Wiring up house - Which Cable (Cat 6/6a)

Minato

Minato

Minato

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Hi Gents,

Doing a side extension to the house and I want to have the rooms wired up with ethernet so no need to faff about in future with drilling holes and running cables.

From reading Cat 6 should be ok as the longest run is <20m, but is there any benefit to going with Cat 6a?

I'm looking at 100m of "External Cat6 UTP PE Solid Cable" from a reputable retailer. External because there'll need to be some runs on the outside/roof.

Currently got a pair of XT12 and a pair of AX92Us as my mesh wifi system, with a Synology DS920+ NAS. Got a Ring Elite hard wired doorbell, and might get some security cameras in future.

Planned map will basically be:

ISP WAN -> XT12
-> Unmanaged Gigabit PoE Switch​
----> XT12 #2 -> PCs, Devices​
----> AX92U -> PCs, Devices​
----> AX92U #2 -> PCs, Devices​
----> Ring Doorbell​
----> NAS​
​
Any further advice/suggestions highly welcomed. I've got FTTP Gigabit internet.
 
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When we re-wired our house we assessed going CAT6 or CAT6A. The main benefit of 6A is the extra shielding which can be useful if you are in an environment with interference (like a server room with loads of power cables etc). As such CAT6A will also allow for 10 Gbit/s for up to 100m as opposed to CAT6 which is up to 55m iirc (Granted that is if everything is wired correctly)

We went with CAT6 in the end as (To my knowledge) there isn't a run in our house that is even close to 100m and its not exactly the most "interference" prone environment

If I were you I would do CAT6 since your longest run is 20m and use any cash saved to pull some "redundant" cables in at the same time :)

As for other recommendations, from when we did ours I would definitely consider the following:

  • If you are planning on needing PoE (E.g. for cameras, APs etc) make sure you terminate all your cables to a suitable location for your switch (Well ventilated, nice and cool, away from where you sleep/watch TV etc) as some switches are noisy and/or get quite warm
  • If you are hard wiring the APs then I don't think the meshing functionality of the APs will be needed since they will have a wired uplink which should always be preferred to the wireless uplink of another ap
  • Consider if you need to get your fibre router/modem moved to wherever your new termination area will be if you want to use something like a UPS in the future, that way you dont have random battery backups dotted around the house
  • If you are terminating the cables yourself, get a decent punch tool, keystones, crimp and cable ends. Whatever costs are saved getting the cheaper ones will not be worth it (Your hands will thank you for buying decent ones)
  • When the cables are being run, run them in capping, future you will thank you if ever you need to pull in a replacement cable in years time
 
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TechMinerUK said:
  • If you are terminating the cables yourself, get a decent punch tool, keystones, crimp and cable ends. Whatever costs are saved getting the cheaper ones will not be worth it (Your hands will thank you for buying decent ones)
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All of the above is great advice, many thanks. Just wondering if you had any particular recommendations for above tools? As will need to buy from scratch. I figured it'd be easier (and cheaper) to buy a 100m coil of unterminated cable and do it myself rather than pre-terminated RJ45 Cat6.
 
Minato said:
All of the above is great advice, many thanks. Just wondering if you had any particular recommendations for above tools? As will need to buy from scratch. I figured it'd be easier (and cheaper) to buy a 100m coil of unterminated cable and do it myself rather than pre-terminated RJ45 Cat6.
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Definitely go unterminated, another bit I should probably have mentioned is for running "structure cables" e.g. not patch cables you absolutely want solid core and not CCA (Copper Clad Aluminium).
The other reason to go unterminated is that when you are pulling the cables through I guarantee the ends will get damaged

In terms of reccommendations for tools, you can go quite expensive but for me I found the following tools to be "good enough" that I don't end up with cramp at the end of the day :D

Crimp: https://www.amazon.co.uk/VCE-Crimping-Pass-Thru-Ethernet-Connector/dp/B07VZTN6YK
RJ45 Ends: https://www.amazon.co.uk/VCE-50-Pac...rough/dp/B07MM3FQ3F/260-2815420-3113567?psc=1
Cable: https://excel-networking.com/catalogue/product/100-100
Punch down tool: https://www.amazon.co.uk/TRENDnet-Punch-Krone-Blade-TC-PDT/dp/B0000AZK4D
Cable strip tool: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wire-Stripping-Tool-Cable-Stripper/dp/B08HH8Z557

Don't get me wrong, if you were doing this day in day out the above probably isn't what you want and you'd fair better with a brand like Knipex but they are pricey (Worth it, but only if you are using them regularly). I do the odd run at home every now and then and will be doing some more when we do some building works and I have no issues with the above, the guided RJ45 ends make life a heck of a lot easier than having to steady my hand with all the wires whilst crimping since they have guides inside the ends :)
 
In a domestic environment there really isn’t any benefit to going beyond CAT6 but if you want then CAT6A is a higher standard IF you terminate it properly. And that’s a huge if. If you want to future-proof your install put in optical fibre because it will carry 100GbE and more.

Personally I originally put in CAT6 then pulled it out and put in optical fibre but I have the tools to terminate optical fibre and I wanted to practice ;)

As you’re going through walls you’ll need 8mm (single cable) or 12mm (2-3 cables) drill bits and you need REALLY long drill bits (like 350- 500mm).

I like Cable Monkey for anything infrastructure related. They have a really straightforward website and they’re basically the retail arm of Connectix Cable Systems (CCS) and their gear is about as good as it gets.
 
TechMinerUK said:
In terms of reccommendations for tools, you can go quite expensive but for me I found the following tools to be "good enough" that I don't end up with cramp at the end of the day :D
Click to expand...

You are a gentleman and a scholar.

Solid Copper Core 100m of External Cat 6 ordered from CableMonkey with above tools and ends.
WJA96 said:
In a domestic environment there really isn’t any benefit to going beyond CAT6 but if you want then CAT6A is a higher standard IF you terminate it properly. And that’s a huge if. If you want to future-proof your install put in optical fibre because it will carry 100GbE and more.

I like Cable Monkey for anything infrastructure related. They have a really straightforward website and they’re basically the retail arm of Connectix Cable Systems (CCS) and their gear is about as good as it gets.
Click to expand...

I think optical fibre is a bit too future proofed even for me, I still get a bit stressed seeing the turns and (gentle) bends in the fibre line coming into the house and terminating at the ONT!
 
 
Minato said:
You are a gentleman and a scholar.

Solid Copper Core 100m of External Cat 6 ordered from CableMonkey with above tools and ends.


I think optical fibre is a bit too future proofed even for me, I still get a bit stressed seeing the turns and (gentle) bends in the fibre line coming into the house and terminating at the ONT!
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If you run it in 25mm round conduit it’s fine, just assemble the bends as you pull the fibre through.

And, as was mentioned above, pull 2 or 3 of whatever you end up deciding on.

And leave a bit extra on every run because if you’ve not terminated cable before, you might need to do it twice and the pass-through cables use up about 70mm per termination.
 
TechMinerUK said:
Definitely go unterminated, another bit I should probably have mentioned is for running "structure cables" e.g. not patch cables you absolutely want solid core and not CCA (Copper Clad Aluminium).
:)
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Not to be a complete pedant but CCA can be solid core. I think you were getting at the difference bewteen solid core cable and stranded cable. You are absolutely right that solid core should be used for structured cabling efforts.

CCA is the construction method and is inferior to pure copper construction (but cheaper).

You can get both solid and stranded cables in CCA and pure copper. Buyer beware!
 
I agree Cat6. This is what I asked for one our loft conversion but they put in 5e anyway and was quite annoyed but in the end it will do fine for the foreseeable future, only have 500mb fibre coming into the house anyway.

Think running extra is good or even better is conduit so you can replace the cables at a later date without much hassle, but depends if that’s possible in your setup.
 
Sin_Chase said:
Not to be a complete pedant but CCA can be solid core. I think you were getting at the difference bewteen solid core cable and stranded cable. You are absolutely right that solid core should be used for structured cabling efforts.

CCA is the construction method and is inferior to pure copper construction (but cheaper).

You can get both solid and stranded cables in CCA and pure copper. Buyer beware!
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You are absolutely correct, I was more getting at the construction method and I'll be honest I haven't come across solid core CCA cables, I've always seen them as synonymous with stranded :)
 
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matt1 said:
I agree Cat6. This is what I asked for one our loft conversion but they put in 5e anyway and was quite annoyed but in the end it will do fine for the foreseeable future, only have 500mb fibre coming into the house anyway.
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This is exactly my situation too. The cable's been put in such a way that it's easy to pull Cat6 or whatever future standard using the cat 5 as a guide.
 
I would suggest that whatever you run is largely unimportant, what is much, much more important is that you run it in a manner that allows you to easily pull more of whatever you want through. I moved house in between lockdowns, had shielded 5e and 6/6a cable boxes on the shelf and appropriate termination/face plates etc for each. I went with 5e because even doing runs from the front of the property to the third floor at the rear it will run 10Gb. Beyond that will be fibre.
 
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