Re: Home ethernet

I recently went through this same process, and ended up wiring my
entire house (3 floors, DR, LR and 4 BR) w/ cat5e.

I ran 2 coax, 1cat5e and 1 voice (also cat5e) to each outlet.  It
worked out great for me, and made life very, very easy on the
technical side of things.  I ended up putting in a patch panel and a
box for all the video.

Looking back on it, if I were to do it again, I would probably only
change two things: I'd run cat6 instead of cat5e, and I'd run 2 data
to each wall plate, minimum.  Doing this gives you options later if
you choose to do something like add in centralized video distribution.
 IIRC, cat5e has less overall bandwidth capability than cat6, which
means that distributing some types of video can require 2 cables
instead of just 1 as would be the case with cat6.

That being said, what I did more than met my needs.  Cat5e is cheap,
isn't going away anytime soon and does just fine.

Also, my house had plaster and lathe walls, which made cutting the
outlets a tedious process.  I eventually figured out the magic
combination- use an oscillating tool to cut through the plaster
(completely eliminates the potential for cracking and almost
eliminates the dust cloud), then use a spiral saw to cut through the
wooden lathe.  Any saw that vibrates will just shake the wood and
knock all the keys loose which is not what you want.  I bring it up
because cutting the outlets in a plaster house can be a time-consuming
process which will cost you more money if you aren't doing it
yourself.

Finally, make sure you get the proper type of cable.  It needs to be
rated for in-wall use at minimum.  Running it through something as
simple as a drop-ceiling or furnace duct means that you are
technically running it through an air space, which means you now have
to have plenum rated cable.  That type of cable is much more expensive
than in-wall (CLR) cable.

I ran all mine inside the wall cavities, except for the basement
ceiling, which I left exposed, but bundled into hangers mounted every
18 inches..  The recommendation is to keep your runs at least 6 inches
away from electrical conduit when running in parallel, and if you have
to run it across conduit, do so on the perpendicular.

Hope this helps a little bit!  Good luck- it's a great project to take on.



On Mon, Mar 7, 2011 at 9:50 PM, healy <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Sun, 2011-03-06 at 19:45 -0600, Larry Garfield wrote:
>> Greetings, geeks.
>>
>> I have recently purchased a house (I'm still in shock), and having some
>> renovations done before I move in.  One I am strongly considering is adding
>> ethernet wiring in key locations, on the grounds that the electrician is
>> already there messing around inside the walls so I may as well.
>>
>> Has anyone else done this before?  Any major warnings about what not to do?
>>
>> I'm also debating the cable grade to use.  On the one hand, I figure I should
>> go for the highest grade available so that I don't have to do this again,
>> which would be Cat 7.  However, as I understand it Cat 7 is still quite
>> expensive for the wire itself, and according to Wikipedia at least is not as
>> big a leap over Cat 5 or Cat 6 as it's marketed as:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_7_cable
>>
>> My understanding had been that Cat 6 wasn't truly standardized, just a
>> marketing term, but Wikipedia again disagrees there:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_6
>>
>> I've long since given up being a networking geek and moved on to being a web
>> programming geek, so I'm a bit out of my element here.  Any advise or
>> experience anyone has to share would be most appreciated.
>>
>> --Larry Garfield
>
> When I finished my basement a few years ago, I put in some Cat 5 for the
> computers in the basement and on the first floor.  Its great to have a
> fast wired network.
>
> --
> Linux Users Of Northern Illinois (Chicago) - Technical Discussion
> http://luni.org/mailman/listinfo/luni
>
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