Re-wiring home with Coax & Ethernet cable

[EtherealDragon]

Hello all, been a while since I have been here....

I have been living in my house for just over a year now and this summer, I am hoping to start & finish a project I have been thinking about since I moved in. Long story short, my house isn't that old, built in the mid to early 70's, but the cabling sucks.

Currently, the Coax is run on the EXTERIOR of the house (I guess this was fairly common in my area, as I see houses all over with it run like that, but I haven't personally seen it before I moved in... I can understand a Satellite with an exterior cable, but the WHOLE HOUSE?).... Anyways, the cables need to be replaced, as the picture on my Comcast HD boxes isn't all that great. Solution to this is a 500' roll of coax cable I have in the garage... I don't remember which type specifically it is, either RG59 or RG6.... does it matter?

Next on the chopping block, will be the phone lines. Thank GOD they aren't that Red/black/green/yellow 2pair CRAP that was in my apartment. It is 3 pair cable, but it still sucks. The main distro box in the basement doesn't even have a 66 block or anything of the sort, I think it is just all spliced together. The phone is crystal clear from the NID, but random crackling from the dining room jack..... The office's jack can't even get DSL sync for my modem, so I have the wire plugged into the jack on the other side of the wall for the spare bedroom.... (wall is shared between the spare bedroom and the office, and the phone jacks are in the same spot on the wall... if I remove both covers, I can reach my hand through the wall.) Fix for that is 1000' of Cat 6 cable I have in my Garage.

Here is the basic layout I will be using when I pull the cables. All of the rooms will have 1 wall plate with 3 RJ45 jacks, and 1 coax jack, with the Den having 2 plates side by side. I would like to have the ethernet cables good for 10/100/1000 speeds, as each room has a jack for a phone, and 2 extra, for maybe a computer, or a game console, or an AT&T U-Verse STB (if it is ever released in my area)..... The coax won't be used if I get U-Verse TV, but will be there for a fall back to cable/Sat if I don't like the U-Verse. (Better to just pull all the cables once than have to go back and add more later, no? Trying to account for future expansion).

Dining Room - wall plate 1 - RJ-45 3 - Coax 1
Den (Basement) - wall plate 2 - RJ-45 6 - Coax 2
Master Bedroom - wall plate 1 - RJ-45 3 - Coax 1
Guest Bedroom - wall plate 1 - RJ-45 3 - Coax 1
Office - wall plate 1 - RJ-45 3 - Coax 1
Garage - wall plate 1 - RJ-45 3 - Coax 1

Total Wall Plates: 7
Total RJ-45 Jacks: 21
Total Coax Jacks: 7
Will also get a 32 port 5e patch panel

I am looking to get some suggestions on websites to order products from, as well as brands to look at. Some of the sites I have looked at thus far are:
http://www.vpi.us/
http://www.action-electronics.com/ppkeysto.htm
http://www.home-technology-store.com/structured-wiring/
http://www.twacomm.com/catalog...4E29A9BAC91205EB4DAE7D
http://cableorganizer.com

As far as brands I have looked at, I am debating between Leviton, and just Generic hardware. For this phase of the re-wiring, I am mainly concerned about the running cables to the wall plates, and getting the wall plates wired, and the patch panel. Beyond that, I just need to find a nice 10/100/1000 managed switch that isn't too frightfully expensive (if such a thing exists)...

The budget for the wall plates, jacks & patch panels is about $200-$250. (already have the cables).

 

[kevnich2]

Wiring all the jacks with RJ-45 & coax at the same time a good idea. When punching all the jacks down however, instead of punching the phone wiring down separately on a 66 block, punch ALL of them down on one large patch panel, label every single port so you know where it goes. If a room needs a phone jack, just take a patch cable and use it to connect it to the phone system via 66 block, so you'll have the incoming NID punched down to a 66 block and then use a patch cable and plug one end into the patch panel and then punch the other end onto the 66 block for the phone system. You could also do what I do and have 1 single phone line and then put a cordless base station there and then use cordless phones all over the house. Heck, my incoming phone line is a vonage box so I don't use phone wiring at all. As far as brands go, I prefer leviton since it's a proven name. All in all though, you have a very well structured plan laid out. The chief concern is to use good CAT6 & Coax cabling and make sure you pull enough wire for all your needs that you think. Actually, if you have the money, throw in some fiber to your plan and at the very least, just pull the fiber with the other cable and then just terminate the coax and the three RJ45's and leave the fiber in the wall. That way your set for now and for decades into the future. Do it right the first time and once your done, you won't have to worry about it again, ever.

 

[EtherealDragon]

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, thats exactly the way I am going to do it with the 'phone' lines, EVERYTHING will terminate on the patch panel, and it will be distributed from there to where it needs to be...

As far as the Cat 6 goes, I am not sure what brand it is, but I picked it up at Home Depot a few months ago... It was a killer sale, like $99 for 1000 feet. I am not sure if I will need more or not, but I am thinking that if I do need to get another 100 feet (I probably will need slightly more than 1000) that I will just get Cat 5e, since it is rated for Gigabit ethernet...

I haven't looked at fiber costs, but I am almost certain that it would be out of my budget range, and i would manage to break the fiber installing it.

 

[kevnich2]

Honestly, if your putting that many jacks in each room, I would say get another box of cable. The EASIEST thing would do is three boxes of cable and use each box to pull each separate jack (3 jacks per plate, 3 boxes) that way you don't have to measure out cable and then cut it. Just another thought. If it's a home depot brand, it is generic but it'll still work just fine for what you want.

 

[NoStateofMind]

Heres a couple of sites that may be of interest to you:

http://www.monoprice.com/produ...p?c_id=102&cp_id=10234 <cat6 page

http://www.lanshack.com/