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A hardwired home automation system would be more reliable than wireless. However, the only hardware I know which uses control line architecture is frighteningly expensive and doesn't use IP either. I priced one of those systems and the wall switches alone ran over $400 and are useless without a five grand-plus, closed-system central controller. And of course, you have to pull all those control wires and home-run them.

What concerned me is what would happen if the company went out of business and I had to replace some of their broken, proprietary hardware.

As for the basement, I spoke with an engineer before I did it and he assured me that I was going to have cracking plaster one way or the other because the house had settled into that slightly sway-backed wood cross beam. That wasn't a large deal because I already had a lot of cracked plaster to repair. It probably added another day or two to those repairs. Since I was doing those repairs it was cheaper than paying a crew for an extra day to pour footings and fit temporary lally columns.