Good timing to ask this question - I just bought a house (move in on the 18th March) and one of the first things I want to do is get some cat 6 run through to each room. How easy is it to run the cables through the walls, unfortunately I dont have the luxury of doing it before the walls are put in place - its a 1902 terraced house.

Any tips - I wouldnt know the first thing about how to run cables!

Good timing to ask this question - I just bought a house (move in on the 18th March) and one of the first things I want to do is get some cat 6 run through to each room. How easy is it to run the cables through the walls, unfortunately I dont have the luxury of doing it before the walls are put in place - its a 1902 terraced house.

Any tips - I wouldnt know the first thing about how to run cables!

Running lines in older buildings can be an extreme pain, and how you do it really depends on construction and how the walls are done. Two useful options are conduit crown molding and baseboard. The baseboard option is usually a special product that I haven't seen too often, but the crown molding method can usually be done quickly with any standard crown molding (The ones that are a flat board that connect between the wall and ceiling, leaving a void in the corner.) by simply running your cables on the outsides of the walls and carefully stapling them up in the corners. This way you only have to put a small hole in the wall at the top, and fish the cable down to an outlet hole. It can save well over half the labour hours in a wiring job.


However, given the age, you may want to consider redoing the inside faces of all exterior walls, and updating your windows. 1902 isn't known as a good year for insulation practices, and with the number of government programs around the world to aid home owners in making their homes more energy efficient, it can pay off fairly quickly and profit nicely in the long run.

If you are going to do this, you can get kits that come with stupid amounts of cable/heads and a crimper tool off amazon.

I'd also buy a cable tester if I were you. It's a pain in the ass testing all the cables you make without it. If you are doing a whole house, the price you pay for the tester will easily make up for the time and frustration you save.

Most of the cable you buy will be fine, but I've noticed that if you try to put a new head thingy guy on some cheap cable that usually comes with some piece of network electronics, they suck so bad.

I built a house about a year ago and did have Cat6 run from each room to a patch panel in a single room. If you want to do this, talk to the contractor first, because you will probably not be allowed to do it yourself. If you do, they will probably remove it, since it isn't in the plans. I had to talk to the company building my house and they had me contact an EST they worked with to do it. It wasn't unreasonable to do, only cost something like 30-40 dollars a port.

If you are building new, (and the cable doesn't violate code, always check the code.) then just tell your contractor that there will be network cabling run on site. If he has an issue with that, tell him to get the hell off your lawn.

And remember, if you have steel studs, don't forget the rubber/plastic inserts! It doesn't take much vibration to quickly wear a hole through wire shielding.

If he has an issue with that, tell him to get the hell off your lawn.

I can't speak for how he's doing it, but frequently in neighborhoods (like where I built) and townhomes, you don't actually take ownership of the home till it is finished. It is the builder's house, until the title is signed over to you. This may not be the case in this example, but unless you already own the land and hired a builder yourself, it likely is.

There are no issues between me and the builder as far as running the wires and pretty much doing whatever I want. Thanks for those tips though.

My main concern is really just the logistics of running the wires themselves. I have one chance to get this right before the drywall and cielings are closed up, and then I'm stuck with whatever I've done. So I'm trying to err on the side of too many cables rather than too few, and too long rather than too short.

Im going to pick up a 1000 foot spool of cat 6 (150$) and get the end pieces and a crimper or whatever is needed. [color="#1C2837"]
Shadowdancer, [color="#000000"]that LSA stuff looks way easier than what I pictured. I was thinking I would have to strip each of the little 8 wires and go insane trying to thread them through holes or something. So I'll be sure to ask for those type of end pieces and get the appropriate tools.

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[color="#000000"]For some reason I was actually picturing having wires come in from the walls and go directly into the computers. I wasnt actually thinking of making wall outlets where I would plug a shorter cable from the computer to the wall.
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Im going to pick up a 1000 foot spool of cat 6 (150$) and get the end pieces and a crimper or whatever is needed. [color="#1c2837"]
Shadowdancer, [color="#000000"]that LSA stuff looks way easier than what I pictured. I was thinking I would have to strip each of the little 8 wires and go insane trying to thread them through holes or something. So I'll be sure to ask for those type of end pieces and get the appropriate tools.

If it's going to cost you that much anyway, you should ask your electrician how much he would charge you for it. Since he's already running electric and stuff, he might do it for less than it will cost you to do it, and he'll probably do a much better job.

It's worth asking at the very least.

I did this with my new house. Basically the wires just followed the same path as the electrical and telecom wiring (phone, cable, etc.). They bundled them together where possible. Logistically it's very easy and there's not much too it. All of my runs terminate in a utility closet with a locked box for electrical equipment (cable, phone, security, etc.). So while they are running all the electrical/telecom from this closet anyway, they just add a few strands of open cat6. cat5/6 cable is the same cable that they use for telephone lines, so if your house is wired for landlines you already have cat5 wires going to all your rooms anyway, they just need to add a few strands to each run.

I spared no expense when doing this, and ran two dedicated cat5 strands to each room, two spots in the living room, the dining room, and kitchen. I am glad I did. You never know when you'll rearrange your furniture, change the purpose of a room (dining room converted to a playroom or office), or be setting up someone's crappy laptop on your kitchen counter and they don't have a wireless card (or maybe you want an internet tv in your kitchen). You can always not use a jack, but adding them after your walls is up is a bitch. I can say I've used every connection in my house and if I hadn't had two jacks in every room I would have had to use a switch or some other hack that makes something very simple, a little bit more complicated. For my entire house I think it was an extra $100 to get the additional lines and room connections, a small price to pay for never having to worry about where I can get internet without a wireless receiver.

Two more things. One, if you're playing internet multiplayer games, you don't want to rely on a wireless signal. Two, for the love of god don't use ethernet over power. It's like using a wireless connection with one bar.

Yeah I hate wireless with a passion. I think its an overrated technology and should be used only when absolutely necessary. I cant believe some people out there actually prefer it and choose it over a wired connection when they have the option.
But thats why this thread is about wires!


I'm still a bit fuzzy on where I need to put my router, and where I need to put a switch (if i need one at all). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I only need one router, and it will be where the internet comes into the house?

Now, assuming that I err on the side of too many wires (rather than too few), I think I'm looking at 25 or more wires total. So, Do I need a 25 port router?? Do they even make those? Are they bloody expensive?

I currently have a half-decent gigabit router which I paid $90 for. But it only has 4 ports. Thats obviously not going to cut it.... or is it? what If I connect an 8 port switch to each of those 4 ports? Then I'll have 32 ports to use. But does that make any sense? Wouldnt that force the 8 wires from each switch to be bottlenecked into the single wire linking it to the router? I know for my purposes I probably wouldn't even notice such a bottleneck (in terms of transfer speeds), but I still want to know the 'proper' way to design this network.

Do I just get a router with a ton of ports? Or is there a smarter way to do this by using my current router and a few switches?