House network wiring

abtmay

Is there any special to lay network cables around the house? I was thinking of having the router, internet modem and the NAS in the loft and having ethernet points around the house. How can I route the cables behind the walls without ripping the walls apart (only method I can think of:D!)?

Besides routing the ethernet cable, I was also thinking about routing the TV points from the loft.

Regards
May

fox1977

Not a bad idea but i would go with wireless. If you were worried about speeds you could always go with the 'n' stuff.

wallbash

I cabled my house a number of years ago.
Only advice , run the cables up the side of the doors. Also why put the router
in the loft , too difficult to get to

abtmay

My partner has the idea that everything electrical thing must be centralised, for a couple of reasons;

- easier to maintain. If you require more points (ethernet), u can get that from the loft. Also, it does not occupy any precious space in the rooms.

- burglar proof? - last place the burglar would look? Especially if you have a NAS, where data + pictures = irreplaceable?

abtmay

wallbash wrote: »

I cabled my house a number of years ago.
Only advice , run the cables up the side of the doors. Also why put the router
in the loft , too difficult to get to

Side of doors .... Interesting.... How do you do that?

andrew-b

Are they solid walls or plasterboarded stud walls?
I did a similar sort of thing in our bungalow to run a network cable between the hall and spare room via the loft (though i actually am running adsl and phone signals down the cable - using an ADSL faceplate on the BT master socket from AdslNation). Though i also fixed network ports either side of a wall to create a cable route between lounge and study. I did the nasty, noisy, messy way...stitch drilling the wall out and hammer and chisel, conduit down inside the wall (big enough for extra cables for future usage), plaster over and make good. I'd never attempt to plaster an entire wall but plastering channelled out walls is pretty straight forward so long as the channel is less than the width of your trowel.
If it's plasterboarded stud partitions you may be best off cutting out a section of plasterboard..not necessarily the entire room height - but you'll need to drill holes through the centres of the horizontals timbers in the stud walls.

The less messy way is to use surface mounted trunking..if you run in the corner of the room or down alongside pipes it will be less noticeable. The other obvious option is to go for a wireless network or an ethernet-over-power cable setup..much less mess!

Can't remember off-hand where i got all the network bits from but it wasn't all one place. I installed modular faceplates sunk into the deepest metal backing boxes i could find. But do shop around for the best deals. Maplin for example tend to be quite expensive. If you can i'd opt for cat6 cable now (structured cabling with solid conductors rather than stranded)..shielded or unshielded is upto you - if there are lots of power cables running alongside or close by i'd go for shielded. I only used cat5e myself but for what i was using it for cat6 seemed a bit overkill).

Not sure if there are any regs definiing it, but for my cable route i adhered to the rules used for domestic electrics - i.e. horiztontal or vertically relative to the network outlets. Keep away from power cables where you can (particularly with unshielded cable) but if you must cross them do so at 90degrees to minimise interference.

Other essential thing i'd say is make sure you buy a decent Krohn push-down tool rather than the cheapy throwaway plastic ones which are only fit for one or two connections. This will make the job a whole lot easier for the number of connections you'll need to make. Have a look on ebay where you can pick up a decent one for around a fiver.

Other thing is network cabling contains 4 pairs of conductors (8wires) only 2 pairs are actually used so you can actually send two network connections down the same cable (or do clever things like i did with phone and adsl signals down different wires in the same cable) - google for network wiring colours and you'll soon find out what wire should go where but make careful notes to ensure you connect things up right. For example sending a telephone signal into the back of a network card won't do it much good when the phone eventually rings!

With regards the TV points, if you put conduit in the walls of sufficient diameter you could always do that later. You can get modules that will accept TV coax that would clip into the modular faceplates. I've not done this myself but i've been thinkin about it. I left a string inside the conduit to pull any extra cable through later on! If you are using the same conduit though it may be best to use the shielded cat6 cable.

Incidentally if i were you i'd build or buy some sort of cabinet for whatever is going in the loft to ensure it's all kept as dry as possible -making sure there is enough ventilation to avoid condensation and allow heat out.

Hope that helps you!

Andy

gardnt1

You could use 'homeplugs' to run your network using the mains wiring, as long as sockets on the same ring main?
Tv - have to run cable obviously, but homeplugs are a great way of having an ethernet connection with 200mbps speed.

andrew-b

Homeplugs (or similarly named) is the ethernet-over-power cable i was talking about (worth a look a solwise.co.uk if your considering).
As far as i was aware Homeplugs don't have to be on the same ring main though it may help - they have to be on the same "phase" though which basically covers the whole house unless you have a strange install with two sets of meters!

Jonesya

Will the NAS stand up to the temperature cycling it will see in a typical loft - freezing in winter, baking hot in summer?

SplanK

Jonesya wrote: »

Will the NAS stand up to the temperature cycling it will see in a typical loft - freezing in winter, baking hot in summer?

it should be fine as long as its left on 24/7 - main issue with computer components is sudden drops or rises in temps in a short amount of time.. usualy in a house they are gradual changes

if it wasnt for me tinkering with it all the time - my server would be living up there as well allong with its UPS - dam thing takes up far too much space and noise!

Chaos

andrew-b wrote: »

Other thing is network cabling contains 4 pairs of conductors (8wires) only 2 pairs are actually used so you can actually send two network connections down the same cable.

Not if you want to use full speed Gigabit ethernet (1000base-T) which is what should be installed, this uses all 4 cable pairs for simultaneous transmission in both directions.

I recently had to re-cable a computer suite as the original installers split the cable for 2 connections.