cable/phone/internet wiring ?

[SELKIRK]

We are gutting a house which we will use for a higher end/executive rental. I was curious to know what the standard is needed for cable/phone/internet service.
I want there to be ample wiring for a home office and for an entertainment area. Since we are down to the studs. I figured this was the time to take care of it.

I'am also thinking of making a center box for incomming lines then running wiring to each room from there. This way you could hookup only what is needed at that time. Good ideal or not?

Installing the wiring is not a problem, I just need to know what to install.

Thanks for any help

Selkirk

 

[GaryM]

Make sure all your wiring is done in what's called "home run". From a central connection point to each room on an individual basis. That way if there's a problem you can at least tell wich wire the problem has to be on.

In older homes it was common to run the phone lines in a loop and just tap in as needed.

You might want to consider an all in one cable such as this: http://www.smarthome.com/8682.html

You might find this site on structured wireing helpful: http://www.swhowto.com/index.htm

 

[slapshot]

Just an FYI on the All-In-One cable. I have a low voltage business and I've pulled plenty of that stuff, its not fun. Its very heavy, thick and spool quanities are short so that you often end up lots of unusable waste.

I agree with Gary that all runs should be home run. Easiest way is to three wires to each position (2 - CAT5e and 1 RG6 quad shield). I usually use blue cat5e for data and grey for phone. Sometimes you may want to pull an extra coax to each position if you want to use cable TV or an Antenna independantly with Satillite. Since RG6q usually is about .60-.70 a foot I usually run just one. If you need to run Cable or an Antenna with Sateillte you can use a couple diplexers.

-dave

 

[MossRoad]

Home run two RG6 coax cables and two CAT5 cables to each location where you may have video/computers.

With two RG6 cables, one can be for signal in to the room while the second can be for signal out. Then, with the use of channel modulators, you can, for instance, hook up a VCR(or any video device, like DVD player, cam corder, TIVO box) in any room and watch it in any other room by tuning to that VCR's modulated channel.

Also, consider low voltage lighting controls that are home run to a central room, as well. Very nice scene control can be devised.

One thing that I would like to do is mount an LCD monitor in a picture frame on a wall and have family photo slide shows on it for a screen saver. You could even hook up a motion sensor that would turn the monitor off when no one is in the room for, say, 1/2 hour. Once motion is detected, the power supply comes on and the slide show is already running on an old, recycled PC in a closet somewhere. A small wireless keyboard and mouse could be kept in a drawer to access household controls, etc... lots of neat stuff available that is only limited by your imagination and budget. But the stuff is becoming much more affordable. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[Volfandt]

2 of each is a good suggestion but Cat 6 is now the std. Overkill tis better than under kill.
I'd also suggest pulling a 2 to 6 strand fiberoptic cable as well if'n you've got the $$$'s. Multimode will do.
5 yrs from now the speed of voice/data flow may very well exceed copper cable as well as the informatin crammed onto the coax and fiberoptic's limits haven't been reached yet!

I also recommend to pull your alarm cable too. The Cat5/5e/6/6e cable will suffice unless you already have an alarm brand that recommends a certain type of cable. Mny like stranded cabling.
My DSC alarm has been running flawlessly on regular old Cat3 for going on 18 yrs now. This includes the keypads, sensors and high power warble horns.
Matter of fact, my little home network is running better than 10meg on the white/green - white/brown pairs split off of a std old Cat3 and wired 568B and with the white/blue - white/orange pairs pushing a Lucent Partner ACS telephone system.
When the daughters home from college, we can have 3 simultainious web surfers as well as a voice conf call going on without any problems /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
100meg or better would be nice though.....
Course when I built and wired my humble abode nearly 18 yrs ago, Cat 3 was the voice std and twinax was the data std. My how the times have-a changed /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Volfandt


As has been said, HOME RUN EVERYTHING!

Good luck
Volfandt

 

[MossRoad]

<font color="blue"> Cat 3 was the voice std and twinax was the data std. My how the times have-a changed </font>

You got that right! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[bmac]

I've already posted this picture on a thread about my home construction, but I think it illustrates what you are asking about. All of these wires will end up in an enclosure (actually 3 enclosures) to allow distribution of satellite, network, phone and security signals.

 

[inveresk]

There is more than issue here. The first is internet services. If the house is intended for executive occupation, you’ll no doubt want internet capability in each room, and for each room to be ethernet connected to the others so that computers in each room can talk to each other. In order to achieve this, your incoming high speed cable should be taken to a central point, a cupboard or service area where you’ll house the modem and ethernet switch. All the CAT 5 or 6 cabling from each computer point in each room will be taken to this cupboard/service space and should be wired into a patch panel. Then all you have to do to make each room ethernet capable is to patch between the ethernet switch and the patch panel with standard RJ45 cables available from any computer store or office supplier such as Staples.An ethernet switch with 32 ports should be more than adequate and is pretty standard.

Telephone cables can be run in the same way and you can use the patch panel to connect each room to the incoming telephone cable. Label eacb outlet in each room so there is no confusion between telephone and ethernet points. Keep telephone outlets and ethernet outlets adjacent in each room so that the computer can be near a phone and you can wire the computer into the telephone outlet for fax capability without having long trailing cables.

Consider also a wireless connection for the computers. While data transfer is quicker with ethernet, wireless is convenient, lflexible and can save the cost of hard wiring.

Video/tv - you’ll want to run two coax (possibly fibre optic capable) cables from each room to your central station. You can then patch from your home entertainment system to each room via this central station. Note that the station for your vide/tv can be in a different location to your station for the computer cables. That’s up to you.

It’s normal to locate the outlets so they’re fairly close together. This isn’t essential and you’d be best to have some idea of furniture layout in each room so that wherever the ethernet point is to be located is convenient for a computer station and doesn’t clash with where you might want to locate a tv or radio. Don’t forget you’ll need plenty power outlets for each co-ax and ethernet point as well. Any computer could have separate speakers, printer, table lamp, etc. adjacent to it. There is plenty help on the internet so you shouldn’t go far wrong.

 

[anojones]

I don't know a how lot about the details of low voltage wiring- but in our new house we have sattelite television- and with the new dual tuners we needed three coax to use them to their full potential (we didn't have it so made do, but had I known it sure would have been easy to run the wire during the stud phase). If your thinking you might use sattelite, I would check their wiring diagrams online.

 

[mwechtal]

Selkirk,
Personally I would seriously consider running some fairly large conduit. Then pulling whatever becomes the standard in 2 weeks or 2 years will be as easy as falling down stairs.

Mike