1980s house - project ideas

phil24_7

malc_b wrote: »

Not sure what you mean by old fashioned stud wall designed to hold up the ceiling up. All old stud walls used timber and were not supporting walls. Why do you think your stud wall was designed to support the ceiling? From the age of the house I would have guessed you have a trussed roof.

I have a large double front Victorian house with a foundation wall running down the middle, parallel to the front door. All of the joists run front to back and overlap in the centre of the house.

I removed all of the lath and plaster upstairs a few years ago and it is timber framed along this supporting wall, granted this is only supporting the ceiling joists but downstairs is a similar affair. The structural engineer has said this wall will probably be braced diagonally meaning it will take a great load than the first floor walls.

It wouldn't be done like that now but it has stood for 121 years so far without issue!

You astound me that your parents didn't have loft insulation. Loft insulation has been pushed since 1980 at least (my first house), probably before that. That's going on for 40yrs so I would have assumed that everyone had some insulation by now.

My parents come from a different time and have never really heated their house (the lounge was the only room heated and was done with coal). It is only more recently that they have considered getting central heating (I got a gas pipe installed for them last year) and so I looked at getting the house insulated (just missed out of the external insulation grants for the area).

Price wise (from amazon), 305m of cat 5e is £43, 305m of cat 6 £63, but cat 7 is £77 for 100m so cat7 is over 3 times the price. Cat5e is good to 1Gb, Cat 6 is 10Gb up to ~37-55m run, Cat 6a is 10Gb up to 100m run, Cat 7 is 10Gb but with more margin to spare. Wifi, 802.11n, is 450Mb in comparison and that's a single channel, all devices will share that. Unless you have a huge house there is little to be gained from cat7 over cat6, especially if you are not routing loads of cables bunched together so need the shielding to those other cables.

Cat7 may be 3 times the price but it is £77, only £34 quid dearer! not a lot when putting new cable in but if you ever needed to upgrade, this would work out to be far costlier. Cat 7 is future proofed better, especially against external interference which is only increasing as more things in our houses use electricity/WiFi/Bluetooth etc.

IMO the money is better spent on installing multiple cables at the same time since you can use ethernet cable for remote mouse/keyboard, usb, and hdmi (cat 6). I can think of a number situation where those might be useful (e.g. CCTV system where the box is hidden, sharing a decoded hdmi stream between rooms where DLNA is not possible, etc.)

If installed properly it is easy to pull extra cables at a later date should you need but most people would get away with a switch in any room they need multiple ethernet devices.

missbiggles1

In your situation I'd put in a central vacuum system.

http://www.electroluxcentralvacuums.co.uk/

I'd also put in some high level sockets in case you should want to put in air conditioning units in the future.

phil24_7

Air conditioning in our climate?!?! If you really need to install air conditioning at a later date then it will be easy enough to chase a cable into a wall and run the power to its own switch. But I have never been to a house in the UK that has air con.

bluesnake

I would look into external insulation for the whole house, floor and roof, air tightness and HRV.

A bit of a spend can save you a lot of bills in the future, but if this is a steppingstone, the possibly not worth it.

Seen Passive House and Net Zero? Not the same, but similar. Ok, to jump down the rabbit hole could a long expensive journey, but it is said that a 20% building cost will save over 80% money and pays for itself in 2-3 years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xen_VWyDezY

malc_b

Cat 7 vs Cat 6 cost depends on much cable you think you need. I estimated 250m and that was just for one cable. Also I would look at the termination of Cat 7 since RJ45 won't do over 10 Gb so that adds to the cost and complexity too.

I'm confused as to how a victorian house is a 1980s house so I guess you aren't the OP and I've got the wrong end of the stick.

You're missing the point on multiple cables. Yes, if you are just using Cat x cable for ethernet you can expand the ends by fitting a switch. However, if you look at other requirements, such as remote keyboard/mouse or piping hdmi signals, or usb signals, you'll find that cat 6 cable and an interface box is a sensible solution. It's flexible (i.e. many uses), you can get RJ45 wall plates, and you can terminate cat x cable easily. HDMI and USB cables come pre-terminated so are not as easy to install. BUT, these cables are then dedicated to that use only. You can't share with ethernet as well, and HDMI requires 2 cat x cables (some boxes say they can work with one but many want 2 cables).

SalsaDanca

phil24_7 wrote: »

I'd hard wire cat6 (or cat7) cable to most rooms if I had an empty-ish house to work with.

Thank you for this! Just the other day I had to stretch an ethernet cable from my desk to the router in the hall so that I could set up a new Raspberry Pi computer. I'll look into running network cables to the places where they'll be useful for computers and TVs. As suggested, if going to the effort of chasing in cables, I might as well run several cables to each location.

SalsaDanca

bouicca21 wrote: »

Maybe a door into the en suite from bedroom 2 to turn it into a jack and Jill.

And that door from kitchen to dining room would be better as a double door so you can be open plan or not as the mood (and mess) take you.

Widening the kitchen/dining room door into a double is a good idea. As well as making the house more open plan, it would also allow more light from the dining room patio doors into the kitchen. I wasn't planning to make any changes to the kitchen for now, but it's definitely something I'll consider in the future.

phil24_7

malc_b wrote: »

Cat 7 vs Cat 6 cost depends on much cable you think you need. I estimated 250m and that was just for one cable. Also I would look at the termination of Cat 7 since RJ45 won't do over 10 Gb so that adds to the cost and complexity too.

I'm confused as to how a victorian house is a 1980s house so I guess you aren't the OP and I've got the wrong end of the stick.

You're missing the point on multiple cables. Yes, if you are just using Cat x cable for ethernet you can expand the ends by fitting a switch. However, if you look at other requirements, such as remote keyboard/mouse or piping hdmi signals, or usb signals, you'll find that cat 6 cable and an interface box is a sensible solution. It's flexible (i.e. many uses), you can get RJ45 wall plates, and you can terminate cat x cable easily. HDMI and USB cables come pre-terminated so are not as easy to install. BUT, these cables are then dedicated to that use only. You can't share with ethernet as well, and HDMI requires 2 cat x cables (some boxes say they can work with one but many want 2 cables).

Not the OP!

You make some very good points.

For things like keyboard and mouse your would need to know where you would have the controlling and controlled devices...something I doubt the OP has considered. For HDMI you need to be sure where your TV and connected devices will go and you can't then rearrange your room easily. Discrete trucking may be more appropriate for the OP unless they already have plans for a media cupboard under the stairs!

Cat7a cable into Cat6a connectors would allow you longer runs and would be better protected against interference...it is also rated for a higher frequency though currently this is a moot point for home kit!

After a little more reading (not as geeky as I used to be) I cede that perhaps Cat7 is overkill and will unlikely be needed for home networks (etc) for a while. Besides, there will probably be a whole new set of standards before it is utilised properly!

missbiggles1

phil24_7 wrote: »

Air conditioning in our climate?!?! If you really need to install air conditioning at a later date then it will be easy enough to chase a cable into a wall and run the power to its own switch. But I have never been to a house in the UK that has air con.

No, I've never invited you round.:D It isn't hard to do later but would mean redecorating, which I rather thought was the point of the thread.

If global warming's a reality, more and more people will choose to fit reversible air conditioning units, particularly as they offer such a cheap way of space heating in other seasons.