How not to be conned on ethernet throught the home?

Richeh

Richeh

Richeh

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Hello,
Odd question i'm sure. Basically I am in a new build 3 storey house that has an attic. I have watched many videos on how to do this myself but tbh so much work that I would rather get a professional to install.

My house has 900MB FTTP recently become available (as in the next 2-3 months). I have contacted a contractor who installs ethernet ports throughout the house as a profession.

He is coming Tuesday but I want to make sure i'm not getting ripped off with his quote, assuming the worst possible circumstances ie full insulation etc there are 4-5 rooms I would want ethernet cabling in, am assuming Cat 6A to allow at least 1GB and higher for local network - I do not know where the FTTP installed is 'willing' to install the Fibre connection and won't until I deal with them in a couple of months.

Has anyone else had similar done or done it themselves and could give an idea on pricing of this? Just trying to get ahead of the game prior to the installed coming over and quoting a ridiculous price.

Any help appreciated.
 
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almost impossible to say, the layout of the house will dictate how much work it is likely to be.
if its over 3 floors as well this will obviously increase the amount of work required.
Also are you expecting him to "make good" any wall chases he may need to make to get the cables installed ?

installing ethernet cable in a fitted/furnished house is no easy task. my last house was a new build and the builder and i agreed to get the electrician to run the cat6 for me, and I would terminate it all.

current house has none, and I am slowly getting it done whilst redecorating each room.
I did get an electrician to run me 10 cables from a ground floor room into the loft, and 4 of those ran the length of the loft and back down to a ground floor room, took him and the apprentice from around 11 until 3/4ish and that is with me already having cut some holes in walls and some floorboards already up.
 
There could be a lot of trunking or potentially channels in the plaster to deal with. Definitely cheaper to terminate it yourself as well.
 
I would always get at least one quote from a TV aerial installer as well as a “professional” network installer. They don’t tend to charge stupid money for working at height, they’re used to doing neat wall penetrations and there are lots of them about so they’re usually pretty cheap in terms of their hourly labour rates.
 
This is a crazy thread. You are basically telling us that you want to prevent something that is impossible to predict. Just get a few quotes from different companies. If the price is too rich do it yourself.

99 percent of contractors are honest people that are just doing a job to feed their families and it just costs what it costs. Cough up or gain some skills.
 
azazl187 said:
This is a crazy thread. You are basically telling us that you want to prevent something that is impossible to predict. Just get a few quotes from different companies. If the price is too rich do it yourself.

99 percent of contractors are honest people that are just doing a job to feed their families and it just costs what it costs. Cough up or gain some skills.
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Seems a tad harsh. One of my increasing number of side-gigs is quoting people for this sort of work. And it’s very easy to get ripped off. I do free installs for OAPs and you’d be horrified what contractors quote to install a couple of surface mount boxes with an RJ45 faceplate and tack a CAT5e along a skirting board and over a door frame. I put in a video doorbell in for a pensioner couple. It was £85 cost price for the doorbell and it took me 45 minutes to fit it and set up their TV so they could see the call on that as well as their phones. I drilled one hole, surface mounted the cable along the skirting board. They’d been quoted £350 - £500 by other contractors.

If the OP asks for an itemised quote then they can see what they are being charged for materials and labour. A contractor should ALWAYS be able to buy materials cheaper than the homeowner because they’re buying in bulk so they can make a little bit in materials without ripping anyone off and labour rates vary across the country. In Norfolk £35 - £50 per hour plus VAT is normal, anything with a London postcode is double or triple that. A couple of years back I quoted someone labour including five hours travelling time from Norfolk and it was still cheaper than London rates.

Also, get at least three references. If they haven’t done 3 good jobs then they’re probably not worth hiring (although everyone has to start somewhere). I did my first 5 jobs for increasing rates from free to 50% and then charged my full rate once I had references. Check-a-trade and trusted trader require 10 references to register on their site. Bark just want money. Guess which ones I’d trust?
 
WJA96 said:
Seems a tad harsh. One of my increasing number of side-gigs is quoting people for this sort of work. And it’s very easy to get ripped off. I do free installs for OAPs and you’d be horrified what contractors quote to install a couple of surface mount boxes with an RJ45 faceplate and tack a CAT5e along a skirting board and over a door frame. I put in a video doorbell in for a pensioner couple. It was £85 cost price for the doorbell and it took me 45 minutes to fit it and set up their TV so they could see the call on that as well as their phones. I drilled one hole, surface mounted the cable along the skirting board. They’d been quoted £350 - £500 by other contractors.

If the OP asks for an itemised quote then they can see what they are being charged for materials and labour. A contractor should ALWAYS be able to buy materials cheaper than the homeowner because they’re buying in bulk so they can make a little bit in materials without ripping anyone off and labour rates vary across the country. In Norfolk £35 - £50 per hour plus VAT is normal, anything with a London postcode is double or triple that. A couple of years back I quoted someone labour including five hours travelling time from Norfolk and it was still cheaper than London rates.

Also, get at least three references. If they haven’t done 3 good jobs then they’re probably not worth hiring (although everyone has to start somewhere). I did my first 5 jobs for increasing rates from free to 50% and then charged my full rate once I had references. Check-a-trade and trusted trader require 10 references to register on their site. Bark just want money. Guess which ones I’d trust?
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That's why it's always good to get multiple quotes. You can easily check out the cost of things yourself and see what they are charging for labour.

Maybe I see it differently as I'm in the trade but where I'm from most contractors are honest and do a good job for the price that it costs. It's not cheap but then again they don't rip people off either.
 
I ran Cat6A allover our 3 story new build before the plasterboard went on.
Doing it now knowing how many noggins, dot and dab and other obstacles there are in the walls and sealed chipboard floors you can’t easily lift, it would be a total nightmare.

Probably want a couple quotes from someone to do all the cable installation then a separate quote from a plasterer decorator to come and make good as there will be a lot to do.
 
I paid someone to route a cable from the engine bay to the boot in my Fiesta once, to install a sub. I quickly realised I was paying someone for basically, brute force and ignorance.
 
I got my electrician to run about 20 cat6 cables all around my house when it was being built and i terminated it all myself so the only cost to me was a drum of cable for like £50 and maybe £30 in face plates and modules as he was running the rest of the cables for the house anyway, i dread to think how you'd even attempt it in a finished house though :(

I would say in somewhere as small as a house even cat5e is totally fine at gigabit speeds, cat6 is overkill for most people at home i'd say so i'd not pay any extra for cat6a personally.
 
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I've recently done this in my house, which is furnished and decorated etc.

Use the loft space, external walls, and go through sofets etc.

Obviously this all depends on the layoit of your house but you can get clever about where you put the cables, example one of our bedrooms has an inbuilt wardrobe, so go in the ceiling from the loft onto the back of that, then through the wall behind it to terminate in a faceplate. You can't see anything inside the room other than faceplate.

I managed to wire all major devices and didn't have to dig any plaster out, only 1 external wall drilled and a hole in one of the sofets.
 
WJA96 said:
Seems a tad harsh. One of my increasing number of side-gigs is quoting people for this sort of work. And it’s very easy to get ripped off. I do free installs for OAPs and you’d be horrified what contractors quote to install a couple of surface mount boxes with an RJ45 faceplate and tack a CAT5e along a skirting board and over a door frame. I put in a video doorbell in for a pensioner couple. It was £85 cost price for the doorbell and it took me 45 minutes to fit it and set up their TV so they could see the call on that as well as their phones. I drilled one hole, surface mounted the cable along the skirting board. They’d been quoted £350 - £500 by other contractors.
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a lot of trades quote a day rate for small jobs like that, so its not unusual for a spark to be charging £200-£240 per day.
so whilst on the surface £350 sounds high, it make sense with a bit of mark up on materials and the contractors usual day rate.
 
I want to say that materials were about £120 for cat 6, but that also included a punch down and crimp tool, and a cable tester etc, including all connector, I think that also included a basic 8 port unmanaged switch.

I used kenable for most of the stuff someone here recommended them.

For the tools I bought a kit on Amazon about £20, whilst the crimp tool wasn't amazing, for doing a few it was fine, most of your terminations will be into the back of a faceplate using a punch down tool which is FAR easier than terminating into RJ45.

If you do end up terminating I to RJ45 I'd recommend the "pass through" type connectors I found those much easier.
 
I think the electrician who did mine used cat6 cable. Not ideal, but not a single run is over 50 meters so should provide 10Gbps still. I made the mistake of only having 1 run into each room. It's too late to add more now due to the chases all being made right. Guess it's mini cheap switches in each room if I ever want to turn the one point into more. It cost £500 for 5 points put in during a rewire for reference. Not sure if it is expensive or not compared to others, but the rewire quote was very decent compared to others.
 
casper_uk said:
I think the electrician who did mine used cat6 cable. Not ideal, but not a single run is over 50 meters so should provide 10Gbps still. I made the mistake of only having 1 run into each room. It's too late to add more now due to the chases all being made right. Guess it's mini cheap switches in each room if I ever want to turn the one point into more. It cost £500 for 5 points put in during a rewire for reference. Not sure if it is expensive or not compared to others, but the rewire quote was very decent compared to others.
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For any runs that you only require 100MB you can split the ethernet into two.
 
Also as a plot twist check out modern wireless mesh systems...unless you really need ethernet everywhere I'd only do gaming rooms.
 
dLockers said:
Also as a plot twist check out modern wireless mesh systems...unless you really need ethernet everywhere I'd only do gaming rooms.
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Except WiFi6E is coming and you need an Ethernet backhaul in every room you want the fast WiFi connection. 6GHz signal doesn’t like walls at all.
 
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MassiveJim said:
a lot of trades quote a day rate for small jobs like that, so its not unusual for a spark to be charging £200-£240 per day.
so whilst on the surface £350 sounds high, it make sense with a bit of mark up on materials and the contractors usual day rate.
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Nope. Charging a full day for a hour’s work isn‘t reasonable. And when it’s pensioners it’s not exactly taking the moral high ground. I’m not going to say they’re ripping off pensioners but £350 an hour for labour and doubling the cost of the hardware?
 
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