Wiring a house for a home network

CrazyJoe

So with Suzy and I buying our first house I will be wiring the house for home network. Living in an apartment for the past several years I just ran the cable along the baseboard and used cord covers. Obviously now that we will be living in our own home I want to make it a lot nicer and run the cords through the wall and have wall plates. There are several guides online on how to do this but I thought I'd get some advice from Icrontic as I'm sure many of you have done this in the past. Any tips, tricks, specific hardware I should look into? The house is 2038 sq ft, all on one level, block construction. The floor plan is attached and the main hub will most likely be in my office which will be the bedroom on the far left of the three that are all next to each other.

Thanks in advance!!

Zanthian

Wireless? http://www.amazon.com/RT-N66U-Dual-Band-Wireless-N900-Gigabit-Router/dp/B006QB1RPY
or network over power lines? http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=electronics&field-keywords=home+power+line+network&rh=n:172282,k:home+power+line+network

Tushon

Or neither! Hopefully he is wanting to wire fresh CAT6. I totally agree with the Wireless recommendation, though I might put it more central JUST in case.

Do you plan to drop wall plates in each bedroom/living room? If so, you'll want to get an unmanaged gigabit switch and wire most stuff to that, then one off that to the router.

Depending on where you might be able to put it, the router could go in the living room/breakfast nook area with a very short cable and drop on the ceiling or something similar (consider power). I could see at least 6 drops into rooms other than your "main hub" and up to 10 + main hub if you wanted to future proof for things like home theater components which are network capable. Here is a picture.


For a project like this, it will be cheaper/cleaner to buy a spool of CAT6 cable and make your own. You'll also want a tool like this and maybe a cable tester like this. You'll also need RJ-45 cable connectors and face plates (example)

NullenVoyd

I'm no pro or expert on this, but I generally like to have 2 ports per wall panel, usually not far from a power outlet, one panel in each room that will have a possible stationary network-enabled device.

I usually like to go above the ceiling (through attic or drop-down ceiling) and drop down in the walls to proper flat wall panels, or go under the floor (like through lower level ceiling or crawl-space or basement) and then up in the walls. The place we have now (a rental home) had a bunch of holes in the floor for cable TV, so I just ran some cable through the crawl-space and put the port in those little pill/blister boxes and taped to the wall. A previous rental home I was able to run along the baseboard under the carpeting, and it worked like a champ. Whichever way you go, if you're going through walls, get a decent grasp of wall construction first and measure 15 flipping times before cutting or drilling. Also mind the power lines, like seriously.

Ideally (far as I can tell) you'll have it all come to your center point where the internets are piped into your place, and you put your ISP thing and your router all plugged together and on a UPS, somewhere accessible. Also keep in mind if you want to put a wifi AP somewhere other than where your router is, but honestly for this application that likely isn't going to be a concern.

Things I like to have hardlined:
Smart TV (or applicable box)
Gaming and/or productivity PCs
Network Storage
Printers

Things that can likely be perfectly fine on wifi:
Smart kitchen appliances
Garage computer (like for looking up project or automotive info)
Laptops
Smart toilets
iCurtains
Sentry turrets
Cats

Something else to think about is if you ever want to host a LAN party or something equally silly, if there's a convenient enough place to plug an extra network switch in to get everyone connected. Other than that, you can get Cat5e fairly cheap and it'll do you pretty solid, but someone looking to future-proof might aim for Cat6.

Bah, I hope something out of that rambling is useful. Good luck and keep us posted!
(also, your laundry room seems to have no entrance/exit. Is that where you plan to trap Sims?)

CB

I used to have big plans for wiring up my house with network cable when I finally got a house, but then when I got one, wireless had come along far enough that I really only felt like I needed a hardline for my primary PC. Everything else is just wireless, and that's good enough.

Tushon

Wireless would work for me for everything except primary PC (gaming), network storage (another PC) and home theater devices (streaming from network storage).

CrazyJoe

Yep. What Tushon said. I would like to have a hard line for the PC in my office and Suzy's office and one out to the main media center in the living room for streaming media/NetFlix/MLB.tv etc. I will be wiring Cat6 just because I don't want to have to rewire at some point in the future. The difference in price between Cat5e and Cat6 isn't all that much. The Media Center in the Living room will be on the southern wall in the floor plan so the wireless access point will most likely go there.

CrazyJoe

Any recommendations on the gigabit switch?

Tushon

Most of the big names are fine, the "meh" brands are meh. I have an 8-port netgear. Depends on how many you end up dropping. You'll have 4+8 with that netgear, so that's 12 and you can add another 12 later if you need.

Butters

If you can get away with it, that linen closet in your Hallway might be suitable for your router and other equipment.
You could go over the top and make it a media closet. Have all your A/V equipment in there and have a clean entertainment center (no exposed wires) using with IR extenders over CAT 6 for remotes, in wall speakers, HDMI over CAT 6, etc. Just sayin. If you haven't been exposed to Monoprice for your cable and other stuff, its worth taking a look.

While your at it, might as well pick up one of these or these. Its nice in the kitchen where outlets are higher.

BlackHawk

Just my personal opinion but I think wifi is a perfectly valid option. I have the router Zanthian linked and wifi USB dongle on my main PC and gaming and stuff runs without a hitch. Just saying that it's viable.

mertesn

BlackHawk said:

Just my personal opinion but I think wifi is a perfectly valid option. I have the router Zanthian linked and wifi USB dongle on my main PC and gaming and stuff runs without a hitch. Just saying that it's viable.

It's viable until you start trying to move large amounts of files. I'm running 802.11n in my house and still can't exceed around 56Mbps (~8MB/s) throughput maximum. That's fine for transferring small files, but once things start exceeding 250MB it becomes tedious.

@CrazyJoe, I'd recommend MonoPrice for your cables and switches. $105 for 1000 feet of CAT6 is what I use at home and it's been great. is a great deal unless you know someone who buys the giant industrial sized spools that come with a free coffee/gaming table. Their switches are pretty inexpensive too and they've worked very well for me.

Linc

Run at least 2 lines to each desk, and 4 for the media center. However many lines you think you want, double it. Wire is cheap. We have 8 each to the office & great room, then 2 to each bedroom.

This is what's powering ICHQ:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006IJHK96/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008ABOJKS/ref=oh_details_o05_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000AZK72/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000E891P8/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

We use a PC running Smoothwall as our router.

Since switching to this WAP, I've never cared if I was plugged in or not (and I move a lot of data for work).

Thrax

It's viable until you start trying to move large amounts of files. I'm running 802.11n in my house and still can't exceed around 56Mbps (~8MB/s) throughput maximum. That's fine for transferring small files, but once things start exceeding 250MB it becomes tedious.

Whereas I regularly exceed 100Mbps wirelessly in a shedload of environmental RF noise due to living in a highrise condo with dozens of WAPs.

ardichoke

CrazyJoe said:

Any recommendations on the gigabit switch?

My suggestion would be to troll eBay and look for Cisco or HP switches. Netgear can be okay also. That or if you have a nearby university, check out their surplus store (most major universities sell their old equipment at a good price, it's just a matter of getting it before someone else does). These two strategies are how my one coworker got all his network gear, and his home network setup would make most small businesses envious.

mertesn

Thrax said:

It's viable until you start trying to move large amounts of files. I'm running 802.11n in my house and still can't exceed around 56Mbps (~8MB/s) throughput maximum. That's fine for transferring small files, but once things start exceeding 250MB it becomes tedious.

Whereas I regularly exceed 100Mbps wirelessly in a shedload of environmental RF noise due to living in a highrise condo with dozens of WAPs.

This may come down to the choice of router. I'm using a D-Link DGL-4500.

Thrax

I believe that is the case. I'm using an ASUS N66U with a 450Mbit PCIe 11n adapter.

GHoosdum

NullenVoyd said:

...
Things that can likely be perfectly fine on wifi:
...
Sentry turrets
...

Actually I would caution against running Sentry Turrets over WiFi. Even with WPS disabled, having a connection that's always available to the outside world opens you to being compromised, and a Sentry Turret is definitely a device you won't want some random passerby with a wifi hijacking tool taking over.

ALWAYS run cable to your Sentry Turrets if you want to avoid a nasty surprise.

ardichoke

GHoosdum said:

NullenVoyd said:

...
Things that can likely be perfectly fine on wifi:
...
Sentry turrets
...

Actually I would caution against running Sentry Turrets over WiFi. Even with WPS disabled, having a connection that's always available to the outside world opens you to being compromised, and a Sentry Turret is definitely a device you won't want some random passerby with a wifi hijacking tool taking over.

ALWAYS run cable to your Sentry Turrets if you want to avoid a nasty surprise.

Lets be honest here, unless you're isolating your WiFi network on a separate VLAN and not allowing traffic from that VLAN to your wired VLAN, someone could still break into your WiFi and potentially exploit your Sentry Turrets. You really need to not have your Sentries connected to the network at all. If you have a really compelling reason to connect them, they should really be on their own separate, secure VLAN behind a very restrictive firewall which denies access completely from WiFi.

CrazyJoe

How much cable should I get if I were to wire the house similar to the plan Tushon mentioned? Monoprice has 1000ft spools for $105. Would that be adequate?

mertesn

CrazyJoe said:

How much cable should I get if I were to wire the house similar to the plan Tushon mentioned? Monoprice has 1000ft spools for $105. Would that be adequate?

That would be more than sufficient. It would also be the most cost effective route.

PirateNinja

Tushon has 10-12 drops I think, so 1000ft is adequate if you think your average drop will require less than 100 feet of cable. It's certainly enough to start with and if you use a small switch in the living room it will be plenty.

CrazyJoe

So for rooms that have multiple drops (like the living room) should I run seperate lines to each room and put in multiple ports or just one port and put a switch in the room?

ardichoke

CrazyJoe said:

So for rooms that have multiple drops (like the living room) should I run seperate lines to each room and put in multiple ports or just one port and put a switch in the room?

Run multiple lines and put in a multiport box. 4 port RJ-45 boxes are quite common these days, just run 4 lines to it. That keeps you from having a single line bottleneck which you end up with when you start daisy chaining switches.

CrazyJoe

Maybe stupid question, but what's a multiport box?

Linc

Additional lines are cheaper and more efficient than adding switches.

CrazyJoe

That's what I thought. So basically just to clarify I run a line from the modem into something like this, then run the cables from that to a wall plate. Run the wires from that plate to all the different plates in my house and then from those plates into the back of the devices (one of them being the WAP which will most likely be placed atop the Media Center in the Living Room.)

CrazyJoe

Also does it matter who makes the Cat6 Cable? Monoprice had 1000ft for $105 but I found this one on Amazon for $25 less.

Cliff_Forster

I totally get the obsessive part of me that says "I should do this hard wiring project because I have the know how, and it's the fastest, most secure and best way to connect."

That said, I still find it to be mostly impractical. How many devices do you have that you want to tether? For me my phone and tablet are becoming my daily internet browsing tools, I sit at my desktop less and less. Streaming from your home network? I have not had any trouble without wires, and I have a cheap $45 netgear router, nothing fancy.

For less than the cost of wiring up you could buy the most bitchin wireless router and repeater on the market and get full bar coverage all over your house and across the street for that matter.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320091

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833320112

Don't get me wrong, I completely get the desire to wire. I've thought about it allot, it's just kinda what us geeky obsessive types do. We look at a project and go, yeah, I could do that. I'm just not sure it's worth the effort when there are so many great wireless options.

ardichoke

CrazyJoe said:

Also does it matter who makes the Cat6 Cable? Monoprice had 1000ft for $105 but I found this one on Amazon for $25 less.

The Amazon one is CCA (copper clad aluminum) which is a lower quality cable. I wouldn't use it.

Multiport box is maybe not the right term. I just mean a wall mounted box that has multiple RJ45 ports in it. Like this but with 4 ports instead of 2. I know I've seen them elsewhere but I am suddenly having a hard time finding them.

PirateNinja

I'd get the cheaper cable, I don't see a big advantage for you getting straight copper instead of CCA. That's just me though.

As far as how to wire, cables will go like this:
Modem->
Router->
Switch (like the 16 port you posted)->
Jacks/Plates

Run individual cables to the plates you set up. So if you have a 4 port plate in the living room, you will run 4 cables out of the switch in to the back of that 4 port plate.

Don't try to daisy change your plates. Just run individual cables from the switch to each port on each wall plate.


Finally, from your plate to whatever device you want (Wap, etc)