Best practices before running ethernet through your house

Personally I'd rather surface clip than have conduit, however small, running externally.

I'd only go external if it was for very few cables.

Why? As long as the conduit is terminated correctly using a sealed junction box there is no risk of water or pest ingress. And it’s massively less intrusive than cutting the walls to put channels in.
 
For cosmetic reasons. I'd prefer to have a few surface clipped cables that only protrude 6-8mm from the wall to conduit that's going to protrude 25mm+. If there were enough cables for them to look messy then I wouldn't go external in the first place.

And it’s massively less intrusive than cutting the walls to put channels in.
I really can't see what you mean by this in relation to running external cables.
 
For cosmetic reasons. I'd prefer to have a few surface clipped cables that only protrude 6-8mm from the wall to conduit that's going to protrude 25mm+. If there were enough cables for them to look messy then I wouldn't go external in the first place.

I don’t think that conduit looks messy. Quite the opposite. It comes in 3 different colours and you can even wrap it in stone or brick effect so it vanishes. You just have to be creative. The only folks I know who surface clip cables that size are Sky installers and they don’t get paid/time enough to do the job properly even though most of them are very capable indeed. I’ve lost count of the number of droopy Sky cables I’ve seen, with unsealed blown brickwork and even cables just thrown over roofs to get the dish on the opposite side of the house to the TV. Even if I blow out a brick or damage the render it’s covered by the junction box and sealed with appropriately coloured mastic to make it watertight. Good conduit looks.... invisible ;)

I really can't see what you mean by this in relation to running external cables.

Earlier in the thread the cost of the exercise was discussed and it appears that chasing out and making good the internal walls accounts for more than 50% of the total budget of the project. And if you’ve ever actually cut out the channels in a plasterboard wall and lifted the floorboards you’ll know that your best bet is to just move out for a week while the work is done. The dust is horrendous and can actually be toxic depending when the plasterboard was manufactured. Running the cables externally in conduit is significantly less cost and hassle than running them internally.
 
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