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Amp34

Amp34

Amp34

Caporegime
Joined
25 Jul 2005
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Canada
I'm starting the renovation of my house in the next couple of months and want to stick wired/wireless networking and HDMI over cat6 throughout the house.

The first/ground floor is fixed in terms of walls but note the breakfast bar and room projecting off the right of the house are not there at the moment. It's currently a garage...

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Basement however is a shell and I can put walls almost anywhere, within reason (several supports and plumbing parts need taking in to account).

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Red Cross - Where I think internet will come in
Red circles/squares - Double network ports
Parallel blue lines - Network cable for HDMI
Green Circle - AV/Network Room

I've got a double network outlet in each living/sleeping room fed by two cat6 cables, except for the "rec" room and the front room. I also want to stick two more in a detached garage to allow me to connect wireless and an IP camera.

I'm not quite sure where to put the tv in the front room yet so i'll either do one or either of them depending on what I feel like at the time. They will both have a double network outlet and a direct cat cable for HDMI over cat6.

In the "Rec" Room I'm planning on having two double network outlets where the TV is going, so I can plug in other network devices if needed, as well as another double outlet further along the wall in case a desk goes there. I've got double Cat6 cables for HDMI going to both the TV location and where a projector may go, along with another double network outlet at the projector location (do I need this?)

All the cables will terminate in the room/cupboard in the green circle. That will be where some of the AV equipment will be as well as my NAS and switch.

I should have 26 cables terminating there for the network so I need to terminate them all in a patch panel, then connect each patch(?) to a port in a switch? Can I have multiple patch panels (such as a 24 and 8 port) going in to one switch or will that affect performance? Same question with the switch, as I assume I'll have even more to plug in there (Modem, NAS and other devices in the cupboard). Anything I need to be looking for regarding patch panels and switches?

My NAS also has Link Aggregation, I'm not sure if I can utilise that at a reasonable price in this setup, any recommendations?

I think I'll be sticking the modem by the main entry point for the internet, then putting in cat6 to connect it to the switch. I've also got an ASUS AC86U which I will try and stick centrally in the house, I'm thinking in the living room, to provide wireless, although I may have to have a repeater to cover the garden.

Anyway, very long post! Any comments, recommendations or discussion points would be awesome. Thanks!:p

EDIT: Point to note, the house i in N America but you can usually get the same devices both sides of the pond.
 
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I'm just looking at switches and realised I have no idea what much of it all means...

The Netgear JGS524 seems to have link aggradation for not much more than the others available.

Alternatively the Dlink DGS-1024D and the TP-LINK TL-SG1024D seem quite popular and are cheaper, but don't have LAG.
 
Nice project.

What software did you use for the plan?

I'm assuming the basement has no ceiling at the moment?

I've just done something similar but with a 3 story house but with you having a basement it looks quite straight forward to do the cable routing. If you have the headroom clearance in the basement I'd consider a ceiling cable tray system. Plan some routes for that to go from the network cupboard but try and split the difference where it needs to pass by ceiling lights and other electrical cables.

I was reading something recently regarding the TIA standards being rewritten to recommend cat6a now for wireless access points and the emergence of MU-MIMO wireless technologies. If there isn't much difference in the cost for Cat6a over Cat6 then I'd go for the higher standard perhaps in a shielded form too since it's a job you only want done once.

With mine, I've got 6 ports behind the lounge TV since I had a single telephone socket which I replaced with a euro module faceplate that can take 2 euro module Ethernet sockets. I then added a 2 gang pattress box to also take a euro module faceplate but one which takes 4 euro module Ethernet sockets. So as part of putting Ethernet around the house I also connected our phone service to our patch panel so I can use a patch cable on the panel to link the phone service to an Ethernet port on a faceplate anywhere in the house. As we may have the requirement to have a telephone socket behind the TV for a satellite set top box and the other items like the TV, blu ray device, games console(s), set top boxes that can often connect via Ethernet those sockets soon get used up. It's also good to have 1 or 2 too many in case of any failure, room for expansion or HDMI over Ethernet.

In our smallest bedroom / study, I put 4 Ethernet ports where a desk could go, so baring in mind one might be used for a telephone socket, maybe one for a printer and or a nas device along with a PC. I maybe should have put another 2 in the study as I can see it could become fully utilised with 4.

In the main (double) bedrooms I put 4 Ethernet ports behind where the bed goes and also put flat screen TV mount features opposite the bed. With the flat screen TV's I put 2 Ethernet ports behind the TV as well as 2 directly beneath along with brush plates so the HDMI / Aerial leads can go from behind the TV to just above the floor level for freestanding furniture to accommodate a set top box, games console or desk position.

As for switch I opted for a D-Link DGS1210-28 as it's a web smart switch with plenty of features and was reasonably priced.
 
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I'm using www.floorplanner.com for my designs. Free and simple.

There is no ceiling at the moment but I only have 7'5" of headroom, before I install the floor and ceiling. That means I don't have the space for a dropped ceiling. It should mean I can chase the cables up into the main level relatively easily round the sides of the house (wood framed) though.

Interesting point about the telephone. We are not actually going to get a landline, we just don't need one. That said I may see about laying a cable from where it comes into the house to the patch panel so we/new owners can do what you're doing in the future. I'm still a bit up in the air about where the internet is coming in as well. We will be getting cable and I assume it will be coming in at the same location as the current telephone line (all utilities come from a back alley in the city the house is in).

I've actually just added an extra couple of ports to the desk area on the main floor, two just didn't seem enough as you say. I think four will probably just be enough as I'd envisage stuff like printer (if we get one) will be wireless anyway. I currently can't think of anything other than computer and printer in my office.

TV wise. There will be four ethernet network ports behind the main TV location as well as two HDMI over cat cables, although I may stick another one in for redundancy. At the moment I'm still trying to decide whether to put all the AV equipment in with the switch and patch panel and use a 4x4 matrix to send signal through the house to the three locations. Alternatively I could just stick it all in a traditional box at the base of the TV/Projector screen. It'll probably be easier in the latter location, and I can just terminate the HDMI over cat cables there instead for the other two locations.

Any particular reason you have put 4 ports behind the master bed? Phone (if installed), but i'm struggling to think of anything else (assuming wireless for laptops/tablets). That said I may put in a wireless access point if the signal isn't strong enough from the AC68U in the living area.

There are still a fair few things to think about, and they will probably be decided when I get back to the house and we start putting in the walls. I still haven't decided yet whether to go projector or large TV downstairs. I'll need to decide before everything goes up as it will dictate the height of the plugs!

I think in the "rack" I'm going to put a 48 port patch panel but only a 24 port switch, then wire all the cables into the patch panel but not connect several of the rooms to the switch. There are only two of us and many of the sockets are there just in case. That way I can save money on the switch and just move patch cables around when needed.

And nice job there, although I do wonder if that red light may be a little annoying at night? :p I assume that plug has a built in surge protector?
 
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I guess for the basement level you could go around the walls from the patch panel cupboard but not sure how that would work with electrical cable routing for sockets.

On the first floor do you still have a loft above it, if so, perhaps for the ground floor you could go straight up to the loft from the patch panel cupboard and then branch out to where you need to go from the loft and drop down to the rooms beneath.

Not sure how your cable / internet service is provisioned where you are. Do you get internet through the cable service to a modem in your set top box or fiber through the telephone line to a separate modem? I guess if you need a separate modem it could go in what I think is the rear lobby area next to the study? If so I'd run Ethernet from their to the ground floor lounge, near to the reverse side of where the cooker is and where you've already provisioned some Ethernet sockets for an alternative TV location. This is where I'd put your router as it's quite central to the living area. I would then increase the number of ports that connect to the patch panel at this location to 8. I've done this in our hall where our service comes into the property as it gives me the flexibility of utilising the switch ports on the router as either a fall back in case of failure to the main network switch, link aggregation or patching a port from somewhere in the house to having a dedicated link directly to the router.

Having the AV equipment in the network cupboard sounds like a neater solution.

The 4 Ethernet behind the beds was really building in some flexibility for the unknown, whether the beds may go in an alternative position so that wall may become free for a desk/furniture location or whether a phone might go either side of the bed. Also, maybe an internet radio/alarm clock or cables to connect a laptop. I try to only use wireless as a last resort. If I put less than 4 in it would most likely be 2 unless I did 3 and used a blanking plate. It just seemed as easy to run 4 cables as it did 2. It is a bit over kill for that location at the moment but you never know what might happen, some if you like are fail safes in case a cable turns out to be damaged and it saves having to rerun cables since the wall had to be chased out and plastered over.

I think I would go for large TV rather than Projector but only as I'd imagine the picture quality would be higher on a TV.

I've done the 48 port patch panel here with a 24 port switch as it allowed for extra placement of sockets to allow for optional furniture room layout configurations. It also made the cost of the switch outlay slightly less as I didn't want to over commit to 1 Gbps technology. If we move I won't feel too bad at leaving what will be old tech with the 1 Gbps switch behind. Out of the 40 ports dotted around the home, I'm utilising about 8 although 20 are connected to the switch. Some of the patch panel ports are deliberately not connected to the switch so I can pop a patch cable in between that and the telephone service connected ones if need be.

Haha yes the red light was annoying at night before I got the 42" Plasma up which hides all of the sockets and bracket. It is a surge protected socket in case of lightning since I have to rely on switching the TV off on its own on/off switch on the device.
 
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The basement should actually be very easy to work in. The house construction is basically a large concrete tub with a wooden frame (the main floor) perched on top. Inside the concrete tub there is just stud work and insulation. It's just a case of drilling a couple of channels through the basement stud work and threading cables through, the communication ones a few inches away from the power cables. To access the main floor you can (should!) just need to drill some holes in the horizontal studs at the base of the wall and thread up to holes cut into the plasterboard above, it'll only be about a foot of threading. That's the theory anyway! I think I'll be sticking a couple of conduits in there somewhere, possibly from the entry location of the cable/phone to the cupboards.

There are two internet options, telephone line and cable. As we're not getting a landline we're going for cable (it's also faster).

It's all about guessing what you may need in the future as you say, without going overboard.

I've actually been looking in to surge protection plugs since your post. It's a good idea, I think I'll stick one in the AV room and one or two by the TV for larger draw equipment. The rat in planning on attaching to a surge protecting extension cable.
 
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