Home Automation - New House Network Wiring

I am building a new house, my builder wanted to charge big $$ to wire the house past a couple phone & TV cable locations. We suggested & he agreed to allow us to DIY the installation. My wife is a computer consultant & works out the house thus we expect to have a fair amount of usage. I am probably an advanced DIY'er having done a lot of different projects including completely re-wiring an 80 year old house. I thus have no problem doing the work, but need advice on products & techniques. A also have access to some professional tools through a friend of my wife.

Background: House is a full 2 story, all bedrooms upstairs, home office on main floor, and full basement. Expect to have computer network hub located in the basement, all home-run connections also in the basement. Could possibly expect 3 - 4 computers to run at the same time using the hub & a high speed internet line.

At this point I think I would like to use multipurpose (computer, TV, Phone) wall outlets in several locations such as kids bedrooms, kitchen desk, home office. But other areas only TV or phone connections are needed. Expect to do home-runs for all cable.

What cable should I use? Can you use 1 cable for multi functions such as computer, TV & phone?
Is a single multi function outlet smart? Is it expensive? If it is expensive, I am thinking about running the cable, but not connecting it up, then just using a faceplate until I need the outlet later. It is a lot easier to run the cables now with the walls open than later after the drywall is up.
What do you suggest as a connection center in the basement? This one part I am really clueless on. Probalby will need an electrical outlet in that area. The hub for sure will need one.
Will I need signal boosters?
What about future needs (best guess as to what will be needed 10 years from now).

Any other suggestions or reference material to get would be helpful.

Thanks for your help, Mike

Check out www.smarthome.com. They have a variety of bundled cable. I would wire every room for everything. It's easy to do now.

It surprises me that your builder will let you place any electrical boxes yourself since they will have to pass inspection, but that's great for the rooms where you already know what you want. Please clarify that full installation of the boxes is okay before you do it. I've seen hours of work ruined by an electrician who didn't want to be liable for someone else's work (and pulled out everything). For the rooms you're not sure of, just run the wire and don't put in a box. Leave at least a foot of wire coiled and well secured to the stud at each termination point. Measure and record the location of every wire end (I video taped mine as well) and let the sheet rockers have at it. Later you can install a post construction box of whatever size you need and fish out the appropriate wire(s).

As for the connection center in the basement: There are several home automation cabinets available that make the job neater and more versatile. You'll definitely need power in that location. As for amplification, you have up to 328 feet on the network runs. Unless your new house is industrial sized, that should be plenty. Phone won't be an issue and you'll probably have to test TV to know what that's going to need. If a cable company is involved, they may provide any needed amplification equipment.

A few more thoughts: For your network, don't install a hub, install a switch. Few people understand the difference, but simply put, a switch is newer technology. Now is also a good time to consider a whole house surge suppressor if you haven't already. Make sure whatever model you look at has connections for phone and cable as well as electric. If you are going to do any wireless home automation, you also need to consider a whole house signal blocking device. The web site given above has all of these items. Get the model numbers and brand names there and then price shop local suppliers. SmartHome is great but their prices can be high.

Good luck!

Doug M.

I was in the same position as yourself a little over a year ago. Brand new construction, and the need to automate.

We have a three bedroom house. If you have any plans of hardwiring, now is the time to do it! I ran phone, cable, and network drops. There are two drops (phone, cable, network) in each room, 3 in the family room, 2 in the kitchen area, 1 in the dining room, over a dozen netoerk drops in the office, and a drop in the garage.

For the coaxial cable I used RG-6. This is important, do not use RG-5, RG-6 is required these days for sateelite and digital cable. Fot the network and phone drops I used Cat5e cabling.

For the connections in the rooms themselves, I used Leviton Quickport connectors. You can find more information about these here: Leviton QuickPort Connectors (http://www.leviton.com/pdfs/lin/LINsections_2003/LIN_HScat_QPModules-Wallplates.pdf)
Id used decora inserts and plates to finish off the drop locations.

I found all of the cable and connectors very reasonably priced at Home Depot. If you look at SmartHome you will find All-In-One cable bundles, which will simplify your wire pulls. You can find these bundles with fiber optic cable included, which could provide a degree of upgradeablity as technology changes. This stuff isn't cheap, so it will gratly depend on your budget.

All of the drops are home run into the basement, where there are connected to three switches, which are chained into a router (FWIW all SMC equipment). Internet connectivity is provided through a cable modem. I used the 6 conductor phone connecotrs, which allows me to support three separate phone lines at each connection.

The phone lines also home run into the same location as the network, and are terminated at a bridged telephone board.

You will defintely need to make sure you have some tools available to do this job. Make sure you have a punch down tool, a good set of wire cutters, a cable stripper, a network cable tester, and a crimping tool. Also a good drill!

Another thing that I did, and I would definitely recommend is running conduit from the attic to the basement. That way if you need to make any runs to the basement, you don't have to drill through any walls. I've used this conduit twice already! Once to put a wireless gateway bridge and antenna in the attic, so I have wireless Internet access to the boat in the backyard.

Another thing you may want to consider at this time is running whole-house audio. I set up a Russound A-Bus system, and wired in speakers. The control wires for the A-Bus systems used standard Cat5 cabling, so it was just a few more pulls. I set up speakers for every bedroom, the kitchen area, dining room, garage, master bath, and outside. You can find out more about the A-Bus system at: Russound (http://www.russound.com)

Be sure your aware of any local code requirements. I was lucky enough that the contractor did all of the electrical work himself. So he helped to ensure everything was up to code. Since it's all low voltage, it wasn't a big deal in my area, but local requirements did require that all holes the went between floors needed to be sealed with fireproof caulk. Not sure if this is the case in your area.

I spent alot of time thinking this all out before the house was started. It really was worth all of the work!

For what it's worth, here are a few pictures:

The Basement:

Basement Picture #1 (http://www.idcc.net/pictures/09200076.jpg)
Basement Picture #2 (http://www.idcc.net/pictures/09200077.jpg)

A typical drop:

Typical Drop (http://www.idcc.net/pictures/09200078.jpg)

A drop during construction:

Construction Drop (http://www.idcc.net/pictures/IM001002.JPG)

Best of luck with your project! Please post any questions you may have!

PS - I forgot to mention make sure you label all of your cable runs! I did this with a Sharpie on both ends. I looped my extra wire in the basement. I couldn't make the homeruns back until all of the HVAC ducting was installed. Make sure you leae yourself enough cable in the loops in the basement to get to your central location! You'll be able to do the bulk of the work before the drywall goes up, but you won't be able to finish until the house is mostly complete. In fact I didn't finish thw work in the basement until after we had moved in.

Mike,

1. If you were in Texas (as I am), or if the guys who will be installing your drywall (sheetrock) are anything approaching typical, I would stronlgly reccomend using a bundled, hybrid cable. This cable includes (typically) 2 Cat 5e, and 1 RG-6. This is basically normal cables bundled together. The reason I say this is that we (the company I run) do 300-350 house pre-wires monthly. We also do 300-350 house finish/trim-outs monthly (not the same houses- our typical install is in a 4000+ sq.ft house and they take 120-300+ days to build.

If we DO NOT use the bundled cable (as we did from 1997-1999) we normally have 20% of the cables cut or pinched: When you just run a single cat 5 or cat3 or rg-6, the drywallers are guaranteed to pinch a cable between a sheet of drywall and a stud they will also put a drywall screw through at least one cable per house. Seems that single cables are just small enough for them to 'ignore' when the sheetrock bulges. With the bundled cable (it is almost an inch in diameter) that will not happen.

The bundled cable costs no more than the sum of hte individual cables.

2. Open an account with Graybar, CSC (Communications Supply Corporation), Anixter, or Rexell Datacom/Summers Electric. The prices are typically 30-40% cheaper than Home Depot or Lowes. MORE IMPORTANTLY, they will assign you a Customer Service Rep, who will know more about Telecom Infrastructure than most Architects, Engineers, and Cable TV installers. USE THEM. THeir job is to help their accounts (customers) figure out what they need to use. You don't need part numbers, you don't even really need to know waht you wnat to install: THey will sit on the phone with you for hours if need be. Of course, you will have to tell a little white lie, "Hi, my name is mike, and I own (Insert name of wife's or your company-- if nothing else, it costs like $25 to take out a DBA form in most states). We are about to start doing Residential Telecom Pre-wires... can you help me spec out my projects?"

3. If you are looking at a 10 year horizon for possible needs, I would strongly reccomend installing the conduit to the basement that johnfron did (I would do 2 each of 2" conduit). I would ALSO reccomend installing a 1" pvc conduit from the attic to each drop location. Reason being, if you ever want to remove or add cables to a drop, and you have stapled the cables to studs, you will not be able to pull them out. Likewise, it will be almost impossible to add a cable to a drop location
You DO NOT need to have the conduit bolted to the dropboxes-- you just need it to penetrate-- you aren't looking for a positive seal w/the box or attic, just a simple penetration to make it possible to insert/remove cables at a later time w/o having to mess with the drywall or fishing/drilling.

Cost breakdown: 10' of 1" conduit (Home Depot and Graybar prices same): $2.25 ea
Coupler (to connect 2 pieces for the 1st floor-to-attic runs): $0.38 ea
1-hole straps: $1.18 bag of 25
Labor to install (DIY) aprox 15 minutes each(drill 1 hole in top-plate, insert conduit, install 1-hole strap).

Cost of having a telephone/cable tech add 1 Cat 3/5e/6 later w/0 a conduit: $200-400
Cost of having a telephone/cable tech add 1 later w/conduit: Less than $100.

More importantly, with the home-run conduit (the 2") and conduits at each drop, you will be able to do later renovations w/VERY LITTLE trouble.


4. If you install conduits, use Category 5e cable. If you DON"T install conduits, use Category 6 cable. Cat 5e is rated as 100megahertz of bandwidth (for most) but Cat 6 is rated as Gigabit-- MUCH more robust. Although the reality is, most people (even in office building environments) don't need Cat 6 NOW, most of us probably will within the next several years.

Cat 6 typically costs 8% more than 5e (through Graybar, CSC, etc).

5. If in doubt (even the least) about whether or not you need a cable at this or that location, just put the conduit in (and document it) and leave it empty: you can then add cables at your whim later. If you never use it, you've lost a couple of bucks and a little time-- BUT IF YOU EVER NEED IT AND DIDN'T put the conduit in-- it will be LOTs of fun to add a new drop to a previously uncabled location. Believe it or not, I actually push many of our wealthy clients in this direction, forgoeing $ for more cable drops in the short-term to better serve our customers in the long-run. Our typical 6000 sqft residential install has 80% of walls having an empy conduit and only a small portion of the house with actual wiring.

I would argue that if code compliance is at all an issue, it's easier to pass a CO or TZO inspection w/ empty pieces of conduit ("Well Mr. Inspector, that is for 'possible' later use") than with unterminated pre-wire.

6. Be sure to use Plenum rated cable.

7. The only (special) tools you will really need for this are a Punch tool(+-$40), RG-6 crimper ($10.00- radioshack), and a network cable tester ($40 on ebay, or borrow one)

8. My personal experiences with Smarthome are not good: It seems like several customers yearly ask us to install their products and we continually have warranty/servicability issues. AFAIK, no commercial low-voltage supply house sells any of their products. But retail places like Fry's, best buy, and wal-mart do. That in itself should tell you somehting. Just my $.02. Actual results may vary. Yada yada yada.

9. Pretty much LOVE Leviton. If you buy through any certified outlet you can get either the 25 year or lifetime warranty(depending on product line). All of the companies mentioned in #2 are certified, and have at least on location per state, and will drop ship to your door.
If you buy from a regular Lowes or HOme Depot, warranty if a pain, and iffy at best (no factory certification).
I normally spend 2-4 hours with new technicians training them w/Leviton products. For most guys capable of running a level, router, or replacing a breaker in their house, it will take 10 minutes to learn the basics.

10. I agree w/Johnfron that home audio is a good idea. It adds good value to your house when you eventually resell (if that is a consideration), and is not hard to do. Likewise, you don't have to actually hook up a system now, just pre-wire it: use it (or not) later. This is our #1 upgrade to standard telephony/comm installations. It is also our most expensive type of retrofit install (because speaker placement is much more critical than telephone or computer, and w/these cables, too, once the drywall is up, it is hard to add cabling later)

11. OK. That's enough (maybe a little TOO much) for now.

good luck,
robert

I learned quite a bit before I wired my house. I learned quite a bit by wiring the house. I did not have the luxury of wiring a house under construction. That would have been so much easier.

http://www.ac5r.org/cat5.html

A couple of things to point out: stapling cat 5 cable should not be done. Crushing the cable can interfere with the electrical charactristics of the cable. The same applies to wire ties that are too tight.

A switch or a router is better than a hub.

Good quality from Graybar beats the 'low prices' elsewhere. You don't want to have to re-work any of this later. Run cat5 for the telephone. This gives you the option of running data over the line if you need it rather than telephone. The RJ-11 telephone cord will plug into the wall outlet for the RJ-45 to give you the flexibilty. You can punch down either a data line or telephone line to the drop, and change it easily.

Label and mark everything and make a legend to go on the wall in the central wiring point. You will appreciate this later.

Hope this helps.

Everyone,

Thanks for your replys, they have been very helpful. I have learned alot in the last couple of weeks. I am amazed at the price differences on the material, there can be a 100% difference. That is one of my questions, is there much difference between two of the same type items.

For example is one Cat5e cable the same as another Cat5e cable? I have even seen a "super enhanced" cable claim. I do understand the differences between, solid, stranded, & plenum. Basically is one brand better than another?

I plan on using Cat 6 cable for my network runs, and I have seen someone claim they have a Cat6e cable. In your experiences and opinion, is that "e" cable really enhanced or just hype?

Same goes for RG6/u cable. Is the Belden quadshield cable really any better than another manufacturers quadshield? In this case I found an excellent price for the Belden cable, but just wondered given the price differences.

I have decided to run 1 Cat5e, 1 Cat6, and 1 RG6U to each location. I am not a big music buff or really interested in having the biggest / best entertainment systems. I don't understand the need to have 2 RG6 cables going to each box. Again, my question is it really just overkill. Why 2?

I thought about a fibre optic cable also, but here again will the normal home really have a need for it in the next 10 years?

I certainly intend to run a few conduit runs going from the basement to the attic, thus allowing me the flexability to add something later.

BTW r-man, your suggestion to use a supply house was very good. While I have not made my final order yet, Anixter's prices for nearly everything is much lower (25 - 50%) than the various internet site prices and the Home Stores.

Thanks again for all of your previous help, I will let you know how things progress. I am still looking at a couple months before I actually start pulling wire since the rough framers still have another week of work. Additional suggestions are welcome. Sorry to ramble. Mike

Based on my previous experience - if the rough framers are a week or so away from completeion - you're going to have to start your work very soon. You want to be doing this the same time as the rough electrical and HVAC, but definitely before insulation.

I have decided to run 1 Cat5e, 1 Cat6, and 1 RG6U to each location. I am not a big music buff or really interested in having the biggest / best entertainment systems. I don't understand the need to have 2 RG6 cables going to each box. Again, my question is it really just overkill. Why 2?

If the Cat6 is for future demands and is an improvement over Cat5e, why not run Cat6 x 2 instead of one Cat5e and one Cat6? I don't know when Cat6 will be needed in a home, but you don't want to be removing the Cat5e to install Cat6.

RG6 two lines would allow video in and video out.

All in all, it is so much easier to install cable in a new house. Why not run it everywhere you can imagine?

http://www.ac5r.org/cat5.html

It appears that Cat6e will be for 10GBaseT. It will interesting to see what applications come up for 1000BaseT in the home as a predecessor.

Hope this helps.

No differences between 1 cat5e and another: if the manufacturer certifies that it will pass to 100mhz or to the BICSI standards, then it's all the same.
I will say that the more expensive cables (of any level, cat3, 5, 5e, or 6) PULL easier. However, this is really only an issue on large projects-- like more than 50k feet of cable and larger.

Plenum. 2 Options here: PVC, or Plenum (CMP). To install cable in a plenum airspace, you must use Plenum-rated cable. This cable gives off less toxic gases, and is less 'reactive' to high temperatures. In most municipalities, if you DO NOT use conduit from beginning to end, you MUST use Plenum-rated cable.

PVC, while much cheaper (like, 50%), is not legal to use in most commercial or residential environments.

I would reccomend asking your GC and the electrician about the standards for your county/state. If they say use Plenum, use Plenum. If they say use PVC, ask your Anixter rep 1st(just as a 2nd opinion), then use PVC.




Re: 1 Cat5e/1cat6/1rg-6 vs 2 cat 6/1rg6:
The cat5e should be fine for your phone needs for the forseable future. The largest, most expensive commercial phone systems (we're talking $2million and up) are IP, or internet protocol phone systems. Although they are spec'ed out as needing Cat5e (they treat each phone as a 'node' or computer on a network) they really only use 2-pair of the 4 in a cat5 cable.

Since the development cycle for commercial phone systems is 5-10 years, and the trickle-down for that technology is another 5-10 years, a Cat5e should be more than plenty of bandwidth for the forseable future.

Likewise, I can make almost any Cat5e cable test out to Gigabit + just by terminating with Cat6 jacks (NOTE: This will only work if the run is less than 145-160 feet). So in most houses, this shouldn't be a problem.

So far, the "Cat 6e" designation is just hype. Heck, it took BICSI more than 5 years just to certify/ratify the original cat6 standard.

you can dig through all of hte info at www.bisci.org, but the bottom line is that the 'enhanced' standard does not yet exist.

good luck,
robert

I looked at most of the options you're contemplating and decided against the expense, headache and planned obsolesence.
I got a wireless router for all the computers. I encrypt at 128 and change the keys often. It's especially convenient for the laptop.
Then I got high gig wireless phones. One base and 5 units.

The TV / audio issue has different considerations that I'm not familiar with, however couldn't these be solved by your service provider?

bob,

Wireless is great... At least, until you get people w/sniffers designed w/most protocols built-in... And until you get to CATV issues... And until you get to side-band interference/distortion...

My job involves making the decision for many companies(we have 3000 clients, and 60-100 commercial projects going on at any given time) about whether or not to go wireless and if so/not, what their options are and then implementing them. For large applications, wireless can be great. For small residential networks, it CAN be great, too. FWIW, however, I don't trust wireless.

Most poeple don't change encryption keys often enough. Then again, if you are using D-link, netsys, HP, Dell, 3com, or omicron, doesn't matter how often you change the encrypition key: The commercial version of the sniffer will foil and unencrypt anything sold by those 6 makers . My brother inlaw works for a large software vendor as a LAN security analyst/troubleshooter. His job is to go around and show companies exactly how UNSECURE their 'secure' wireless networks are. No wireless for him(or their company), either.

good luck,
robert

Robert,
Thanks for the post. I had no idea wireless interception was that easy. You work in some large complex applications. Please let me give you my specifics and hopefully you can let me know what you think. Perhaps I'm missing something important.
I have a Linksys 2.4 Ghz wireless access point router with a cable connection. No seperate firewall other than what the router provides and what's provided in Windows XP. I have not set up a home network, i.e. no file sharing between computers. This seems like reasonable security for a home application. OTOH, I could care less if someone "sees" what I am doing on the internet....(. aack..I must be getting old and boring..:-) )
Pirating bandwidth is another matter, but it just seems unlikely that someone cruising down the street in my residential neighborhood is looking for access. But anyway, I have the router set to accept three connections only and those three connections are always on. Is this effective security? or are those evil geniuses out there laughing at my setup..? Any suggestions for improvement?
Thanks!

Bob,

I wouldn't worry about it. Although the average teenage 'hacker' knows more about this than most of us in the industry, it isn't worth the average professional's time to mess with our home networks.

Likewise, you are right that access theft has a low incidence of occurence.

The only reccomendation that I would make is the use of Zone Alarm. It is a free (for residential) firewall/ip blocker that can easily be used with your linksys. Go to www.zonelabs.com click on 'zone alarm' and choose the normal, not 'Pro' version. (I have no affiliation w/Zone Labs, no vested interest, etc, I just like their product).

The real advantage/utility (besides it's pretty effective firewall) to ZA is that is will log any attempts to ping, access, or move files on your computer.

Good luck,
robert

"Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean that hackers [I]aren't[/I out to get my network...":D

Yeah, I'm with Robert, there's just no reason for a professional hacker (one with the type of equipment necessary to pull the job off) to hack into a home computer - unless they are after something specific.

On the other hand, it is very likely that they could use your computer as a gateway to hack into the network they are after - or use your computer as a "mask" of sorts (spoofing IP's, etc.)

But, using ZA or BlackIce or Sygate, or any of a number of other software firewalls - along with the Linksys' built-in firewall protection or NAT - you will be ok.

I would be more worried about a virus getting in then a hacker. But, the new virus strains use software to access the internet to download the actual virus from a remote server - using one of the above mentioned firewalls will stop them.

Good luck!

You can filter by MAC address under filters in Linksys routers. So unless someone finds your MAC address for one of you NICs and changes one to match it, getting out through the router will be challenging.

Hope this helps.

Great ideas.
I will D/L Zone Alarm and I didn't even think to filter by MAC.

PS... Chris, your tag line gave me a headache :) I had to read it several times to get it ... LOL

I just finished wiring up my new house for cable, phone, network, security, audio surround sound, intercom, and central vac. All home run to my MDF (Main Distribution Facility), other wise known as the wasted space under my basement steps. Slap a door on it and a lock and I'm good to go. Yes, I will be wiring it up myself for the electrical, but I am a Journeyman Electrician so no one can jump down my throat.

The best advice is eBay.

I purchased all my cable, switching hub, patch panel, faceplates...

Now let’s talk about boxes. On outside walls you want a full plastic electrical box. Go to Home Depot and buy them. For interior wall all you need are the plaster plates like Caddy. Again, got mine on eBay. Nice thing about using something like that is plenty of room in the wall for wires versus room in the electrical box.

I looked into buying the "all in one" type cable, but it did not have enough options for what I all put in for each location. Besides, it was far more cheaper and available getting individual spools up on eBay and when you run the wire just buy enough spools so you are pulling all your cables at the same time. No need for the all in one cable.

You can run your computer and phone off the same CAT5 wire if you want. You only need 2 wires for the phone and 4 wires for the network. I ran two video cables to each jack. One for cable and one in case I go satellite or external TV antenna. I ran separate Cat 5 cables for the phone and network because I also have a small phone system for the house and family with individual voicemail for business as well as for individuals in the house. Yes, I’m a techno geek.

I also picked up a full security system and sensors for heat, smoke, motion, video surveillance...

Then came the central vac. It's plumbed in and wired up by me. Cheaper to do it when the wall as open. I’ll buy the rest of the system when I can afford it.

Now with all this being said, I bought 90% of these items up on eBay over a 4 month period of time knowing that I would need them. This way I could be very selective as to how much I was willing to spend. The bad part is you may become addicted to eBay and buy other items you did not plan on.

Good luck.

Time is precious, Waste it wisely

Originally posted by Duckman_wi
IYou can run your computer and phone off the same CAT5 wire if you want. You only need 2 wires for the phone and 4 wires for the network. I ran two video cables to each jack. One for cable and one in case I go satellite or external TV antenna. I ran separate Cat 5 cables for the phone and network because I also have a small phone system for the house and family with individual voicemail for business as well as for individuals in the house. Yes, I’m a techno geek.

The only caveat to this is that you can only run up to 350mhz on 2 pair for data-anyone stepping to Gb will need all 4 pair. But as cheap as cat3 cable is, might as well put it all in when the walls are open.

Otherwise, everything else is pretty much spot-on.

robert

duckman_wi is correct - you can share the same CAT5 cable with data and a pots line on the unused pairs. In fact, you can run 2 ethernet connections on the same cable and spare needing a hub at the other end if you're connecting only 2 devices. But these are 'non-standard' uses.

I'd recommend against it if you ever plan on leaving your options open to new stuff. There are more and more cool stuff that run power over ethernet. They already include IP phones and wireless access points.

You're better off routing 2 or 3 spare cat5 cables to each outlet whether you use them all or not.

Nobody has commented about running fiber throughout the house. There were some houses being built nearby a couple of years ago touting they're all "wired" with fiber. IMHO, it's a waste of time and $$. Fiber itself is cheap. The hardware supporting it is and will always be bloody expensive; in addition, nobody at the consumer level uses it for data com. Yeah, you get terabits of bandwidth, but who actually needs so much at home unless he's running a POP!

It's probably a very safe bet to assume ethernet for long term. 10/100/1000E hardware is cheap and widely available. And even with vanilla-cat5, you'd probably work fine at 1GE if your runs are short. Remember -- all those data rates and requirements are specified at the maximum lengths

[gripe] The farce i see with the home automation guys is they like and continue to use RS-232 for connecting stuff. Huh? that's 1970/1980's technology. Get with it! My laptop doesn't even come with a RS232 port anymore! How is one supposed to wire up a house full of RS232 devices without paying the BIG bux for dedicated computers with a bizillion serial ports, or funny rs232 'hubs'/'switches'/controllers, and the like. This is yet more reason to have extra cat5 cables at each outlet.

Everyone talks about wire it for gigabit. That's fine if you plan on having multiple computers backing up loads of data between them.

Bottom line for most homes is you don't communicate that much between your own systems; you have a network in your house so all can have access to the internet. So what's your internet connection speed? There's your slow pipe. Unless you got mega bucks with a fiber connection to the house and/or running a DS3 the best you will see 1mb. So even a 10mb LAN is overpowering your internet connection.

I have a 100mb switched network because I backup my computers to a single source that has a tape device and a DVD writer. DVD is great so I can carry my old data around with me for my laptop if I have to access stuff from years ago.

Fiber in the house may be nice if some day fiber is run to the house from service providers. You never know where video feeds to the home is going. But my bet is the fiberin your house will never get used. If fiber for data is in the future from service providers you still can get router and switch devices that terminate the fiber in your closet and extend to your rooms using standard twisted pair. So you don't have to go off and spend all that extra cash on fiber termination kits, just the router.

I also get a kick out of all those house automation guys like ALUNG. With the price of wireless going way down and the speeds going up you don’t even need to wire the house for networks.

Couple of other things to consider since your walls are open. If you have a two-story house then run some conduit from the basement to the attic in case in the future you want to run additional electrical or other wires to the second floor via dropping down out of the attic. If you live in a colder climate you may want to have them run a electrical box up to the overhang for a roof /gutter snow and ice heater.

Throw a network connection in the kitchen if you have an area where you can set up a pc. It's nice for recipes. Don’t forget your garage. Good place to drop a cable TV connection so you can watch the games with your buds without the wife getting mad at the mess you made. A telephone out there helps as well. My workshop is out there, so I have it fully wired for everything.

If you ever thought of using security cameras for those blind spots outside your house, now is a good time to at least run the power and video wires to them and if in the future go off and buy the cameras and video switchers.

An alarm system too. Including things like motion, smoke, heat, Carbon Monoxide, water leaks, intercom….. (they come wireless too, in fact you can do it all wireless, including your TV)

Audio for surround sound.

Yes, you can spend a lot of money, but you don’t have to buy all the components, just get the house wired in the walls for that “someday”. If you got a camera, take pictures of the walls where you left the wires before they get covered up. Then you at least can find them easier when you’re ready.

Home Depot sells just about all the type of wire, face plate, and termination connectors you will need. I have bought from there as wells as eBay. But price it out at Home Depot first so you know if you are getting a good deal on eBay with the shipping costs. eBay was a good place to pick up a switched hub and security system components. Just be a smart shopper and know what you are bidding on. I've seen people pay more for an item on auction than it would be if bought new from the manufacture or distributor. My rule of thumb is if I don't get it for 50-60% of new I wait until someone else sells it later. Sometimes it takes months before I buy. But my walls are wired, so there is no rush.

Good luck.

Just to close out my portion of this thread. Yesterday I finished pulling all the cable. Ended up using 1700' Cat6 cable, 1100' RG6 quad shield, and 500' speaker wire. I ran 2 Cat 6's and 1 RG6 to almost every location. Excluding the speaker wire I ran to 19 locations throughout the house. A few extra Cat6's to the office locations and a few extra RG6's to the entertainment areas.

Still need to make all of the connections in the basement and at selected rooms in the house. Without any of the faceplates bought, have spent around $400 so far. My Cat 6 at $56 per thousand was a great buy (Anixter). Off size spools, but who cares about color. In fact the different colors makes it that much easier to identify which cable is which.

Bought a 66 block for the phone, but have found out it would have been easier to get a 100 split block. I can still do what I need (two seperate phone lines to each location) by using jumpers going down the block. Probably will not connect up all of the RG6's ( I only have 3 TV's) but will still probably get a signal booster going at the central location.

Regarding faceplates, the Anixter guy did'nt speak highly of the Leviton brand / system. He said his were better for the same price. My only drawback is ease of getting & returning if I don't like or need additional items. Home Depot & Leviton give me that ease. Any comments on faceplates & wall connectors?

A big thank you to everyone giving me their skills & knowledge. The suggestions to go to the supply houses probably saved 30 - 40 % over HD, MicroCenter (computer store) or the Internet.

Thanks again, Mike

Originally posted by mike-the-diy'er

Regarding faceplates, the Anixter guy did'nt speak highly of the Leviton brand / system. He said his were better for the same price. My only drawback is ease of getting & returning if I don't like or need additional items. Home Depot & Leviton give me that ease. Any comments on faceplates & wall connectors?

A big thank you to everyone giving me their skills & knowledge. The suggestions to go to the supply houses probably saved 30 - 40 % over HD, MicroCenter (computer store) or the Internet.

Thanks again, Mike

The only thing I would say is that Leviton offers a LIFETIME warranty on all components(when installed by certified installer). My crews install 2-4000 leviton jacks monthly. For 2002, we installed 28,264 Leviton Cat6/5e/3 jacks, and we returned 189(which is less than .0067%) as being defective (although the vast majority of the 189 were Technician error-punch tool slipped when they weren't using the hand-stabilizer).

If your Anixter CSR has anything negative to say about Leviton I would be highly suspicious that he has a back-door relationship w/another product line, as Anixter and Leviton have a Strategic Partnership at the international level, and Anixter's own CSR training program tells the CSRs to Reccomend Leviton as #1 or #2 to each new customer.

I've been in this industry for more than 9 years, and the bottom line to me is that as long as the components are certified for whatever transmission level (Cat3,4,5,5e,6, etc) then FUNCTIONALLY they are all the same-- All Cat 5e jacks will certify to 100mhz, and all are the same.

A lot of manufacturers brag about how much "headroom" or "unused pipeline" many of their solutions offer, but the reality is that it doesn't matter: Panduit are very big braggers, they say, for example that their Cat5e jacks will "easily handle the higher demands presented by today's Gigabit switches." However, the reality is that MOST of us (like 99.9%) don't have Gigabit switches, and therefore, the extended head room is useless. All most users need/care about is a reliable connection to whatever they are doing. Once you terminate a jack, and put the faceplate on the wall, odds are that you will NEVER have to touch that jack again unless you remodel the house.

The difference to me is ease of use (subjective: all manufacturer's jacks get easier the more you do) and Warranty issues.

I reccomend (in order of preference, but the top 5 are really about the same):

Leviton-Lifetime warranty
Hubbell-25 year/lifetime warranty
Ortronics-20 year
Avaya-20 year
Nordix-20 year
Tyco-20 year/lifetime
Superior-NA
Siemons-25 year

I DO NOT reccomend the following(due to price and/or reliability):
Krone-20 year
Panduit-lifetime (the most expensive brand)
Molex-----------The only reason I recco against these 3 are because my Techs can terminate the other 8 aprox 10% faster- not an issue in a house.

There are lots more manufacturers, but these are the ones that pop off the top of my head as the most popular.

Although I would reccomend Leviton for ease of replacement/additions, the bottom line is that all 11 of these are within 1% of one another and I would have no reservations about using any of them in my own home.

good luck,
robert

PS. Great buy on the Cat 6 shorts! I forgot to mention asking your CSR about shorts! DUH! (slapping forehead and rolling eyes):o You can also ask your Anixter CSR about overstock/post production/samples: Tell your CSR that your business is considering using brand x, y, or z... and that you would like 10 samples of each's CAt 6 and CAt 3 jacks... then 1 week later, call and order your other 9 of one of the brands...

Hi Robert...I am new here and noticed that you are in Dallas Texas...Any chance I can contact you? If so let me know...Would like to hook up with you and talk shop some day.

Thanks,

Brian