home networking is the foundation everything else rides on.
- Wi-Fi access point drops: ceiling-mounted access points beat a router hidden in a closet every time. Plan at least one centered drop per floor in a two-story home, plus one covering the lanai.
- Speaker pre-wire: in-ceiling speaker locations for the main living area, kitchen, primary suite, and lanai. Pre-wiring for whole-home audio costs a fraction of what it costs to retrofit later.
- TV locations: recessed power and conduit at the family room wall or fireplace, bedrooms, and the lanai, so cables stay hidden and future upgrades are a pull-through instead of a wall repair.
- Camera runs: Cat6 to each exterior corner under the soffits, the front door, and the driveway. Wired security camera installation means power and video over a single cable with no batteries to swap.
- A media panel: a central structured wiring enclosure, usually in a laundry room, pantry, or under-stair closet, with a power outlet inside. Every run in the house terminates here.
- Empty conduit: a few runs of smurf tube from the media panel to the attic and to key walls. It costs almost nothing at rough-in and makes the house ready for whatever technology shows up in ten years.
Ready to pre-wire your new build? The Electpros serve all of Brevard County, including Melbourne, Palm Bay, Viera, Titusville, and beyond, with same-day and next-day availability. Call (321) 655-PROS or book online at theelectpros.com.
A Wiring Plan for a Typical Two-Story Viera Home
Picture a common scenario: a two-story build in Addison Village or one of the new sections off Borrego Drive, around 2,800 square feet, with a covered lanai and an upstairs loft. Here is how that pre-wire usually lays out.
The media panel goes in the under-stair closet with a dedicated outlet. Two ceiling access point drops, one centered downstairs and one in the upstairs hallway, cover the whole house plus the backyard. The office gets two Cat6 drops, which matters for the many L3Harris, SpaceX, and Patrick Space Force Base families working from home in this area. The family room TV wall gets conduit, recessed power, and a Cat6 drop, and the lanai gets the same treatment plus a pair of in-ceiling speaker locations for evenings by the pool. Camera runs go to all four soffit corners and the front entry.
That whole package takes a crew about a day at rough-in. After drywall, the same scope is a multi-day project with wall repairs, and some runs become impossible without visible raceway.
What Does New Construction Pre-Wiring Cost in Brevard County?
Every build is different, but here are realistic ranges for the Space Coast. A basic network pre-wire with eight to twelve Cat6 drops and a media panel typically runs $800 to $1,500. Speaker pre-wire adds roughly $150 to $250 per stereo location. Camera runs are usually $75 to $150 each. A complete package covering network, audio, TV locations, and cameras on a typical two-story home generally lands between $2,000 and $4,000.
Compare that to the cost of the same work as a retrofit, or to what you are already spending on cabinet upgrades and flooring, and pre-wiring is one of the highest-value line items in the entire build. It is also one of the few upgrades that makes the house work better every single day.
Wire It Once, Enjoy It for Decades
The best time to wire a house is before it has walls. If you are building in Viera West, Addison Village, West Melbourne, or anywhere else in Brevard County, have a pre-wire conversation before your builder schedules drywall. The Electpros will walk the framing with you, mark every drop, and coordinate directly with your builder or superintendent.
Call (321) 655-PROS or book online to schedule a pre-wire walkthrough for your new build.