Wiring House with cat5

STaN

Hi guys can anyone recommend someone around D15 area that could wire a house with cat 5 ( about 6 points ).

Not looking to break the bank.

Also looking to have them all brought to a central point in the attic.

FrankGrimes

I can recommend someone: you

Are the ceilings and walls currently plastered/covered? If not and your ceilings and walls are exposed, it's a very straightforward task: identify your Ground Zero, and run cables from everywhere you want a network connection back to that point (i.e. your attic).

305metres of UTP Cat5e cable should cost no more than €90. (I might have some left over you can have for a decent price). Cat6 cable is more expensive but may be worth it for future proofing. You can get the faceplates and connections online from the UK at decent prices.

Once your cables are in, get the ceilings and walls plastered and then it's a case of terminating the cables: this involves putting on the faceplates (you need to have put in back boxes to screw the faceplates into) and then you terminate the cables using a Krone punchdown tool, which is quite straightforward. If you're not on for doing it gimme a shout and I'll talk to you about doing it for a decent price.

If your walls are currently covered it becomes much more complicated and will be a lot more hassle due to the damage to the walls that will have to be repaired.

STaN

Yes the house was recently refurbished and all walls have been replastered already. They didnt think to do this when the job was being done even though they put phone and tv sockets everywhere!

So i guess they will have to run down from the attic behind the already plastered walls?

GeorgeBailey

What about trying these

barry75

Sorry FrankGrimes what do you mean by 'identify your Ground Zero' sorry if this sounds like a stupid question

FrankGrimes

Nope - not stupid question at all, as it's my mistake: it should be Node Zero. This basically means choose a place in your house (spare room, understairs, attic etc) where you don't mind having a bank of wall face plates or a patch panel: this is where all the cables in your network will run back to.

If you want the connections in each room to be connected to all other rooms you don't need to run cables from each room to every room - running all cables back to a central location will do the job.

Stan - I wouldn't go messing around with newly plastered walls in this scenario, but its a personal decision. What GeorgeBailey has recommended will get you started, and a wireless router with signal strengtheners if needed might workout depending on what you plan to use the network for. It's a trade-off I guess.

barry75

Thanks for that Frank makes it clearer.Can Cat 5e cable be used for just networking?

DublinWriter

FrankGrimes wrote:

Stan - I wouldn't go messing around with newly plastered walls in this scenario, but its a personal decision. What GeorgeBailey has recommended will get you started, and a wireless router with signal strengtheners if needed might workout depending on what you plan to use the network for. It's a trade-off I guess.

Damn right. I use wireless. I have my main PC in the study, a NAS in one of the spare bedrooms, and my TV HD player, a roaming laptop connected all via wireless.

It might not be as fast as wired, but unless your doing some serious filemoving, I wouldn't start knocking holes in your walls.

Plus the new 'N' standard for wireless is just around the corner, which will make it faster even again.

JBT

Guys,

I'm new to forums but have been driven here by the need to find out about a "Smart Box Cat 5" that has been installed in a new house I'm buying. The builder put it in before we bought but can't tell us anything about it other than it allows us to bundle TV, phone, internet through one socket (TV-style) in most rooms of the house. Sounds fine but he tells me that it'll cost 1,000euro to get an electrician to finalise the wiring.

My worry is that it's ahead of its time since the house is in the countryside a half hour outside of Galway City and Eorcom etc can't seem to confirm that broadband or similar will be be available there until we get a telephone line and check if its DSL enabled. With no broadband available we'd just be using dial-up so the whole Smartbox Cat 5 set-up would seem to be redundant for the time-being. Anyway, I'm not sure that a provider is in the area that would supply a bundled service nevermind broadband.

Is my take on the whole thing accurate enough? Anybody have any advice on this?

JBT

cormac_byrne

Look at the box for a manufacturer name, model number / part number, anything to give a clue what it is.

What wiring has been done?

i.e.
is there a CAT5 cable going from the box to each room (even if not yet connect either to the box or there are no sockets in the rooms, just the wire hanging out)

is there TV cable running from the vicinity of the box to every room?

Calluna

If ye were starting from scratch, would you wire with Cat6 to a node zero or think about wireless? Have a house in planning at the moment...hoping to start in a couple of months and had also heard that it was reasonably easy to wire yourself, as long as you did it in time (ie before plastering, etc). Living in the city at the moment with wireless broadband and laptop, but new gaf will be in the country....eircom broadband available (obviously a more desirable part of County Galway!) but I don't know what the future holds? Does anyone?!

Avns1s

Calluna wrote:

If ye were starting from scratch, would you wire with Cat6 to a node zero or think about wireless? Have a house in planning at the moment...hoping to start in a couple of months and had also heard that it was reasonably easy to wire yourself, as long as you did it in time (ie before plastering, etc). Living in the city at the moment with wireless broadband and laptop, but new gaf will be in the country....eircom broadband available (obviously a more desirable part of County Galway!) but I don't know what the future holds? Does anyone?!

As a fan of wireless, I'm tempted to say "go wireless in total". I built a house last year and used this principle and I regret it slightly now. I have hollowcore floors and therefore the wireless doesnt work perfectly from one floor to the other. Signal drops and speed decreases or connection drops in extreme cases.

If you're using wooden joists in a modest house with standard 4" block walls then go wireless. Otherwise allow some CAT5 to get you from your main router to a wireless access point or two on each floor.

In reality, if you do wire the house completely in CAT5, whats the chances of all the outlets being exactly where you want them?

JBT

cormac_byrne wrote:

Look at the box for a manufacturer name, model number / part number, anything to give a clue what it is.

What wiring has been done?

i.e.
is there a CAT5 cable going from the box to each room (even if not yet connect either to the box or there are no sockets in the rooms, just the wire hanging out)

is there TV cable running from the vicinity of the box to every room?

Thanks Cormac - sensible solution - look at the thing and find a marking. Will do. I know there are TV sockets in the bedrooms and living rooms (and only one phone socket throughout the house) but don't know yet if there are cables going from the box to the rooms/sockets. Again, will find out.

Nice one

JBT

Avns1s wrote:

As a fan of wireless, I'm tempted to say "go wireless in total". I built a house last year and used this principle and I regret it slightly now. I have hollowcore floors and therefore the wireless doesnt work perfectly from one floor to the other. Signal drops and speed decreases or connection drops in extreme cases.

If you're using wooden joists in a modest house with standard 4" block walls then go wireless. Otherwise allow some CAT5 to get you from your main router to a wireless access point or two on each floor.

In reality, if you do wire the house completely in CAT5, whats the chances of all the outlets being exactly where you want them?

I have a Mac wireless transmitter/airport yoke that I was hoping to use again in teh new house. If I use the cat 5 (and assuming I can get broadband in the first place) does this mean I can't connect the airport?

Calluna

Still debating whether to go hollowcore or not, but most likely will and so might as well wire it, if that's going to be a problem.

In reality, if you do wire the house completely in CAT5, whats the chances of all the outlets being exactly where you want them?

Good point, but we'll have to decide at some stage....like leccy points I suppose.

Thanks