Getting house wired -- Any Tips?

[rw120555]

We're getting our attic remodeled, and in the process we will hopefully be getting Cat5 installed both up there and other locations in the house (so my days as a homepna fanatic may be numbered). We have electricians doing it. A few Qs:

* Is cat5 cable ok? Or should I be looking forward to the day when there will be gigabit speed connections, and get Cat6 or something like that? I assume cat5 is ok for our current 10/100 stuff.

* I know there have been a lot of dire posts about running cat5 outside. I asked them about it, and they said to reach our basement they will put it in conduit and that that would be safe. Sound ok? Again, these guys are electricians, so hopefully they know what they are doing.

Thanks for any tips. RW

 

[carolinapeakbagger]

If you run CAT5e, that should do you fine for any speeds coming to your home for the near future. the main thing you need to worry about as far as running CAT5 outside is that it could get nicked by a falling branch or stone that could clip an internal wire or leave it vulnerable to water. conduit will help prevent this significantly, but your main concern will be small rodents getting in and knawing the cables. conduit won't give 100% protection against rodents. ask the installers what preventive measures they use for that risk.

 

[MoFunk]

Originally posted by: carolinapeakbagger
If you run CAT5e, that should do you fine for any speeds coming to your home for the near future. the main thing you need to worry about as far as running CAT5 outside is that it could get nicked by a falling branch or stone that could clip an internal wire or leave it vulnerable to water. conduit will help prevent this significantly, but your main concern will be small rodents getting in and knawing the cables. conduit won't give 100% protection against rodents. ask the installers what preventive measures they use for that risk.

I concur about cat5e. That is what I ran. I also have a line going outside to my neighbors house and we used some condiut and ran everything through PVC pipe.

 

[ScottMac]

Well, going outside with copper is generally a bad idea. If ya gotta, you gotta, and metal conduit is the best way to go. Use the largest diameter conduit that circumstances permit (otherwise you have a loose shielded cable - the metal affects the transmission characteristics). The electrician will see that the conduit is well grounded.

Pull more runs than you think you'll need: at least two ... and four would be nearly perfect. While you're at it, pull at least two RG6 quad-shield as well. even if you don't use it, it'll add some value later, and I'll bet you end up using it for something.

Terminate the cable into wall plates (always straight-through) then use specialty jumpers to convert the pinout as needed (crossover cables, video, audio, serial, etc). At the central location, install a panel of the same Category rating as your cabling.

Go with Cat 5e or Cat6: the cost is not much more and the additional overhead/margin may be a good thing someday.

Have all the cable runs come back to a central location, preferably a location that also has dedicated power (for hubs/switches/routers/modems/etc). If you're not too "price sensitive," have the electrician put in a grounding plate ("buss bar," whatever ) that's tied to the facilities ground (where your power panel is grounded).

The central location should be well ventilated and moderate temperature if you're going to have active electronics located there.

Again: put in extra cabling now ... the cost of the cable is nothing compared to what it'll cost you to pull more later when the construction is done. You don't have to terminate it all now (pull four, terminate two, for example), having more than you need is always a good thing (at least with cable).

Good Luck

Scott

 

[Oaf357]

I agree with Scott on this one.

Pull two to three times more cable than you need when going through conduit. Basically if that room were to have nothing but desks in it how many PCs would there be? Pull that many and you'll be okay for a long time. I'd definitely pull some RG6 along with it and if you really wanted to get high speed with it and money was no object drop two lines of fiber down there with it.

Always plan ahead when networking. If you don't you'll kick yourself in the ass for it later.

 

[rw120555]

Thanks much everybody, I appreciate all the tips. Just a few followups:

Pull more runs than you think you'll need: at least two ... and four would be nearly perfect. While you're at it, pull at least two RG6 quad-shield as well. even if you don't use it, it'll add some value later, and I'll bet you end up using it for something.

What is RG6 quad shield, and why would I want it?

Also, with the extra runs -- The setup is we'll have the attic wired. Then, we'll have jacks in 2 rooms on the next floor. The outside conduit will be to reach to the basement, which is currently a recroom mostly used by my kids (but which I suppose could become home office space if they ever grow up and leave!) I'm thinking we can always use switches if expansion goes beyond what I expect -- is that a bad way to be thinking? The setup right now down there is a hpna/ethernet bridge connected to a switch which connects the 2 pcs -- some pretty long cat5 cables running along the walls -- not the most elegant setup, I suppose, but then it is not the most elegant room either.

 

[ScottMac]

Properly done structured cabling (using any "Category" rated cabling) is good for 90 meters (~270ft) in the walls with a 5 meter patch cable (~15 feet) at either end. The in-wall cabling is (should be) solid conductor, the patch cables are (should be) stranded. I'm betting none of your runs will exceed that distance.

The RG6 would be for video or satellite (or even an antenna somewhere up there ... maybe in the crawlspace / storage area).

Actually the idea behind structured cabling goes beyond just data networking or telephones: with the right adapters, it can also be used for serial (RS232), Video (composite, component/RGB, or S-Video), Using the audio jacks on the A/V baluns, you can distribute whole-house audio (second/third zones), almost anything.

SO, even though you are only thinking of one or two computers, pull in some extra cabling, put in some extra jacks (or at least pull the cable and leave it unterminated into a dead box). That way, if you want to connect the computer on the East side of the room to the computer on the West side of the room, you plug each computer into it's nearby jack, then connect both to the switch in the basement (or central area) and you're rockin'.... the wife appreciates that there's no cable draped around the floorboards ... life is good.

It also gives you some options of where a wireless access point can be placed for optimum coverage.

It's much better to have it and not need it than to want it (need it) and not have it. Generally, the major expense in cabling is the labor, and it doesn't take any more labor to pull the extra cable (termination is another story, since it's a labor thing). Termination to a plate or panel is much easier to do properly, even for a novice (compared to properly crimping on RJ connectors).

....so that's why I'd say, put in some extra cable ... and pull some coax too while you're at it, then you can catch a little tube while you're computin' (or do some tunes, or keep an eye on a security camera, whatever).

FWIW

Scott