Installing cable jack - Brick house

CodeBlox

Do you guys recommend I do this myself? I had a previous thread asking if it was allowed for me to have two cable subscriptions to the same house. Well, I decided to just get put on my moms plan. I just need to have the cable jack installed. Only problem is this is a brick house... Should I go about this by climbing on part of the roof and just drilling through the brick into my room?? The main splitter is downstairs and I would need to reroute the cable back outside then up the side of the house and into my room. Last weekend I actually replaced an electrical outlet and a light switch... It was wayyyyy easier than I though. Ha, I had thought I would need an electrician for those but I did it myself.

cyberguypr

If you have the proper tools and can do it safely I say go for it. When I was 16-17 I was heavy into amateur radio and drilled all kinds of holes for cabling in my room. House was concrete so it was no fun at all.

wastedtime

While it does sound like a lot of work. Just remember if it is worth doing it is worth doing right. If the time should come that the house is sold, no one likes to see odd configurations of stuff in the house.

crrussell3

Why don't you just have them run the new line inside next to the old one, and then pull off your coax that is currently on the splitter and tie into the new line? Or is it not currently set up like that?

I just can't see drilling a new hole in the house as a good option. Just like satellite installers who do that need to be hung by the very coax they install. Use what is existing. I used to do satellite installs while working at Radio Shack and ran plenty of cabling in my time.

CodeBlox

Well here is how the stuff is currently setup. Our back room has one cable line (the main one that comes in. That is split right at the jack and one line is used by the cable modem and the there is split again. Currently only one of the second splitted cables is used and the other is vacant. The way things are set up, i'm almost certain they would need to drill another hole back to outside and up the side of the house just to get to my room. You see, the main line is in a room that was added on to the house so thats why it can't be run inside unless I drilled a hole through the floor.

crrussell3

So do you currently have coax in your room? I guess that is what I am trying to figure out. Where does that second line that isn't used go to? Could you tie into that and run it into your room? Then have the installers (or yourself) tie into it at the splitter with a coupler and call it good?

keenon

you mentioned the house was brick, does it have a crawl space?

SteveLord

Wow...I thought in the previous thread this whole thing was answered.....

Have you called your ISP and ask what they charge for a new line to run?

CodeBlox

SteveLord wrote: »

Wow...I thought in the previous thread this whole thing was answered.....

Have you called your ISP and ask what they charge for a new line to run?

Haha I called today. This thread was asking about if I should do it myself with the house being brick and all. But I think I'm just going to have cox come out and do it. It's an outside wall and the cost for them to do it is a mere 30 dollars.

SteveLord

CodeBlox wrote: »

Haha I called today. This thread was asking about if I should do it myself with the house being brick and all. But I think I'm just going to have cox come out and do it. It's an outside wall and the cost for them to do it is a mere 30 dollars.

Which I referenced in the other thread.

Just keep an eye on him. These are cable techs we're talking about after all.

CodeBlox

Hm what could he possibly do that could go wrong? I'm sure I know exactly how he's going to do it.

Priston

Don't you have an attic or crawl space? You don't need to run the cable on the outside of your house, having a wire running outside your house would reduce the value of your home.


If you can fish the cable from your room to the attic and from the attic to the crawl space and from the crawl space to your splitter that would be much cleaner then an ugly cable outside your house.

SteveLord

Priston wrote: »

having a wire running outside your house would reduce the value of your home.

Based on what?

CodeBlox

There is no crawl space nor is there an attic. It's either run it from outside or drill a hole in the ceiling of the room below me :P And I rather not do that.

ehnde

SteveLord wrote: »

Based on what?

The house I'm renting has coaxial cable nailed to the outside of the home and it looks tacky. It's ran through a hole into the wall that was drilled there by previous tenants, and is sloppily ran across the floor to where a t.v. must have been installed. Now my 9 month old is always yanking on it.

If I were you I'd ask the on site technician to install however you'd like. If he refuses, tell him you'll run the cable yourself and you just need him to turn it on at the tap (if cable is currently off).

I've ran cat5 in a house and found it to be FUN. It's great for a newer I.T. person to do as it gives you more confidence and geek points.

Now imagine if you ran your own cable through the walls and terminated the cable with jacks like this:

Priston

SteveLord wrote: »

Based on what?

It might not reduce the value of your home on paper, but when home buyers view the house and think about all the repairs and updates they are going to have to do if they buy the house, having fix ugly coax sticking out of the middle of the outside wall isn't going to help sell the house.

CodeBlox

ehnde wrote: »

The house I'm renting has coaxial cable nailed to the outside of the home and it looks tacky. It's ran through a hole into the wall that was drilled there by previous tenants, and is sloppily ran across the floor to where a t.v. must have been installed. Now my 9 month old is always yanking on it.

If I were you I'd ask the on site technician to install however you'd like. If he refuses, tell him you'll run the cable yourself and you just need him to turn it on at the tap (if cable is currently off).

I've ran cat5 in a house and found it to be FUN. It's great for a newer I.T. person to do as it gives you more confidence and geek points.

Now imagine if you ran your own cable through the walls and terminated the cable with jacks like this:

That is exactly what I want installed. I would like to do it myself however my mom doesn't really want me to after I described what I'd be doing. She didn't like the idea of me drilling holes in the housing and would rather have it "professionally done". Even though I am very certain of how this cable tech will do this.

CodeBlox

Sooo I figured I'd update this thread. The cable guy came out and installed this jack this morning while I was at work. I get home to check it out and I have to say... it really seems like I could have done the same job he did (probably better). I mean, he drilled a hole in the wrong spot now I have this dime sized hole to the right of the jack... Also the plate that should have got screwed to the wall isn't screwed to the wall it's just attached to the cable hanging there. I should be grateful, I know but really... He left pieces of cable on the roof too O_O. I am happy I have my cable in my room though but man, seems like I could have done a better job. My mom wanted to call and complain about this too.

ehnde

CodeBlox wrote: »

Sooo I figured I'd update this thread. The cable guy came out and installed this jack this morning while I was at work. I get home to check it out and I have to say... it really seems like I could have done the same job he did (probably better). I mean, he drilled a hole in the wrong spot now I have this dime sized hole to the right of the jack... Also the plate that should have got screwed to the wall isn't screwed to the wall it's just attached to the cable hanging there. I should be grateful, I know but really... He left pieces of cable on the roof too O_O. I am happy I have my cable in my room though but man, seems like I could have done a better job. My mom wanted to call and complain about this too.

Grateful? You paid that lazy @#$$ to do a professional job. Yes, you could have done it better yourself Lesson learned?

SteveLord

Call and request the fee be removed from your next bill.

CodeBlox

I plan to do so. I must say that cable companies are screwy... I called to add another package to the cable service and they scheduled a time to come out and remove the "trap" for the channels to come though for monday. After I got off the phone, I decided an hour later that I was content with the channels that I already was getting so I called back and canceled that appointment. Well, today I was thinking more and made up my mind for sure that I wanted those channels and called back to have them reschedule the appointment and the tech who answered the phone chuckled and said "this appointment was never canceled." and then he chuckled some more... I didn't find it funny and the other agent had told me it was canceled. He said there were no notes or anything of me calling in to cancel at all. Meh, what can you do though...

SteveLord

They're terrible no matter where you live. The last time I called on an issue, the lady said I would have a tech Thursday (I called Wednesday.) So I thought I was pretty luck to get next day service right? Wrong. The next day, I waited the entire 4hr block...no one showed up. I called and they said I was scheduled for NEXT Thursday. "Next" was not mentioned at all in my first call.

CodeBlox

Man thats pretty bad.

I'm updating this thread one final time. So the tech that was supposed to come out monday to add those channels never did. They said he did, but he didn't. We had to reschedule for him to come out today. The guy that came out today redid the mess that the other guy installed in my room. He properly screwed the plate on too and he actually checked out the line outside and I get the channels that I was supposed to be getting now In the end I am satisfied but jeez seems like there was much trouble along the way dealing with these guys...