Ideal no. of electrical sockets in a room

[ey143]

Well it's really up to you, but I'd go for at least one more than you think you need.

For a bedroom, one either side of the bed, and then two or three elsewhere, if you're going to have a TV, wall mounted or otherwise, take that into consideration.

Don't have them on the skirting board, terrible idea. If you're redoing the whole house, put them at 450mm off the floor to the bottom of the socket, it looks odd at first, but it's so much more convenient than on the skirting

Hi

Thanks for the replies. Yes, we planned for an ariel and and electrical socket and ethernet cables to go behind the TV wall higher up. Specifically on this point, what height would you say the TV sock and ariel sockets should go, about 1.5m from the floor or slightly higher given that a good 42 inch TV will hide any plugs in that square area? I made the mistake of fitting my the TV so high that we now see the ceiling light reflection when watching TV at night, so dont want to make the same mistake again and also slightly awkard viewing height though we are now used to it. I think most installers say keep the mid point of the TV at 1.5m from ground.

Is the following item also worth considering? http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...rue&ref_=ox_sc_sfl_title_3&smid=A186AO9HIA45J
Some of my walls are block solid walls but will have plasterboard in front of it. Would this item best be used with a plastic back box or metal one and what size?

 

[winston1]

[QUOTE="ey143, post: 3530827, member: 209791[/QUOTE]

Yes, we planned for an ariel and and electrical socket and ethernet cables to go behind the TV wall higher up.

Is the following item also worth considering? http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...rue&ref_=ox_sc_sfl_title_3&smid=A186AO9HIA45J
Some of my walls are block solid walls but will have plasterboard in front of it. Would this item best be used with a plastic back box or metal one and what size?[/QUOTE]

You don't want Ariel anywhere near your TV, as it's washing powder. See the prievous posts re aerials.

I personally don't like brush plates, but each to their own. A plastic or metal back box would be OK the same size as the plate and as deep as possible

 

[securespark]

What is an average number of sockets to include on a wall for different room types at skirting board level?

5.437

0.437 of a socket??

 

[Iggifer]

Thanks for the replies. Yes, we planned for an ariel and and electrical socket and ethernet cables to go behind the TV wall higher up. Specifically on this point, what height would you say the TV sock and ariel sockets should go, about 1.5m from the floor or slightly higher given that a good 42 inch TV will hide any plugs in that square area? I made the mistake of fitting my the TV so high that we now see the ceiling light reflection when watching TV at night, so dont want to make the same mistake again and also slightly awkard viewing height though we are now used to it. I think most installers say keep the mid point of the TV at 1.5m from ground.

Is the following item also worth considering? http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...rue&ref_=ox_sc_sfl_title_3&smid=A186AO9HIA45J
Some of my walls are block solid walls but will have plasterboard in front of it. Would this item best be used with a plastic back box or metal one and what size?

The way we often do it is:

Low level - Twin Socket / CAT6 + COAX (Single Box) / HDMI - Brush Plated (Single Box)
1500mm centre - Twin Socket / HDMI - Brush Plated

We don't really ever terminate the CAT6/COAX, we get specialised guys in. And if you wanted to just connect your TV to the coax rather than using a STB/Sky Box etc, you could use a 1/2 brush plate and a coax behind the TV, or do:

1500 centre Twin Socket / Twin Box - 1xCoax 1xCAT6 1xFullsize Brushplate for HDMI.

You may then also want a CAT6 point low level, but it all depends what you want.

I too am not a fan of brush plates, but if you can't see it, what's the harm? It's a better solution than trying to use a dedicated HDMI module - you can get 2+ HDMI cables through a brushplate, you'd be limited with HDMI modules.

As for box depth, 35mm is probably ideal, 47mm is a bit OTT, however for HDMI you will need boxes with 25mm knockouts, as the HDMI end is too big for a 20mm, some 35mm boxes have 25mm ones, all 47mm boxes do (that I'm aware of)

 

[ban-all-sheds]

You don't want Ariel anywhere near your TV

Sure about that?

Ariel.

 

[JohnD]

Mine is in the garage, nowhere near a TV.

 

[ey143]

Was thinking about Cat 6e cable. What is the best one to buy in bulk say 100m+ size reels? What is UTP and what other high quality features should I look for in the cable? Was going to buy from amazon - any other suggested places?

Thx.

 

[ey143]

Also is there any upside/downside to having face plates on the wall with the various sockets compared with just having a brush plate and feeding as many cables through (this would be my preference because I understand you lose signal quality every time you break a connection right from the main booster/hub to the face plate and then again face plate to the device? Also it means you can more or less scale up with more cables if required later compared to a face place?

 

[Iggifer]

You can't really add cables later if the box is flush in the wall, brush plate or not. If you did it surface mounted with some decorative trucking top to bottom you could, but it wouldn't look as good.

In terms of CAT6, we only buy it in 305m drums (1000ft) because that's the standard size. If you're putting points all over your house, you'd be surprised how much you get through. I replaced one stapled to the wall run of CAT5 recently in a student property, my boss estimated the run was 20m, by the time I'd finished, I'd used 65m....

 

[PBC_1966]

What is UTP and what other high quality features should I look for in the cable? .

UTP = Unshielded Twisted Pair, the most widespread these days. You can get various types of shielded cable as well, either with a single overall shield or individually shielded pairs.

Do not buy cheap "no name" Chinese brands you've never heard of through eBay etc. They may look, superficially, the same as good cable, but they are frequently made with very poor quality control. Stick with good, well-known brands such as Belden.

 

[flameport]

what other high quality features should I look for in the cable?

The cable must have solid copper cores. If it has CCA or CCS as part of the description, DO NOT buy it. They refer to copper clad aluminium or copper clad steel. Both of which are useless.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Do not buy cheap "no name" Chinese brands you've never heard of through eBay etc. They may look, superficially, the same as good cable, but they are frequently made with very poor quality control. Stick with good, well-known brands such as Belden.

The cable must have solid copper cores. If it has CCA or CCS as part of the description, DO NOT buy it. They refer to copper clad aluminium or copper clad steel. Both of which are useless.

 

[ey143]

What are your thoughts on the following cables?

http://www.cablemonkey.co.uk/88-cat6-bulk-cable

 

[Iggifer]

I have used that Connectix (top cable on that link) before, it's ok. I haven't been the end user to tell you for sure how good it is, but it definitely works. In fact, we just installed about 1.2kM of it, so I hope it's ok when it gets 2nd fixed!

 

[ey143]

But that is the solid stuff that's being suggested here right?

Doesn't say shielded though - still ok?