Home Automation - running Cat5 & phone

Hello,

I am finished with my electrical wiring and now am in the process of running my cat5 for a home network. My builder used all cat 5 to run my phones in every room - each room wired directly to the phone box outside. I also had my builder run a cat5 drop from my two spare bedrooms to the basement knowing in the near future I would finish the basement and put in a hub to network everything - I have severals PCs. I have a couple questions though.

1) I know that you should avoid running cat5 next to electrical wire and run it perpendicular if they have to cross. I am going to have to cross the electtrical wireing... Can I run the cat5 down the stud through a pvc pipe or conduit to give added protection against the electrical wire interference.... or will this not help?

2) My main phone box outside is going to be difficult to fish my new phone lines through to connect to it. Should I just run my new phone jacks in the basement in a series off the jacks upstairs?
The only other phone access I have in the basement is where the home security box is located - is it possible to patch into the jack inside the security box or is this a bad idea(it would limit me to only one phone line for now)?

I hope I have explained well enough. Thanks.

To answer the first part of your question. Yest the PVC will help with interference from electrical lines. That is something that I wouldn't be to concerned with. You would have to run them a pretty long way parallel to each other for the electrical to affect the CAT 5. But the PVC will help.

For the second part of your question. I would run each wire in a home run to a central location. I wouldn't splice into wire especially CAT 5 unless I absolutely had to. You paid an awful lot of money for that wire to go shooting yourself in the foot with it. Run the wires to a central location. Purchase a little phone patch panel from Home Depot (inexpensive) then run one wire out to your phone box outside. YOu'll be set for anything that comes along in the future. Especially if your finishing the basement.

I forgot about the alarm box part of your question. NO do not try to hook into your alarm panel. Although that phone jack looks like a regular phone jack it is not. It is what is called an RJ31X jack. It is specifically used for line seizure in case of an alarm situation.

Skybird,

Can you please explain your comment about PVC helping shield from electrical lines?

No where have I ever seen PVC suggested as a shield from electromagnetic forces or from electrical noise. Internet searches for shielding turn up aluminum and steel in plate forms, conduits, foils, mesh - but no PVC.

I'm not any kind of expert but have done some EMF mitigation for a client and his consultant and have installed network and phone cabling for everything from houses to defense contractors. Please enlighten me.

Go to Carlon.com. They are a producer of PVC and alot of other non-metallic type conduits. You have been enlightened.

Skybird,

I'm familiar with Carlon. They have a section in their technical literature about emi. See the section starting at page 30. Note how they talk about possibly having to enclose the offending conductors in metal.

http:// www.carlon.com /installation and training/it-carlon structured cable management systems handbook-2b56-mar02.pdf

Carlon does not claim that their PVC products shields from electrical interference.

Plastic pipe isn't going to do jack for emi/rf shielding.

For that, you would need metal pipe, and ground it.

You would have to try really really really hard to create an interference problem with cat 5 in a residence. I wouldn't sweat it.

However, conduit is a heck of a lot more "future proof" than catX cable.

For the purposes of a POTS line, cat5 will give you no benifit over conventional "phone wire". POTS will work just dandy over just about anything.

If your builder used cat 5 everywhere, you should have some spare pairs in the cable going to your alarm box.

Why would anybody believe that plastic will block RF interference? If that would be the case then you'd see transformers with plastic cores. :) I always run EMT to all my outlets, including phone, data and cable. There are a few reasons why I do that. Number one, they're protected not only from EMI (which I've never seen happen in any residence), and from physical damage. Number two, you never know what will happen 5 years from now, maybe you want to add another cable or a new type of cable. It's a breeze to simply fish a new cable down a conduit. The third reason is the fact that I can run all my conduit, and only run the wire after everything is done (insulation, drywall, paint, etc). But then again, I live in Chicago, and I'm used to using metal conduit all of the time.

Plastic blocking EMI & RF? I think not. But then again, I've been in the networking business for 10+ years and have yet to run into a situation where a network was suffering from RF or EMI. My suggestion is to just stay away from electrical sources whenever possible. If you have no choice to run near electrical sources, then use a plenum rated shielded twisted pair.

Shouldn't be a problem.