Cat 5 cabling

[oddballodd]

I am trying to figure out how to wire my house up with cat 5 for my home network (possibly cat6 for futureproofing). I need to connect my ground floor rooms to the loft space where the patch panel will be. I understand from reading other posts that it is not wise to run power cables through a cavity, but is it OK for data cabling ? The cavities are not insulated yet, am doing that early next year.

 

[oharaf]

You should be fine running CAT through wall, insulation etc, a little protection from sharp edges would help.

What you do need to do is keep them away from the power circuits.

Be carefull when pulling in the CAT if you are burying in the wall then I would suggest tubing as CAT is rather sensitive to the edge of a plasterers trowel

 

[Chri5]

Minimum of 50mm seperation between cat 5 and any mains cables.

Otherwise no problems, insulation will not affect the characteristics of cat 5.

As you may know squeezing the cable, cable tieing over tightly in bunches, bending it at sharpe angles or kinking it, will.

I`d run in cables for TV distribution at the same time.

 

[oddballodd]

thanks for all the advice, I will probably run a few lengths of the data cable in case I need more than one in the future and probable some coax along side it. Anything else recommended for av ?

 

[Chri5]

Speaker cabling back to a 4 way QED switch centre.

You can then have sets of speakers in each area, the bathroom is a pleasant place with music.

Thing is I imagined you were taking Cat 5/6 to each room, but it doesn't sound like that what you are intending.

If you want to avoid wireless I'd run Cat5/6 to every room the could have a work station, So all bedrooms, study, lounge (in a few places if the rooms are big).

I'd do the same with TV and top it up with BT to each room.

This then gives you flexibility for phone, data and TV.

Forget all the Cat 5/6 and I'll run voice, TV over it- use it for data only.

One method of reducing the cable runs would be to deploy a small hub on each floor and thus 1 cable per hub between hub and loft, by they need power and look unsightly.

CCTV cable points might be worth considering if you have security needs.

 

[oddballodd]

I hadn't thought about speaker cabling, that is a good idea. I am running data cabling to all rooms, but the living room area is tricky to cable up to the patch bay in the loft. I hate wireless, I have used it quite a bit but the transfer speeds for large files are appalling.

thanks for all the help

 

[mattylad]

Not to forget the alarm cabling & smoke alarm cabling too.

Intercom..


loads of wires....

 

[plugwash]

regarding insulation the insulating properties shouldn't be a problem but the material iteself may be. Polystyrene has a nasty habbit of destroying plasticised PVC which is used for most cable sheaths. I've no idea if this is a problem with LS0H sheated cable or not.