RJ45 Cat5e for home network sockets on new house build?

craptakular

craptakular

craptakular

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Hi people,

I have just reserved a new house and am going to ask them to price up a some home network points. What is the exact terminology I should be asking for?

RJ45 cat5e cabling and 4 sockets, is that correct?
 
basically yes - run at least 2 into each room would be the best option (more if you can) just incase you need them or one ends up faulty etc.
 
Cat6, might as well.

I've done two to every room, probably should have done more but seems to be working out well. I've got a few spare runs in the loft if needs be.
 
Thanks guys,

I'll see how much a socket costs, I already have 2x 8 port switches so one per room (lounge, dining room, bedroom1, bedroom2) should be enough.
 
You guys must be quoted a lot less than me for this ;)

I had to pay my house builders around £240 just for some conduit to be put in (4 rooms - 2 upstairs, 2 downstairs) and that doesn't include the hours I had to spend on the phone to them trying to explain what I wanted.

To get the same with the cabling would've been about 3x as much I'm led to believe, they literally tried to price themselves out of the work and wouldn't let me get anyone else in.
 
 
I would be wary of getting the house builder to do it but worth getting a quote from them as a yard stick perhaps. If you do get a quote from them then I would definitely ask them who would be installing it and whether it would be installed to a specific specification and what that would be. Get this in writing and that you want the finished work to be tested with evidence provided that the installation meets the agreed specification with the test results provided. This should show that each port on each faceplate works to the agreed specification speed. Eg each should be capable of 10 Gb/s. This should ideally be completed and tested prior to plasterboard fitment so that any issues with cable handling / fitment can be rectified prior to commencement of works that would be costly to rectify if access were to be required. If they don't want to do that then they should supply more cables than you need to each pattress box as spares.

Basically you'll want some Cat6 solid core Ethernet cable and for it to be routed around the property appropriately eg not fixed along side electrical cabling, not lashed too tightly with cable ties or cable clips hammered over them. Specify how many pattress boxes and where you want them in each room. Request each cable have a reasonable amount as spare cable that can be pulled through from the pattress box if need be at a later date. Ideally this should be fed from the bottom so the upstairs sockets can have some spare cable sitting beneath the floor. Downstairs will probably be fed from above if you want some spare cable to be stored in the ceiling void above. Have all this fed back to a common location where you can have a patch panel fitted, probably cables hanging down from a corner of a ceiling through a brush plate or two. These should have sufficient spare length on each so there is some in reserve after it is terminated to the patch panel.

You might also want them to connect the telephone service from the master socket to the patch panel too and not have them bother with putting normal telephone extension sockets in. This would in some areas save having so many faceplates and give you greater flexibility in using any data port as a telephone extension.

Whilst you're at it you might want to think about satellite cabling too. I would put shotgun satellite cable from each bedroom up to the loft with plenty of spare cable on each coiled up in the loft so you have the option of either bringing that down to a convenient location in a room below where you can have a signal amplifier or you could take it out from the loft directly to the dish with a suitable LNB for the number of connections you need to make. Ensure they also fit a return feed aerial cable from the lounge to the loft so if need be you could drop this down to a room below where you could distribute the return feed to other TV's in the house. Whilst doing the satellite cable they could also run standard aerial cable to the same points. They may already have standard aerial points in bedrooms anyway so it seems a travesty not to also run satellite cable to the same points whilst doing them.
 
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