wiring the whole house

[LandShark]

is wiring the whole house an expensive job??

mine is a typical 3 level town house with max lenght needed is about 25-35ft from the middle of 2nd floor to the very end of the 3rd floor. and 2nd floor to 1st floor alomost right direct under.

my friend told me to forget about it and get wirelessG 'cos it will cost me more than $500 for the job! but I want to transfer video files between 2 computer (mediaPVR on 2nd floor to my personal rig on 3rd floor) and I think even wireless SuperG will takes me a long time to transfer the video files! that's why I'm thinking to wire the house and us Gig network.

[DaWiper]

Using wires(cat5 100mbit) is not expensive and the speed is much greater than what a wireless network manages. Where I live premade cat5 cable costs about 1$/meter(3 feet). If you make the cable yourself it should be alot cheaper.

On top of that you don't have to worry about someone parking outside your house hacking into your network with a laptop..

[LandShark]

Using wires(cat5 100mbit) is not expensive and the speed is much greater than what a wireless network manages. Where I live premade cat5 cable costs about 1$/meter(3 feet). If you make the cable yourself it should be alot cheaper.

On top of that you don't have to worry about someone parking outside your house hacking into your network with a laptop..
but what it is is the labor cost of wiring the house, not the cable itself......

[DaWiper]

labor cost? Don't know what people will charge where you live. But it will probably cost much.
Why not do it yourself? That would equal to free. :)

[LandShark]

labor cost? Don't know what people will charge where you live. But it will probably cost much.
Why not do it yourself? That would equal to free. :)
I have no clue fishing wire through walls and ceiling...... and don't want to break down my house... lol....

[DaWiper]

If I lived anywhere near you I would have helped you for free, but I'm not near... Use a drill, just put a hole straight thru. Avoid drilling into electric cables and water pipes placed into you walls/ceiling...

[Elephanthead]

Get a bid from an electrician, most will give you a free estimate. You might as well go with gigabit nic to if video is your thing.

[elec999]

I dont think wireless is good for video sharing. I got wireless and its darn slow when transfering big files, and its even 54g!, the router is close to the pc too. So I gotta use 100mbit connection which is alot faster. You can get your self some cheap 1000feet cable kit, with connectors, knipper and tester. What I would do, is drill wholes in the ground to reach each floor. Might look ugly, but you can make it look nice if you cover up the cables, or try to cut the dry walls, and get cables going from the floor directly into the drywall. I think its pretty cheap.
P.S WHy dont you move the computers you use to share files between close to each other, or use a external hard drive.
Thanks

[Xenocide]

air return ducts + plenium cat cable = good stuff :D just drill a hole through a golf ball, put an eye bolt in there and run a string on it. throw it down the return to the next floor and run your cable through there.

[Sean Lindstrom]

air return ducts + plenium cat cable = good stuff :D
No, no, no. 60 years of such shortsighted installations on a house add up to an unworkable tangle people like me will charge the homeowner dearly to diffuse and clean up before the intended work can even start. These quick fixes bomb the future occupants with costs they don't deserve. Good luck even finding one guy who can tackle accumulated problems running through half a dozen trades.

***

LandShark. DIY. Go for it. Just please please understand your son and mine will be opening that wall again to put in microwave heatpipes or fluidoptics or just a closet door - look ahead, because somebody, someday, will be looking back.

A typical installation would be 'round and 'round the exterior walls (a lot of cablevision and telephone was done that way), just popping through directly where it's wanted. If you've got a ladder you can do it. Easy to change that stuff or tear it off when obsolete. :thup:

I'm no fan of wireless. The technology needs maturing. It's only popular because it requires no skill or thought. Who really needs to roam around the house while typing? :confused:

[Graphicism]

Why not get a portable hard drive on firewire? Then you can walk between the 2 computers. Hey you'll even get free excercise (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=exercise)!

[ZachM]

My friend who worked for a place that wired houses estimates in the $300-500 range if you had someone do it entirely themselves. He says you might have problems finding someone to do it though because most companies only like to do big jobs. The best way is to get a network savvy friend, and have him help you. Slip him a $20 and buy him dinner afterwards. Lol.

[Ddruid_SMP]

We charge $65/man hr. for 'remodel' work less than 7k feet.
New work (ie studs exposed) is $55/man hr for work less than 5k feet.

Most of the jobs we do are new construction at 20k+ feet.

***
Take your time, and map out the floors of the residence. In general, if we must cut open a wall we will do so inside a closet and run sleeves inside the wall (usually 1.5"). I would avoid running any cable on the exterior of the residence. If you do so, you must use cable that is outdoor rated, but imho cables on the exterior walls look like crap.

http://www.bpsnetworks.com/~rhaas/rack/MVC-638S.JPG
http://www.bpsnetworks.com/~rhaas/rack/MVC-650F.JPG
http://www.bpsnetworks.com/~rhaas/rack/MVC-645F.JPG

[AMD Phreak]

We charge $65/hr for old work, and $55/hr new work. So that is the same as Druid.

Price increase is due to extra time it takes to fish wiring. Sometimes its cake, others, oh boy...... break out the checkbook.

If you feel comfortable doing it yourself, go for it. Just do a lot of research on the matter before you dig in. Carefully plan out where you want the outlets and the CWP or central wiring pannel. Also, feel free to ask any questions. Better to ask before how to do it, rather than how to fix it.

[diggingforgold]

My parents built a house, and had the electrician (through the builder) network the house (not allowed to hire any outside contractors to do work on the house until the house was completely built). We wanted cat5e, we got cat5. It cost us about $300 to have the whole house done (and this was before drywall was installed, which made the job so easy). The wires all met downstairs next to the breakers, and each separate cable went up the walls into each room.

If you are going to do it, I recommend against having an electrician do it if you think it's possible to do it yourself. But do it the right way. When you sell the house, you don't want to de-feed all the wires from the ducts, nor do you want to leave holes in the floor or wires hanging out of vents.

If you do it yourself, it's going to be impossible to do it the right way without a spool of cable and your own crimper. You can get the stuff dirt cheap in large quantities, and the crimper costs a bit, but it's well worth the ability to customize the lengths of your cables.

You can get wire guns / feeders which should help you out a bit as well.

[Sean Lindstrom]

imho cables on the exterior walls look like crap.
Agreed! Most anyone can do it over a weekend though, and it's reversible (like that's going to happen).

Nice, future-friendly work, Ddruid_SMP.

[voodoomelon]

I'm about to take the plunge and wire my house with CAT 5 for my network.

I have just bought a 16 port patch panel for my attic and x3 2 port sockets for my walls. I also got a 100mb switch/router. All this is from eBay for next to nothing, <$50.

Only thing i need now is some CAT 5 cable. They sell it in bulk on eBay, you can get around 250ft, a crimp tool and a tester for only $35. Not bad!

I have no experience in dropping cables, but I downloaded this (http://www.commscope.com/docs/drop_manual_1003.pdf) manual for laying and dropping cables in your house and walls.

By the way, if you plan on using gigabit ethernet, you'll need CAT5e, CAT5 only supports 100mb/s.

;)

[Fightingpiper]

Home Depot usually has some very good prices on bulk Cat5e. I bought my spool off of ebay but with shipping I could have gotten at Home Depot for about the same price with no waiting, I love having a 1000' spool of wire around as its easy to make the patch cables any length you need.

[Annoyingrob]

When I first moved into this current house about 2 and a half years ago, I wanted to network everything. I got a 1000ft box of cable from home depot, as well as a whole bunch of wall plates. I also got a 24 port patch panel off ebay. I wired 14 runs throughout my house, more or less 1-2 to each room covering three floors. At the time I had an unfinished basement, which made things really easy. All runs on the top floor were put in the walls, where they then ran up into the attic, then ran down through a wall into a small cupboard at the top of my stairs to terminate. Main floor runs were put into the wall, then fished down into the basement where they were ran through the rafters and up into a cold air return vent which went all the way to the top floor. From there, they kept going though the wall into the attic. Basement was done the same way, running it through the cold air return once it was studded.

The job looks really professional as all the connections are in-wall, no visible wires. The entire project cost be probably $200cad since I did all the work myself.

If you want to do it yourself, try to figure out the easiest way to run wires in the first place. Drop-down celings in basements are great as well as attics. For the most part, to run lines from basements to 2nd floors, the easiest way seems to be cold air returns, but from what I'm reading, some people don't like that. Running cables through heat registers is not a very good idea. Although I have seen it done, I wouldn't suggest it. Outside runs can work if you have the proper cable, but if you do go that route, pick places that aren't really visible.

Make sure you pick a good spot to terminate the cables. Somewhere that's centralized to limit cable runs, but that's also out of the way. I've seen people terminate near the breaker box of a house. That's not a bad idea as it keeps all utilities like power, phone, internet, and cable together. Personally I'm not too big of a fan of running network cable really close to power lines so I usually chose to put them somewhere else, but that's just me. In my house, there jsut happened to be a built-in cabinet at the top of the stairs on the top floor. It made an ideal place, as it was a dead space for anything else, and was right between my room, and one of our offices, the two main rooms needing connections.

I hope this helps. Installing a network can be really cheap if you do it yourself. I think that wireless is not a very good choice for networking. Agreed, it is easier, but It's also slower, can be less secure, and will cost you more in hardware than a DIY cable install. Plus, you can't say that your house is fully networked :)

[Elephanthead]

If your going to do it yourself, also buy the best cable you can find/ afford. The extra insulation around the twisted pairs makes it a little more forgiving to install for the DIYer especially if your running it near electrical wires. Its really not that hard. Planning everything out first helps. Its low voltage wire so you really cant cause that much harm except for the holes you put in walls.

[PCGUY112887]

I can't wait untill I build my own house...
I am going to wait untill i'm good and rich so I can build it like a bunker :p

Am I the only one here that thinks that totally networking your whole house/electrical/cable (new construction) is actually FUN? I sure as hell do :p

EDIT - I wonder if there is any kind of networking building code? There is building code for power and phone and everything else... but I wonder about networking? Definatelly don't want an inspector telling you that you have to rip everything out because of a dumb little thing that doesn't pass code :p

[ghettocomp]

I have networked my whole house. Each room has two network jacks all leading into a "server Closet" downstairs (actually an abandoned Heater closet with a steel liner under the wallboard) one jack is for internet connections, the other is for dedicated network video. A very, very cool setup. It all cost me less than $300. to accomplish. I don't have to ever open the closet again if I don't wish, as all computers there are connected to my main system by remote desktop software. All network cables are routed to the exterior of the house through a 2" copper Freon Return line (abandoned and a little large I know, but I didn't install the Heater/cooler). from the exterior exit point all cables were run under the siding to each room. All clean and out of sight!. Better than the local cable company did installing their cable for TV.

[Sean Lindstrom]

terminate near the breaker box of a house... keeps all utilities like power, phone, internet, and cable together.

In a decade when the Next Thing comes, most likely it'll get strung beside existing telephone or cable lines. Therefore, it should enter the house where they do. I try to plan for that future Thing, leaving space for additional enclosures and wire runs. I even pre-drill the holes for It when putting in CAT5, and stuff the empty holes with fibreglass insulation (a fire precaution). Then I leave a slew of photos detailing this soon-to-be-buried work, with the homeowner (preferably in an envelope by the main panel).

[AMD Phreak]

Best thing for future proofing installs is using conduit. I know carlon now makes low voltage conduit. Might have to check with a parts house on that, as home sleepot wont carry it. They carry other types but not for what we need. It might be also known as smurf tube.

As said before, buy the best cable you can afford. If you know an electrician maybe see if he can hook you up. We currently have picked Commscope cable for our cabling needs. They make the Ultra II cat5e cable that is spec'd to 350MHz so it has enough headroom for gigaE. They also make an outdoor variant of the stuff, that is flood filled with icky-pic jelly. This stuff is direct bury cable, so you just dig an 18" trench and drop in the wire and fill it back and you are set.

For voice, cat3 or 5 is fine. Doesnt need to be the best of the best. Voice can run over some pretty shotty wire, so as long as it is cat3 its ok.

[Mark620]

You need to run fiber optic too. It may be the one thats needed for the next generation. Dont worry about connecting it tho just have it there. Phone, Cable, Network and Fiber Optic.

[PCGUY112887]

I have never even seen fiber optic cable for sale (as in use for networking).
I thought that the fiber connections that you could get in some places just came into a modem and it went over to normal gigabit ethernet?

[AMD Phreak]

http://www.uniprisesolutions.com/docs/Ultra_Home_Brochure.pdf


It exists. I have seen the stuff before. Thick cables, however you can get just fiber as well.

http://www.uniprisesolutions.com/html/prod_res_uhfiber.shtml

Fiber can be used in instances such as home theater links as well, so its not limited. It is used in Benz's too for the Bose audio system on the higher end cars from the company.
Fiber used in homes is single mode. These are driven by LED's or lower power laser diodes, and the fiber is actually plastic rather than glass. Glass is typically used for long haul, as it is driven with higher wattage lasers.

[don256us]

Just my input here. You can do it yourself or not. I would avoid outside walls if you can. While they can be fished, they are much more difficult. Outside walls are insulated and interior walls are generally not. If you do exterior walls yourself, count on more time. If you hire someone to do the exterior walls, count on more $$$.

If you do go through the air ducts, you MUST use plenum. If not, you WILL have to remove it before you can sell the house.

Keep data 1 foot away from power. If you must cross a power line, do so at 90 degree angle. Stay 1 foot away from florencent lights too. No kinks in the line. (This is true for TV too). Cat 5e is fine for gigabit but cat 6 is better.

That's all that I can think of for now. Even if you hire it done, it's good to know what's up so they don't 'take' you for a ride.