Austin · Lake Austin, Texas

Smart Home, Lighting & AV on Lake Austin.

A constant-level lake that is also the city's drinking water, docks the City permits rather than the LCRA, and a hillside the wildfire code covers. Lake Austin wants a system that reaches the dock and survives the grid.

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Lake Austin, Specifically

From the Hill to the Dock.

Lake Austin is maintained as a constant-level, pass-through lake with no flood storage, and it is a major source of the city's drinking water, which is why the City of Austin, not the LCRA, is the primary regulator of its docks and shoreline; the City and the LCRA schedule periodic drawdowns during which owners repair docks and dredge slips. Anything electrical on a dock is part of that permit.

Above the water, much of the hill country west of the city is wildland-urban interface, and Austin adopted the International WUI code in 2015. The February 2023 ice storm left more than 170,000 Austin Energy customers without power, some for over ten days, two years after Winter Storm Uri. Austin has three fiber providers competing with Spectrum, which makes a two-connection network straightforward.

01 · Dock

Part of the Permit

Dock lighting, cameras on the slip, and a boat that joins the house network are designed into the City's dock permit and the drawdown schedule, with marine-grade equipment and conduit planned for the shoreline.

02 · Power

Built for the Grid

After Uri in 2021 and the ice storm in 2023, a generator sized for the house and a battery-backed rack are part of the design, permitted with the licensed electrician and placed inside the city's noise limits and setbacks.

03 · Hill

The Wildland Interface

Austin's WUI code sets proximity zones and ignition-resistant materials for the hills above the lake. Outdoor fixtures, enclosures, and cable paths follow it.

At a Glance

Lake Austin in brief.

The lake
Lake Austin is maintained as a constant-level, pass-through lake with no flood storage and is a major source of Austin's drinking water; the City and the LCRA schedule periodic drawdowns during which owners repair shoreline structures and dredge slips.
Docks
Unlike most Highland Lakes, where the LCRA permits docks, on Lake Austin the City of Austin is the primary dock regulator, and dock electrical work goes through the City's permits.
Backup power
Standby generators in Austin require electrical and often mechanical permits from Development Services, must meet city noise limits and setback distances, and the line-voltage work must be done by a licensed electrical contractor.
Outages
The February 2023 ice storm left more than 170,000 Austin Energy customers without power at its height, some for more than ten days; Winter Storm Uri had cut power to roughly 220,000 two years earlier.
Internet
Austin has three facilities-based fiber providers, AT&T Fiber, Google Fiber, and Astound, competing with Spectrum cable.
Wildfire
Much of the hill country west of Austin, including the hills around Lake Austin, is classified as wildland-urban interface; Austin adopted the 2015 International Wildland-Urban Interface Code.
Landmark
Mount Bonnell, overlooking this stretch of the lake, is a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Sources: City of Austin, Lake Austin; LCRA, planned Lake Austin drawdown; Cords Homes, buying a Lake Austin waterfront estate; Texas Electrical Authority, generators and backup power; The Texas Tribune, the 2023 ice storm outages; KUT, the city's February 2021 outage audit; FiberFinder, internet providers in Austin; Community Impact, wildfire risk in Lake Travis and Westlake; Mount Bonnell (Wikipedia).

Reading for Lake Austin

Guides and work nearby.

What We Install and Service

Every System. One Keypad.

Lighting & Shades

Lutron HomeWorks, Ketra and Rania light, Palladiom keypads, and shades that disappear into the ceiling.

Lighting →

Whole-Home Control

Crestron and Lutron on one set of keypads and touchscreens, programmed the same way in every house you own.

Residential →

Cinema & Music

Dedicated theaters, media rooms, and music in every room without a speaker in sight.

Residential →

Network

Enterprise Wi-Fi and fiber sized for a large house, guest houses, and the far end of the lawn.

Networking →

Security & Gate

Cameras, access control, gate intercom, and an alarm that a UL-listed central station answers.

Security →

Outdoors

Landscape lighting and outdoor sound on one buried infrastructure, on the same keypad as the house.

Outdoor →

Upgrades

Older Crestron and Lutron systems brought current, reusing the wiring already in the walls wherever possible.

Upgrade paths →

Support

Monitoring, remote fixes, and priority response under one plan.

Cave Watch →

Questions From Lake Austin

Lake Austin, Answered

Who installs Lutron and Crestron systems on Lake Austin?+

Cave Group does. We are a Crestron Elite Gold Partner and Lutron Gold Dealer based in New York, and we design, install, and service lighting control, shades, cinema, outdoor audio, networking, security, and backup power for waterfront houses on Lake Austin on a project basis, on site with Texas-licensed trades.

Can the dock be part of the system?+

Yes. Dock lighting, cameras on the slip, Wi-Fi that reaches the water, and a boat that joins the house network are standard for us, and on Lake Austin they are designed into the City's dock permit and around the drawdown schedule, with marine-grade equipment and conduit planned for the shoreline.

How does a New York firm work on an Austin house?+

On a project basis. Our offices are in New York and New Jersey; the design and the drawings happen with your architect and builder from there and in person at the key milestones, the installation and commissioning happen on site, and Cave Watch supports the system around the clock afterward. The licensed trades Texas requires, a licensed electrical contractor for line-voltage work and a Department of Public Safety licensed security contractor for monitored alarm work, are local.

What about the grid?+

Standby power is part of the design here, not an option. Winter Storm Uri in February 2021 took power from about 220,000 Austin Energy customers under ERCOT's load shedding, and the February 2023 ice storm left more than 170,000 without power, some for over ten days. We size a generator and a battery-backed rack for the network, the control system, the cameras, and the house, and plan the permit, the setbacks, and the noise limits with the licensed electrician.

Which internet providers serve Lake Austin?+

Austin is unusual: AT&T Fiber, Google Fiber, and Astound compete with Spectrum, and in West Lake Hills and Rollingwood Google Fiber signed right-of-way agreements in 2023. We confirm what reaches the address, and on larger properties we design for two connections with automatic failover, so a single outage does not take the house offline.

Nearby

Other Austin areas we serve.

West Lake HillsTarrytownLake TravisBarton CreekAll of Austin →

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Walk the House With Us.

Bring the drawings if the house is on paper, or the list of what no longer works if it is already built. We will tell you what we would do, in what order, what it would take, and how we run an Austin project from New York.

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