Want to wire home with Cat 5e: Questions from DIY noob

[Graeme McClinton]

Hi,

I have just purchased a 2 level 4 bedroom detached house, built around 1990, and I would like to install a couple of RJ45 flush fitted face plates in order to neatly network my home.

Obviously, I have Wi-Fi, but for streaming video and file server applications, you can't beat a wired network

The two main locations I want to have face plates are in the living room, and the man cave.

I want to put my file server and networking gear in the attic, and run Cat5e from the router down the stud wall cavities. (There is already power in the attic)

I had an idea when I saw the location I wanted to put the living room face plate had a TV aerial socket. I thought I could tie a piece of string to this aerial cable, and pull it up into the attic then tie Cat5e to this and pull it back down.

However, when I traced the aerial cable from the attic side, it disappears down into the wall cavity at the diagonally opposite corner of the house!

I think that since I don't know the route and because of the length of the route, pulling this up would be difficult, if not impossible.

So instead, if I wanted to dangle a weighted string down from the attic, should the cavity go all the way down to the ground floor? Or will the first floor get in the way?

Are there any idiots guides on making the hole in the plaster(board?) for the metal back box?

The bigger problem I think will be the man cave.

The man cave room is actually the fourth bedroom which is actually on the first floor of an extension which also extends the kitchen on the ground floor. The problem being I have no access to the attic space above the man cave because of the eave wall of the original house.

However, there is an aerial cable from the attic that disappears through the eave, and reappears through the outside facing wall of the extended kitchen. I don't see how this could have been done other than when the extension was built.

So, I'm looking for ideas on how to proceed with the man cave.

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[flameport]

Internal stud walls will probably have been built onto the floor, so you won't be able to drop wires to the ground floor. Even if not, there will be a horizontal plate at floor level that the uprights attach to. May be other obstructions in the wall depending on how it is constructed.
External cavity walls will be filled with insulation.

For holes in the plasterboard wall, this: http://www.screwfix.com/p/drywall-saw-6tpi-6/38939
and filled/repaired with this: http://www.diy.com/departments/gyproc-easi-fill-20-5kg/143938_BQ.prd

Other options for concealing cables include behind wardrobes, inside airing cupboards and boxed in sections for soil pipes.

 

[PBC_1966]

I would like to install a couple of RJ45 flush fitted face plates in order to neatly network my home.

Despite the widespread misuse of the designation, 8P8C jacks used for Ethernet are not RJ45. RJ45 is something quite different.

I want to put my file server and networking gear in the attic

Make sure it's not going to get too hot for them up there. Even in a relatively mild British summer the temperature in the typical attic can become far too hot, unless you're talking about an attic room which is already insulated etc.

As for the general problem of getting cables through, unless you're willing to cut strategically placed holes in your drywall and patch up afterward, dropping down from the attic space may well pose difficulties even into the upstairs if there are noggings in the walls. Other options besides dropping down inside cupboards etc. might be to run down a corner and cover with some sort of decorative molding, running behind baseboards, or for the tricky areas maybe even resort to trunking.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

As for the general problem of getting cables through, unless you're willing to cut strategically placed holes in your drywall and patch up afterward, dropping down from the attic space may well pose difficulties even into the upstairs if there are noggings in the walls.

Sometimes bullets just have to be bitten.

 

[cjard]

For now, until you're ready to trash the house remodelling it all, just clip them somewhere out of the way, like along the bottom of a skirting. Use cat6

 

[Chri5]

Have you thought of going external route?

From loft pop out via soffit, in to 25mm PVC conduit (four cables max) and feed back in to house at certain points for different areas.

You could use a single feed to each floor on to a sub hub, and then have a (less hassle) job of running from the sub hub to wire required locations on that level.

 

[PBC_1966]

So long as you just want a basic 100Mbps connection over two pairs (no separate power feeds, no gigabit connections etc.) then you can also run two links in a single 4-pair cable if that helps (e.g. run a 4-pair cable to one outlet, then extend two of the pairs from there to another).

 

[ban-all-sheds]

So long as you just want a basic 100Mbps connection

Does anybody?

 

[PBC_1966]

So long as you just want a basic 100Mbps connection

Does anybody?

I would suggest that for the majority of home users it's more than adequate.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I would suggest that for an awful lot of them it is not, and that the number for whom that is the case is getting larger all the time.