Structured wiring of a new home

[anexela]

I am building a house right now and while all walls are still opened I would like to put in as much wire as I can. I have couple questions:

1. Should I go with CAT 5E or CAT 6 cable?
2. Should I get a cable with coax, CATx and fiber (bundled cable) or run each cable separate?
3. What are the good places to buy cables from?

Thanks

 

[Agamar]

I have my jacks with Coax, Cat6, and Telephone with them in the rooms that have or might have a computer put in them. Works out good.

 

[reicherb]

I'm remodeliing my house and am goning to run some cabling as well. Does anybody know where to get bridal rings. If that's what they are called. They are rings that I can hang from a rafter and pull the cable through.

 

[sep]

Try here Smarthome.com. I'm still using cat5, but dont' have anything advanced running on these except 10/100 ethernet. Once in our new home I too will investigate further.

Good Luck!
-JC

 

[cmetz]

There's a similar thread you should go read:

Wiring a house

I would suggest you put in conduit and boxes that snap to the conduit if you have the ability to do so. Then it's much easier to change wiring later.

Cat5e vs. Cat6... it depends on how much you plan on running gigabit, and how cost sensitive you are. If you aren't thinking about gigabit in a serious way, go ahead and put in good cat5e (Berk-Tek LANMark 350 for example, which is ca. $100/spool for CMP). If you put in conduit (see above), you could upgrade the cable on specific drops in the future if you found that the cable was limiting you, but you could first try upgrading the terminations. If you are serious about gigabit or want the best/most future-proof, put in the best over-cat6 you can get (Berk-Tek LANMark 2000, which is ca. $225/spool for CMP, and use Ortronics Clarity6 jacks. This is what I've got ).

I would run communications separate from the rest and in separate conduits if possible. Coax really shouldn't crosstalk with UTP, but other analog might. I just like keeping digital and analog separate (which I then violate by running POTS over the UTP...). Also, this gives you more flexibility to choose particular cables, not having to get what's available bundled. Incidentally, consider running speaker wire.

I would not recommend fiber. Fiber terminations are expensive, the tools are expensive, and the required knowledge level to do them is higher. Oh, and pulling fiber is trickier than pulling copper. And for what? You can do gigabit Ethernet over copper, and that's starting to be the dominant way to do it. Also, contrary to popular belief, fiber is not the be all end all, there are limits to what fiber can carry and they're constantly improving that, and so like UTP it turns out that old fiber can't be used for the latest and greatest application. The fiber you're thinking about running in your home will probably not carry 10Gb/s Ethernet, for example. So don't buy fiber just because of the incorrect belief that it will give you massive future-proofing, only buy fiber if you know you're going to use it..

Where to buy cables? For high-end cables and terminations, I buy from Anixter. You will need to find your local sales office and then you will have to find someone there who actually wants to take your money (their sales guys often have problems with this concept).

For more mass-market cables, I'm sure others on this forum will be able to offer better suggestions. If you just want generic Cat5e (which, if you're doing conduit, would be okay), check out your local Home Depot, and there's a deal at compgeeks.com (see Hot Deals).

 

[anexela]

CMETZ, thanks for your reply. I looked at the COMPGEEKS deal before but I am not sure how is the quality of that cable. Anyone had a chance to use it?

 

[amdskip]

I would just run cat 5e or 6. Running the seperate cables works fine and you really don't need an all in one solution. Having all the connections in one faceplate works great and looks good too. Where you primarily have your computers, run twice as many cables and thank us later.

 

[ScottMac]

If you're paying someone to pull the cable, the bundled product pulls much faster. It's a little cleaner in the "wire closet" too.

As mentioned in another thread, the Cat6 is a fatter cable; if you're pulling in conduit, plan accordingly. Personally, I'd pull the Cat6. New construction is going to be around for a while, and there's no telling what may be coming in the future. Also keep in mind that Structured cabling is good for more than Ethernet networking. There are a number of adapters/Baluns/converters available for everything from Serial data, to Video (composite, S-Vid, and component). It can also transport "second/third Zone" connectivity from a central AMP (whole house Audio/video).

The better cable is likely to transmprt some of the other traffic with less noise/distortion/attenuation, etc.

Also remember to add additional power to the "wire closet" area, and make sure it's well ventilated. A local facilities ground is also a good thing, especially if you're going to be distributing RF, satellite, audio, or other noise sensitive data/traffic/signalling.

Good Luck

Scott

 

[skyking]

Like Skip said, twice as many cables. then add one more, just for good measure. If you plan on using conduit, get the conduit 1 size bigger than you think you need also. You'll thank us later, when wiring up that______( you fill in the blank, use your imagination. Home theatre, security system, camera line,..... .,........,.......,)

 

[cmetz]

The compgeeks cable is cheap and made in China. It can't be very good, but it probably will get the job done. Basically, you can go cheap or good. It depends on how much you want to spend. If budget isn't a big deal, go good -- future proofing is always a fine thing, and better cable will resist interference or other problem-causing stuff better. But budget is often an issue. The win with conduit is that you can upgrade later.

 

[GeekDrew]

SmartHome is a good place to start off, but comp.home.automation on usenet is an awesome resource. I have tons of links solely relating to home automation and wire pulling, so give me a PM if you need some links. I would probably respond to AIM: shrinercomp faster than I would PM.

Andrew