Anyone ever wired their home for LAN/Cable, etc?

Breadfan

I am thinking about doing this as my house is being built (currently only the foundation is set now).

Anyway, I was thinking of installing Cat 5e, Coax, and a few 14-gauge stereo lines for surround sound in the new house (with the builders permission of course)

He has allotted us only a few lines for cable and phone only but nothing for ethernet and each extra box for cable and phone is $40 each

Have any of you guys done this before? Any tips or advice on equipment/sellers? there are a couple of different ideas I was thinking of doing, but would also like some other ideas in case you all have done something cool I havent thought of

I am pretty sure I want to put the central point in a little niche where the washer and dryer will be (it's the only place I can find where I can put a shelf, etc out of sight)

I was also thinking of using a patch panel with a router and ups on a shelf. I dont know yet how I am going to do the coax. The wallplates are another thing

I will save alot of $$$$ by doing this, but am not really sure if its worth it. Any input you guys can give would be greatly appreciated

Kaminsky

And later when the mrs decides she wants "that wall knocked down and a new one built there..... " trust me, they do! (it's up there in the cosmic laws of the universe along with "putting things in safe place" never to be found again and moving furniture around on a very frequent basis for reasons only known to themselves especially when a new baby is due)

I know it sounds like a nice idea but what's wrong with wireless or trunking down the corners of rooms?


I'm not being sexist but as a married man of 13 years, these statements are fact !

Nuwin

I had my house wired up when it was built and I'm very pleased with the decision.

Actually, each room has two runs of Cat 5e. One for the phone and one for the network. The builder ran the phone lines separate, and ran the network with the coax for TV.

I didn't put a patch panel in...yet.

They left plenty of extra cable in the basement where everything ran to. For now, I just put ends on them and hooked them directly into my switch. I want to do the patch panel before I sell the house, but for now, it works, so I don't mind.

Oh, and my wife never asks for walls to be moved...

RTmarc

Definitely do it now before the walls go up. We wired our house with Cat6 and I even had a patch panel put in my office so that I could hook it directly to the switch and all that nonsense. It works great as a backup to wireless; not to mention it makes it easy for my 360 to be up on the net. I've even heard that most of your new electronics are going to start coming with NICs so that firmware can be developed and downloaded to the devices.

Breadfan

on the sheet he gave us, he has phone and coax. he also has on here $40 for extra outlets for phone and cable. i cant imagine what it would be for ethernet.

since i have installed cat 5 as side jobs i know companies charge an a$$load of money and I know I can save a lot of money by doing it myself, but have never done for homes, only for businesses.

Nuwin

What is used for the phone lines? If it's Cat 5 or better, you can always request extra phone jacks and then change the connectors later...

Assuming all runs meet at a central spot of course.

RussS

I did my last home myself - ran Cat5E for both phone and data. I actually laid a main trunk right around the place and left a couple pull lines in there too so if I want to drag more cable it is easy to just tie it up and pull it through.

JDMurray

Five years ago I would have sworn that by now everybody would be running fiber along side of Cat6 in their homes to support both new and legacy equipment. Cat6 turned out to be so stiff that it can be a real pain to install, so people still use the more flexible (and more inexpensive) Cat5e when possible. I still prefer to use Cat6, but I must admit that there's nothing is a typical American household that requires it.

But whatever happened to "fiber to the home?" I know DSL really hurt the progression of "fiber to the curb," but are fiber network interfaces really still too expensive to integrate into motherboards? Or is it that the premises-grade fiber cable is still too expensive for consumers?

garv221

My home was pre-wired with Cat5 for ethernet and phone lines. Its just a wall jack that has both ports available. Both pulls go to an area in the basement and the ethernet comes out into a small path panel and the phone lines into a nice flat punch down block..Both are labeled. All the homes in my division are like this.

My home is also surround sound wired with flush ceiling speakers in all the rooms. The main control unit is just a amplifier/equalizer with a dvd player and stereo under my tv, which was built back into the wall about 2ft so there can be cabinets without intruding the living area. From this point I can play a dvd and watch it any or all rooms or play the radio in any or all rooms as well. You can add XM radio if you wish. You can even buy cool in the wall touch screen controllers to change channels and inputs. This setup is actually not expensive at all and really easy if you make the move before the build is complete. It is really a selling point with the home as well. Also home audio is way over priced, Ebay is your friend on this one.

royal

jdmurray wrote:

But whatever happened to "fiber to the home?" I know DSL really hurt the progression of "fiber to the curb," but are fiber network interfaces really still too expensive to integrate into motherboards? Or is it that the premises-grade fiber cable is still too expensive for consumers?

Verizon actually offers this service. It is called FIOS. The bad news is that it's only in a few select states right now. The good news is Verizon stated they are going to invest more than $20 billion by 2010 to get around 70% of their customer base with FTTH. The FIOS service offers fiber internet as well as fiber tv. Their prices are pretty cheap as well. Check it out here.

JDMurray

icroyal wrote:

Verizon actually offers this service. It is called FIOS.

Yup, I'm a Verizon customer and I have one of those silver "VZ" stickers on the sidewalk in front of my house indicating where the fiber drop on the cub is. I don't know if the run from the demarc point to the house is fiber too, or house telephone wiring is used for Internet service. Now that I read about FIOS TV, it's likely that everything FIOS originates from a fiber-connected RTU box in the garage or living room. Fiber is probably not needed to be run from that box to other parts of the house. I was wondering when houses (in the USA) will need to be "wired" with fiber.

I'll read up on FIOS in the DSLReports.com Verizon Fiber Optics and Verizon FIOS TV forums. If my local mom-and-pop ISP goes dark, I'll probably jump to FIOS--but only if the reviews in my area are good.

TechJunky

I was an electrician for 4 years and and I have done many network cabling jobs. Your house is a littler harder because you do not have a false ceiling. However the concept is the same.

I put in a network jack in my garage, and then wired all drops in my house via my attic and crawlspace depending where the location was. The hardest part is to make sure you check for the studs and make sure when drilling up you are drilling into the wall itself and not into your living space. Once the hole is drilled you then use a fiber glass fish tape or metal fish tape and make sure you can hear it in the wall... Cut your box in and terminate.

Any qualified electrician/network tech should be able to do this no problem.

I do minor jobs every now and then with existing buildings and you couldnt tell it wasnt done when they built the building.

Small jobs for me consist of 20 drops or less.

Breadfan

havent been on here in awhile; been stressing about the house and all that jazz

I have a quick question for you all. Next week, I will begin the wiring (mostly by myself since the people who said they would help now cant ). Anyways, I have a total of 10 drops, plus one wall phone jack only drop in the kitchen.

I am planning on the Leviton wiring panel putting it in the office closet and wire the network drops to a 12 or 16 port patch panel then a few connections to my router then the wan connection to my cable modem.

the problem i am stuck with is the phone connections. i am wiring both with cat5e but i am trying to decide between connecting them to another 12-port patch panel or use a 50 wire 110 block (which i have never used before) which i would wire to the NID.

which do you guys think i should go with? I was leaning towards the patch panel for both for ease of installation simply because i am doing the majority of the install by myself and will be under time constraints but of course i want it done right the first time

any advice will be helpful and in if youre in SC, come on by