New LAN Cabling Install Advice

[RobotMr]

Hi all,

Am currently in the process of planning the cabling for my house LAN setup. The house is all solid walls, and as I don't particularly want to break into the plaster/walls more than minimally necessary (if possible), I went ahead and bought 100m roll of external Cat6, 23 AWG cable.

I'm thinking of drilling holes through to the outside, in each of the rooms that I want to install a port, and then have the cable running up the external walls to the attic, where the switches, etc will be.

Basically looking for some advice on whether you guys think this is a good way to approach it, and/or whether you have any alternative suggestions or advice?

Many thanks in advance.

 

[kanewolf]

What temperature range do you have to deal with in your attic? Switches have limited temperature ranges. Too cold or too had can be a problem.

 

[RobotMr]

What temperature range do you have to deal with in your attic? Switches have limited temperature ranges. Too cold or too had can be a problem.

Hi,

At the coldest roughly 0 C (32 F), and at the warmest roughly 35 C (95 F).

Thanks.

 

[kanewolf]

I use an HP switch in my attic. It is rated to 50C, which is higher than most. Keep the temp range in mind when choosing equipment.

 

[RobotMr]

I use an HP switch in my attic. It is rated to 50C, which is higher than most. Keep the temp range in mind when choosing equipment.

Thanks for the heads up, has anyone with experience of external CAT6, or similar experienced any performance issues or should it be fine?

 

[why_wolf]

by external do you mean the outside of the house? I mean yeah you can do that, but now you'll have a bunch of cables running down the side of your house.

 

[RobotMr]

by external do you mean the outside of the house? I mean yeah you can do that, but now you'll have a bunch of cables running down the side of your house.

That's correct, running along the outside of the house. I'd rather not do it this way, as you've said I'll have a lot of cabling lining the external walls, but it's preferable to breaking channels into my solid brick walls, which'll be more of a pain.

I'm pretty familiar with standard patch cables etc, have never played around with shielded heavy duty cables (rated for external usage), so am not sure if there'll be a performance hit vs standard Cat6?

 

[Ralston18]

"Breaking channels" - not sure what that means per se but drilling holes through the mortar joints may not be as much of a "pain" as you expect. Just use the applicable size mortar bit in a power drill. May take some planning to strategically plan the entry points but overall the end results will be better than wires running around outside.

Caulk the opening after the cable is securely in place. No hard bends and leave some slack on both sides to allow some wire movement thus avoiding pull on the caulked portion.

Would not expect that you need shielded exterior cable as grounding may become an issue. As for performance probably okay for awhile (however defined) but performance will degrade as the outside cables wear and degrade.

And squirrels and other critters are likely to start chewing though any outside cabling....

Overall you only need one cable (ISP) coming into your house to serve the cable modem/router and subsequent switches and patch panels. Generally you can fish wires through interior walls free of insulation and/or hide runs behind the floor molding. [Note: A good fish wire puller may work on exterior walls with insulation baring any fire blocks or other wall reinforcements.] Google for "how to's " regarding running and hiding Ethernet (and other) cable runs. Lots of good ideas to be found.

Agree that the attic may not be the best choice for the hardware. Spec's, accessibility, dirt, etc. can make that location problematic.

Maybe one larger hole strategically located to pull a bundle of cables up into the attic, then disperse to the various rooms via interior walls.

Consider wireless and powerline adapters for some rooms....

And go online to look for distribution boxes.

E.g.:

https://www.firefold.com/net-media-enclosure-icc-icrdsmmbk1?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2PzUxZC21QIVnYuzCh20eAjSEAQYASABEgJFn_D_BwE

Many choices available and you may find a cabinet that will fit into your plans and allow you to make the entire setup simpler and easier.