Whole house wiring

[jneutron]

First, I have two big complaints geared directly towards GDS..

1. When I go to print out articles, like the whole house wiring basics, I can't find a printer friendly button. I want to be able to print the article in portrait mode without the advertisements, not landscape with them. Am I just missing it, or is it just missing??

2. This place needs some technical stuff in exe form..For example, I have an excel spreadsheet that I use to calculate wire inductance, capacitance, impedance, prop velocity...this place should have an e/m based page, with automatic calculators to do this... Like a coaxial calculator that inputs inner wire diameter, insulation type and thickness, so it spews out impedance, capacitance, inductance, prop velocity, and resistance..Do others think this would be a desired feature?

(I never miss the opportunity to bust Gene's chops..)

OK..why I'm here..

Building an addition to the house..will be running speakers, cat5 or cat6, rg-6u, maybe video, maybe optical..don't plan on video dist, just audio and RF, but don't want to be caught with my pants down coupla years from now.

Anyone have feelings about just using cat-6 instead of cat-5e? I'll probably run two of each, one for redundancy, and the 6 is rather expensive compared to the 5e. If I go 5e, I'll just buy a kilofoot and run four.

I'll be going #14 pair for speakers, no real power devices involved..preferred vendor?

RF I'll use RG-6/U, two runs.

Optical: given eventual upgrading off the cable lines, I'm thinking of adding a coupla optical runs to several rooms..anybody do this in-wall?

BTW, I really found the two part article by Impact Acoustics interesting and very informative. Thank you Gene and Impact for providing this to us..

Cheers, John

 

[MDS]

For what purpose will you be using the Cat5/6 wiring? If it's for phone, it won't matter which you choose. I can't imagine that you would need Cat6 for any home automation control, but then I am not familiar with all the options for home automation.

If you plan to have a network in the house, then it might be beneficial to get Cat6 just to be prepared for gigabit ethernet. My house is wired with Cat5E and even though Cat5E is only rated to 300MHz, they claim it will still be sufficient for gigabit ethernet.

 

[jneutron]

For what purpose will you be using the Cat5/6 wiring? If it's for phone, it won't matter which you choose. I can't imagine that you would need Cat6 for any home automation control, but then I am not familiar with all the options for home automation.

If you plan to have a network in the house, then it might be beneficial to get Cat6 just to be prepared for gigabit ethernet. My house is wired with Cat5E and even though Cat5E is only rated to 300MHz, they claim it will still be sufficient for gigabit ethernet.

Hi MDS..thanks for the reply.

I forgot to include phone lines...oops..

Those I'd just use the 4 wire stuff.

I'm putting the cat's in for future use..that includes a network, remote stuff, and who knows what in the future. I'm just not sure if the expense of the 6 justifies it..it's just so much easier to put it in before the 'rock..plus, it makes me look hugely smart later on down the road, when my children see how daddy had all the stuff in place years ago...(makes up for their laughs at my expense when I hafta ask them to program my cell phone for me...darn technology)

Last house, I installed undedicated conduit, and could pull wires through after the fact. (Note to self...if I install outlet boxes 14 inches above the floor, with the surface edge flush to the studs, and put very very big notes on every single box telling the rocker to COVER this box because it is not to be exposed but is for future use...they will pull the note, and cut the hole..

Now, I'll just loop the wires, fix them to the side of the studs, and take pictures and measurements so I know where to open the rock to put in an old work box.

Cheers, John

 

[bloosquare]

Building an addition to the house..will be running speakers, cat5 or cat6, rg-6u, maybe video, maybe optical..don't plan on video dist, just audio and RF, but don't want to be caught with my pants down coupla years from now.

Anyone have feelings about just using cat-6 instead of cat-5e? I'll probably run two of each, one for redundancy, and the 6 is rather expensive compared to the 5e. If I go 5e, I'll just buy a kilofoot and run four.

I am about to do this in my house. After looking at this we are doing two runs of cat6 and two runs of coax from each room to the basement. (This is a 100 year old 3 story victorian home so its going to be a bit painful). Cat 6 in the grand scheme of things is really not that expensive. $100 for 1000 feet. I dont believe you need plenum rated cables for in-wall usage at home. (at least we don't). Cat 7 is still really expensive though.

Technically cat5e will run gigabit which is standard but we've found that cat 6 is much more stable and less prone to packet / negotiation errors so have swapped all our cat5e cables to cat6 at work. (I'm a physicist and have a lot of computers glued together both as terminals and as a numerical simulation cluster at our school, just so you know my background).

I thought about doing fiber (i only want to do this run once) but fiber is currently really only good for doing long haul connections rather than home connections, fiber switches are also either really expensive or non existant so if you "star" everything together as one typically does you'll either manually connect everything together to get point to point fiber from rooms you want, but that data might as well go over gigabit.

What I recommend and you probably already know this, is run a few pull strings along w/ whatever you pick in the end. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if in 5 years or less we move to 10gigabit cards (which are available now btw, along w/ the switches) and use cat 7.

I believe in active monitors so no speaker cables for us

hope this helps!

-avi

 

[jneutron]

(This is a 100 year old 3 story victorian home so its going to be a bit painful). Cat 6 in the grand scheme of things is really not that expensive. $100 for 1000 feet. I dont believe you need plenum rated cables for in-wall usage at home. (at least we don't). Cat 7 is still really expensive though.

Color me jealous. There's a three story victorian across the street, man do I love that house..someday...

Hmmm..100 dollars where? At 50 bucks for cat5e, goin to 6 is a nobrainer..

I'm not sure about fire ratings, NEC, and local codes though.

I'm a physicist

Oh no..not another one...I can't get away from those guys!!!
What part of the country?? What kinda physics..I make NbTi, NbSn, BSCO and YBCO magnets..

I thought about doing fiber (i only want to do this run once) but fiber is currently really only good for doing long haul connections rather than home connections, fiber switches are also either really expensive or non existant so if you "star" everything together as one typically does you'll either manually connect everything together to get point to point fiber from rooms you want, but that data might as well go over gigabit.

Good to know..I was thinking about the eventuality of the cable company bringing the fiber to the house, and what to do then?.

What I recommend and you probably already know this, is run a few pull strings along w/ whatever you pick in the end. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if in 5 years or less we move to 10gigabit cards (which are available now btw, along w/ the switches) and use cat 7.

I don't know if the string thing will work for fiber, I'd be afraid of damage..but for cat 7, good idea. I'm not sure if I can run uncommitted vertical conduit in the walls and still meet firecode.

hope this helps!

-avi

You've been great..thanks..

Cheers, John

 

[FLZapped]

Building an addition to the house..will be running speakers, cat5 or cat6, rg-6u, maybe video, maybe optical..don't plan on video dist, just audio and RF, but don't want to be caught with my pants down coupla years from now.

Anyone have feelings about just using cat-6 instead of cat-5e? I'll probably run two of each, one for redundancy, and the 6 is rather expensive compared to the 5e. If I go 5e, I'll just buy a kilofoot and run four.

Plan on installing a gigabit network? If not, CAT 5e is fine....

-Bruce

 

[jneutron]

Plan on installing a gigabit network? If not, CAT 5e is fine....

-Bruce

At present, not really.

But I'd like the option to be available for the future..You never know..

I still remember the implausibility of those memory devices on the origional star trek..remember the orange squares that holy mackeral, could hold lots of video footage?? How absurd...now, a gig SD card is so darn small..

Who knows what will be standard 20 years from now..but I plan to find out..

And I ain't gonna open walls to put cat6 in a decade from now if I can help it..especially if it's only 50 bucks more..

Hi bruce..how's it going??

Cheers, John

 

[bloosquare]

You've been great..thanks..

Cheers, John[/QUOTE]

Hmmm..100 dollars where? At 50 bucks for cat5e, goin to 6 is a nobrainer..

Cat 6 in bulk is $100 at the "cat6cableguy" on the net

http://www.cat6cableguy.com

actually I just noticed that newegg sells cat 6 for $73 for 1000 ft. (w/ $16
dollar shipping).

http://www.newegg.com

Color me jealous. There's a three story victorian across the street, man do I love that house..someday...

heh, May I interest you in shiny property in beautiful west philly? Our houses are dirt cheap, your chances of getting mugged high, but they sure are beautiful

Good to know..I was thinking about the eventuality of the cable company bringing the fiber to the house, and what to do then?.

The cable company brings a long haul fiber connection to a room in your house and will provide the fiber equivalent of a standard router. So basically the fiber goes into a box which has a standard ethernet plug to which you glue in your gigabit network. Your house speaks to itself internally at gigabit and talks to the outside at 45 megabit (or whatever the fiber speed they are selling you). The reason they use fiber is its hard to get multimegabit speeds over wire for the long haul, but you dont need it room to room since gigabit is much faster than what they'll feed you.

Oh no..not another one...I can't get away from those guys!!!
What part of the country?? What kinda physics..I make NbTi, NbSn, BSCO and YBCO magnets..

*bio*physics actually, which is as they say the fake kind of physics

BTW this is why I think gigabit is awesome. If you glue in a cheap tvtuner card (hd preferably they are a little over $100) to a computer in the house and throw in some cheap hard drives, you basically can make yourself a TIVO on steroids which will share the stuff that has been recorded to any computer/tv in the house. This is what we do currently over a weird mix of powerline and wireless. For the TVs, we use modded xboxes, but the xp media center w/ a shuttle pc would work just the same. AUDIO aka our cd collection is done the same way and you can use the slimp3 servers or the airport express servers for your stereos in any room. Having your entire cd collection in any room available in a searchable format changes how you listen to music. And having TV on demand catalogued and saved episode by episode w/ full seasons of your favorite shows and your current favorite shows on any screen in the house, changes how one watches TV. Aka I can get my daily show fix when I get home rather than when it is on If I dont watch a show for a few weeks I can "catch up" anytime I want or it doesn't matter if I fall behind on a series. HD is too bandwidth intensive for wireless or fast ethernet to do this on but is certainly possible w/ gigabit.

-avi

 

[jneutron]

Cat 6 in bulk is $100 at the "cat6cableguy" on the net

http://www.cat6cableguy.com

actually I just noticed that newegg sells cat 6 for $73 for 1000 ft. (w/ $16
dollar shipping).

http://www.newegg.com

Nice, thanks.

The cable company brings a long haul fiber connection to a room in your house and will provide the fiber equivalent of a standard router. So basically the fiber goes into a box which has a standard ethernet plug to which you glue in your gigabit network. Your house speaks to itself internally at gigabit and talks to the outside at 45 megabit (or whatever the fiber speed they are selling you). The reason they use fiber is its hard to get multimegabit speeds over wire for the long haul, but you dont need it room to room since gigabit is much faster than what they'll feed you.

Also nice to know..thanks.

Aka I can get my daily show fix
-avi

Oh no, not another John Stewart fan..I'm up till 11:30pm monday through friday, guaranteed..

Thanks, you've been a great source..

Cheers, John

 

[FLZapped]

At present, not really.

But I'd like the option to be available for the future..You never know..

I still remember the implausibility of those memory devices on the origional star trek..remember the orange squares that holy mackeral, could hold lots of video footage?? How absurd...now, a gig SD card is so darn small..

Who knows what will be standard 20 years from now..but I plan to find out..

And I ain't gonna open walls to put cat6 in a decade from now if I can help it..especially if it's only 50 bucks more..

Hi bruce..how's it going??

Cheers, John

Hi John,

I've just returned from a month in Europe connecting with long lost family members....anyway.....

I can agree with that. It's easier to do it now, rather than re-do it later, especialy if it isn't a budget buster. I know that larger companies are already installing gigabit networks even though the individual compnents are still 100mb/sec.

BTW - there is also a CAT 7 available, but it doesn't preserve the RJ-45 as we know it today....

-Bruce

 

[jneutron]

Hi John,

I've just returned from a month in Europe connecting with long lost family members....anyway.....

I can agree with that. It's easier to do it now, rather than re-do it later, especialy if it isn't a budget buster. I know that larger companies are already installing gigabit networks even though the individual compnents are still 100mb/sec.

BTW - there is also a CAT 7 available, but it doesn't preserve the RJ-45 as we know it today....

-Bruce

Where in Europe..I'm gonna be headin to Geneva in the next coupla months to help them install some magnets.. Man, I hate to fly..

I think the 6 with giga capability should be good enough..

I have a conduit already in place to the attic from a year ago, it has tel, rf, and a spare 5e in it..I could pull the 5e out and replace it with 7 in the future, but that'd probably be a decade away..

Welcome home..

Cheers, John

 

[FLZapped]

Where in Europe..I'm gonna be headin to Geneva in the next coupla months to help them install some magnets.. Man, I hate to fly..

I think the 6 with giga capability should be good enough..

I have a conduit already in place to the attic from a year ago, it has tel, rf, and a spare 5e in it..I could pull the 5e out and replace it with 7 in the future, but that'd probably be a decade away..

Welcome home..

Cheers, John

Yeah, I don't care much for flying either....and it's a loooooong trip across the ocean.

I was next door for a few days in Finland, Helsinki. Most of my time was in Lithuania.

-Bruce

 

[jneutron]

You find the most amazing things..

Starting to gut the old kitchen..

First, a while back, found a romex mod...would you believe this happened when they were installing a GFI??? Go figure..

Then, I find their version of a studfinder..musta been a #1 phillips screwdriver..

Then, the range hood vent...hey, at least the outside vent was on the same wall...if you look closely on the right side, you'll see the edge of the sheet metal..Duh..

Well, anyway...as I do the work installing the in the wall stuff, I'll post pics.. Specially the speakers...I'll make some router jigs for those installs, and show the details..

Cheers, John

 

[mtrycrafts]

Then, I find their version of a studfinder..musta been a #1 phillips screwdriver..
Well, anyway...as I do the work installing the in the wall stuff, I'll post pics.. Specially the speakers...I'll make some router jigs for those installs, and show the details..

Cheers, John

If the picture of the damaged wire is from behind that Swiss cheese of a wall, it was a drill, not a screwdriver that cut through the wire.

Who said pro crafts people have to be good

 

[jneutron]

If the picture of the damaged wire is from behind that Swiss cheese of a wall, it was a drill, not a screwdriver that cut through the wire.

Who said pro crafts people have to be good

I think the previous owner used a "handyman".

He drilled through a 2 by to run the GFI wire, and this romex was stapled to the 2 by on the blind side..so he used a spade bit to attack this wire..

Most of the pro's I've seen are very good at what they do..far better than myself.

Cheers, John