UTP in skirting - minimum bend radius?

DragonQ · 6 Sep 2017 at 16:10

I'm planning to replace the carpet in my living room with laminate flooring shortly, which means I'll need to hide the Ethernet cabling somewhere other than under the carpet. My plan was to put it in the skirting boards (with a rebate/recess cut in the back) but I'm slightly concerned about bend radius since there are two corners to navigate. The spec sheet for the Cat6 solid core UTP I have says the cable diameter is 6 mm, and everywhere on the internet says the minimum bend radius is typically 4x this, i.e. 24 mm. By my calculations, this means I'd need a 13 mm rebate so that the diagonal space in the corner is 18.4 mm. Annoyingly, all the skirting boards I can find with built-in rebates have them with a 12 mm depth, which'd mean a diagonal space of 17.0 mm.

Has anyone else done something similar? I'm thinking I might just trim the back of the skirting slightly in the corners to increase the rebate size to 13+ mm. How accurate is the whole "4 times the diameter" stuff though? Alternatively I could just get thicker skirting which'd have a larger rebate but I'm not sure if it'd look odd.

Caged · 6 Sep 2017 at 16:18

Are these external or internal corners?

In either case, just knock a small chunk out the wall in each corner, since you're covering it up anyway.

DragonQ · 6 Sep 2017 at 16:58

Internal corners, so knocking out the wall doesn't help.

Caged · 6 Sep 2017 at 18:02

It can though, you dig a small slot out of each side of the internal corner to allow the cable to take a more gentle turn.

bremen1874 · 6 Sep 2017 at 18:24

You can still relieve the wall on an internal corner.

DragonQ · 7 Sep 2017 at 10:08

Hmm OK, sounds like more effort than trimming the skirting but might work better.

a1ex2001 · 7 Sep 2017 at 15:06

Bend it tight you'll almost certainly never know, have a go with a patch cable and see if you can notice any difference.

Avalon · 8 Sep 2017 at 19:07

Laminate requires an expansion gap, you can easily site a cable in this and when putting new skirting over the top it'll hide it, specifications in this case are to cover people's arses, I've seen far worse and it's still working years later. Failing that if you have the carpet up anyway why not just feed it under the floor?

DragonQ · 8 Sep 2017 at 23:11

Avalon said:
Laminate requires an expansion gap, you can easily site a cable in this and when putting new skirting over the top it'll hide it

One cable yes, not five.

Avalon said:
Failing that if you have the carpet up anyway why not just feed it under the floor?

The floor is concrete and laminate underlay is too thin (3 mm).

Hyburnate · 8 Sep 2017 at 23:14

a1ex2001 said:
Bend it tight you'll almost certainly never know, have a go with a patch cable and see if you can notice any difference.

Different cable types. Patch leads are stranded and OP is talking about solid core.

However, how many are you running? I really wouldn't worry if it's a decent cable you'll be fine. I've seen installations with cable ties done up so far they're damaging the sheathing and it'll pass a full Fluke EN50173 permmenant link test.

Caged · 8 Sep 2017 at 23:27

DragonQ said:
Hmm OK, sounds like more effort than trimming the skirting but might work better.

Honestly you could just scrape the plaster out with a screwdriver, it will take minutes.

Hyburnate · 8 Sep 2017 at 23:33

Caged said:
Honestly you could just scrape the plaster out with a screwdriver, it will take minutes.

This.

This is exactly what I would do.

Avalon · 9 Sep 2017 at 03:55

DragonQ said:
One cable yes, not five.

The floor is concrete and laminate underlay is too thin (3 mm).

OK plan B, space the skirting out like as I have from the wall allowing space behind to run cables. Slightly more expensive, but like you I have solid floors and want no cables on show. It worked perfectly till Sky came to install the box and ran a 5e feed along the top!

Will post a pic later.

a1ex2001 · 9 Sep 2017 at 08:16

Hyburnate said:
Different cable types. Patch leads are stranded and OP is talking about solid core.

However, how many are you running? I really wouldn't worry if it's a decent cable you'll be fine. I've seen installations with cable ties done up so far they're damaging the sheathing and it'll pass a full Fluke EN50173 permmenant link test.

Which like you say will make no difference!

OP are you sure you have chosen the best layout for your cabslling why are you running five cables round a room? If you pick a central location for your switch/router then you should only need to run a couple round each room!

Hyburnate · 9 Sep 2017 at 11:58

a1ex2001 said:
Which like you say will make no difference!

OP are you sure you have chosen the best layout for your cabslling why are you running five cables round a room? If you pick a central location for your switch/router then you should only need to run a couple round each room!

Most Cat6 patch leads are much more flexible than solid core cable.

I think (just checking) you can get about 5 Cat6s in size 4 trunking round a bend.

Hyburnate · 9 Sep 2017 at 14:40

Hyburnate said:
Most Cat6 patch leads are much more flexible than solid core cable.

I think (just checking) you can get about 5 Cat6s in size 4 trunking round a bend.

You can get about 6 in on internal and external bends.

http://www.screwfix.com/p/mini-trunking-38mm-x-25mm-x-2m/95463

This sort of size.

DragonQ · 10 Sep 2017 at 11:41

a1ex2001 said:
Which like you say will make no difference!

OP are you sure you have chosen the best layout for your cabslling why are you running five cables round a room? If you pick a central location for your switch/router then you should only need to run a couple round each room!

I could run fewer but I need one for the BT master socket (already there, tucked under carpet at the moment) and would like four for the home cinema equipment (one of which is already there). It seems to me that hiding 5 cables in the skirting isn't any harder than hiding 2, and is provides more dedicated ports for future use.

ANDARIAL · 10 Sep 2017 at 12:12

Could you not tuck a small switch behind the tv/whatever and patch off of that?

DragonQ · 10 Sep 2017 at 12:51

ANDARIAL said:
Could you not tuck a small switch behind the tv/whatever and patch off of that?

Yes but, again, how is routing 2 cables any easier than routing 5? I'd still need to put them in the skirting.

ANDARIAL · 10 Sep 2017 at 12:58

Well you `might` hide 2 in a laminate floor gap space but you sure as hell won`t hide 5!

EDIT
Had a reread and you could chop a channel into the floor
Or cut off bottom of skirting with either a biscuit cutter or a multitool
Just 2 more options for you to mull over