Installer to run Ethernet cable through house?

[kaddy]

Anyone know a good installer (+price) that could run Ethernet cable to a few rooms to the unfinished basement. House was built in 2002.

Thanks!

[T@T]

Why bother?

Todays routers run faster than any internet providers!

In other words...you won't gain anything doing a hardwire.

[bomba]

Or you could get one of those kits that turns your electrical outlets into ethernet plugs:

http://www.dlink.com/products/?pid=533

[kaddy]

Originally Posted by T@T

Why bother?

Todays routers run faster than any internet providers!

In other words...you won't gain anything doing a hardwire.

Thanks for the replies.

At my last condo I tried everything to get good speeds for streaming hd etc, but never found anything perfect.

Tried a power over Ethernet(which is what I used in the end), best

wireless setup, etc.

Would prefer to have a hard wired connection, so HD streaming isn't an issue.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by T@T

Why bother?

Todays routers run faster than any internet providers!

In other words...you won't gain anything doing a hardwire.

That is completely incorrect.

The proliferation of wireless devices and networks mean that the functional level of wireless, even 802.11n (with a theoretical max of 200Mb/s) can easily drop below the internet speeds provided by Shaw (25/50/100Mb/s plans are very affordable). That's not even counting the slowdown from interference from the wireless access point being 1 or 2 levels away from the device.

A home owner would be seriously foolish to avoid a hard wired situation in an area where it isn't finished yet, since dealing with drywall makes the job 10x harder if you decide to do it later.

It is actually very simple to run cat5e/6 cable, you might want to look into doing it yourself. It is just a matter of drilling holes, mounting a box and then matching colours in the keystone plug - the wires just snap in. You could probably find any number of youtube videos to show you how. A 1000' box of cable from Monoprice is less than a couple hundred bucks, including shipping so you would want to find someone to split it with, or plan on making 2-3 pulls per room to use up the cable.

You would need - Keystone Plugs and Wallplates or just use a Surface mount box instead. You would also need to buy/borrow a tester to ensure the connections were good.

That said, pretty much any general contractor would be able to easily run the cables.

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by Rathji

or plan on making 2-3 pulls per room to use up the cable.

Not a bad idea to run more than one per room, especially if you're doing any home theater stuff. I wish I had found out sooner that HDMI can be run over dual Ethernet cables.


Sent from my HTC Vision using Tapatalk

[Jimmy Stang]

Originally Posted by kaddy

Anyone know a good installer (+price) that could run Ethernet cable to a few rooms to the unfinished basement. House was built in 2002.

Thanks!

Just to clarify, are you looking to just do the unfinished basement, or would you like to do some "finished" rooms upstairs as well?

As Rathji mentioned, if you're just doing the basement, you should be able to do it yourself. I put a bunch of ethernet jacks in my basement as we were developing it. I was also fortunate that my house came with ethernet in every room on the main and second floor already, so I didn't have to do any fishing behind drywall.

For casual web browsing with the laptops, I use wifi. But for my Slingbox, PS3, etc. I like to have those wired in for the extra speed. As well as my main media server PC.

ANother benefit of having extra ethernet jacks throughout your house is that you can easily plug a wireless access point (basically a router in AP mode, so it doesn't route) anywhere in your home for better signal strength. Otherwise your wifi is usually originating from your main router, which is likely in the basement. My parents have a problem with this as they can't stream BBC on the second floor - the horror! It is on my list of technical issues to fix for them.

[Thor]

OH SNAP, T@T just got nerd pwned!

[kaddy]

Originally Posted by Rathji

That is completely incorrect.

The proliferation of wireless devices and networks mean that the functional level of wireless, even 802.11n (with a theoretical max of 200Mb/s) can easily drop below the internet speeds provided by Shaw (25/50/100Mb/s plans are very affordable). That's not even counting the slowdown from interference from the wireless access point being 1 or 2 levels away from the device.

A home owner would be seriously foolish to avoid a hard wired situation in an area where it isn't finished yet, since dealing with drywall makes the job 10x harder if you decide to do it later.

It is actually very simple to run cat5e/6 cable, you might want to look into doing it yourself. It is just a matter of drilling holes, mounting a box and then matching colours in the keystone plug - the wires just snap in. You could probably find any number of youtube videos to show you how. A 1000' box of cable from Monoprice is less than a couple hundred bucks, including shipping so you would want to find someone to split it with, or plan on making 2-3 pulls per room to use up the cable.

You would need - Keystone Plugs and Wallplates or just use a Surface mount box instead. You would also need to buy/borrow a tester to ensure the connections were good.

That said, pretty much any general contractor would be able to easily run the cables.

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

Just to clarify, are you looking to just do the unfinished basement, or would you like to do some "finished" rooms upstairs as well?

As Rathji mentioned, if you're just doing the basement, you should be able to do it yourself. I put a bunch of ethernet jacks in my basement as we were developing it. I was also fortunate that my house came with ethernet in every room on the main and second floor already, so I didn't have to do any fishing behind drywall.

For casual web browsing with the laptops, I use wifi. But for my Slingbox, PS3, etc. I like to have those wired in for the extra speed. As well as my main media server PC.

ANother benefit of having extra ethernet jacks throughout your house is that you can easily plug a wireless access point (basically a router in AP mode, so it doesn't route) anywhere in your home for better signal strength. Otherwise your wifi is usually originating from your main router, which is likely in the basement. My parents have a problem with this as they can't stream BBC on the second floor - the horror! It is on my list of technical issues to fix for them.

The house is all finished except for the basement. It was built in 2002.

I'd like 2 lines run to the master bedroom in the 2nd floor... I'm not sure if that's possible.

I could maybe do the den on the main floor with a wall plate, etc, but I want another jack above the fireplace, which looks pretty hard.

I'm running all the cable to a switch next to my electrical panel in the basement.

[Flaming Lips]

I've used Digital Lifestyles.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by kaddy

I'd like 2 lines run to the master bedroom in the 2nd floor... I'm not sure if that's possible.

For my 2nd floor data I used the chimney opening. It is a pretty big space. I followed the chimney all the way to the attic, and then from the attic ran the lines down the walls into the rooms. My house was built in 2004, so I would think being in similar code years the basic design could be similar.

The trick to running up my chimney cavity is that I had to knock some holes in the walls of closets that are beside the chimney. I actually used the plumbing access ports instead of re-sealing the walls; which came in handy when I decided to run a few extra coax lines upstairs as well.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by ken0042

For my 2nd floor data I used the chimney opening. It is a pretty big space. I followed the chimney all the way to the attic, and then from the attic ran the lines down the walls into the rooms. My house was built in 2004, so I would think being in similar code years the basic design could be similar.

The trick to running up my chimney cavity is that I had to knock some holes in the walls of closets that are beside the chimney. I actually used the plumbing access ports instead of re-sealing the walls; which came in handy when I decided to run a few extra coax lines upstairs as well.

Four times, this post used the word chimney four times. That's a Calgarypuck record for chimney use in a post.

[Rathji]

As Ken said, using an existing hole to get to your attic will allow you to get anywhere in the house.

Since you are doing outlets on 2 finished floors, I would suggest sticking to the wall mount boxes and trying to leverage cold air returns or closets to get the cable into rooms, then run behind the floor boards until you want to pop out for a box.

[kaddy]

Originally Posted by Rathji

As Ken said, using an existing hole to get to your attic will allow you to get anywhere in the house.

Since you are doing outlets on 2 finished floors, I would suggest sticking to the wall mount boxes and trying to leverage cold air returns or closets to get the cable into rooms, then run behind the floor boards until you want to pop out for a box.

Thanks

I think I might wire all rooms upstairs with 2 cables each to the attic and find a way to run the grouping down to the basement. The main floor shouldn't be as bad to do.

Does anyone know of restrictions on running low voltage wires for calgary? I couldn't seem to locate any searching?

[Envitro]

+1 for wired over wireless.

Especially if you have a gigabit switch (a true gig switch with good backplane), it's a world of difference. For example, a 4 gig movie took about 1.5 minutes over a gig network, as opposed to about 45 minutes over 802.11n wireless.

Go figure

[Tinordi]

Yeah brutal post about wireless over wired. I run a home theatre setup with a central server sending movies to a wired XBMC media box. I tried it over wireless and it was garbage even on wireless n. I have had no ZERO buffering or streaming problems over wired at even 100mbps.

[Rathji]

Originally Posted by kaddy

Thanks

I think I might wire all rooms upstairs with 2 cables each to the attic and find a way to run the grouping down to the basement. The main floor shouldn't be as bad to do.

Does anyone know of restrictions on running low voltage wires for calgary? I couldn't seem to locate any searching?

No restrictions that I am aware of, but you should avoid running them in parallel along side electrical wiring, for interference reasons, however if you are a few inches away you should be fine. Also you should avoid contact with metal duct work, pipes etc that would get hot and melt your sheathing.

[Wormius]

Did you check your telephone outlets to see how many wires are bundled up there. You might be able to reconfigure them from phone to ethernet, if you only use one outlet like I do for a cordless phone base station.

If its a fairly new build, the might not have skimped on the kind of cable they installed. I was going to do mine, but it would have only supported 10mbps or something ridiculous. Wireless N is pretty good if you don't have a lot of obstacles between floors, etc.

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Wireless N is pretty good

The only thing good about N is how few neighbours are running 5Ghz right now. I expect that to change dramatically in the next couple of years.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by sclitheroe

The only thing good about N is how few neighbours are running 5Ghz right now. I expect that to change dramatically in the next couple of years.

I realize it isn't the best for streaming videos, but I haven't had any issues watching HD movies and content through my Boxee with only the wifi connection back to my router.

If I could have though, I'd have just converted the phone outlets to ethernet, ports considering I have one or two phone plugs in each room that are just wall decoration in this day and age.