Tv/ network cable

[Hopeful]

In total confusion of which cables to run here! 

At first fix stage of electrics, and architect has is tv points in each room on the drawing. The point where the phoneline comes in is below the stairs, so i would like to run whatever cables could be needed to there too, and create a hub area there. The three kids are getting to an age of having a tv each in their rooms, and currently use amazon firesticks to watch stuff. Xbox's and play stations are creeping in as well. We dont know if we will have sky or not, but if they have the right deal for broadband etc as well we would.  

So for a tv, what type of cable is best to run to every room with a tv?

Also i will need an internet socket in the study, and would run a cable to each bedroom if it helped internet access.  What kind of cable is best for this? Thanks in advance.

[PeterW]

3 hours ago, Hopeful said:

So for a tv, what type of cable is best to run to every room with a tv?

Standard Coax but if you run sky then they may want shotgun cable. 
 

3 hours ago, Hopeful said:

Also i will need an internet socket in the study, and would run a cable to each bedroom if it helped internet access.  What kind of cable is best for this?

CAT5 or CAT6

[Roys]

During 1st fix I ran a good quality coax and a cat5e from under the stairs to each bedroom and living room, and just a cat5e to the rest of the rooms.

The Virgin bloke was happy that he didn’t need to run any cables, although the first thing he did was meter my coax to see if there was any signal loss either by cable damage or low quality cable.

[NewToAllOfThis]

_{Is there a minimal distance that Coax and Cat5/6 has to run from mains cable and any rules regarding crossing of cables at 90 degrees}

Edited July 31, 2021 by NewToAllOfThis

[WestcountryWonderer]

I'd run as many cables as you can. At this stage it's easier to put more in than it is later down the line.

 

If you can, and you think that you'll have a lot of them, pick a central location to run all of your CAT cables to and put a hub/switch there. Ideally near where the phone line comes in to out the router there as well.

Also think about tvs etc all being able to connect to the internet now a days.

In an ideal world, anything that is in a fixed location should be hard wired to the Internet. The less you have on WiFi, the better it will perform for things that have to be on it.

Are you likely to have cctv? If not now, in the future? They'll want cat cables too.

 

For terrestrial TV signals you can do the same, pick a central location and use a splitter to send the signal to anywhere and everywhere you want to. Sky gets a little more tricky as I believe that you can only have a limited number of tvs per sky box (I've never had it though so could be corrected on that!)

 

As for cable segregation, as far as possible is always best, but 100mm should be ample.

The reality is that in 'normal' domestic conditions you're unlikely to notice much of a difference even if you ran signal and power side by side.

 

[ProDave]

My findings:

 

Telephone (broadband) enters into under stairs cupboard.

 

1 * telephone and 1* Cat 5 to a more central location in case router did not give good enough wifi coverage from the under stairs cupboard.  It does so these remain unused.

 

3 * coax to each bedroom, 4* coax to each living room.  These get used (not necessarily all of them)

 

Phone cable to every room.  Only 1 in use, the rest are terminated behind back boxes so they could be fished out should we ever have a use for another wired phone.

 

Cat 5 to each room.  Only 1 in use for hard wired ethernet to the desktop pc.  The rest sit, unused, for "one day" just like the phone cables where they can be accessed if ever needed.

 

I put as much of my AV clutter as possible in the under stair cupboard, so satellite tv box there etc and long HDMI cables to living room tv's, so from AV cupboard to each living room 2* hdmi and 1* component video, each 10 metres long.

 

For aerial cables entering the house, a hockey stick buried down through the floor and out through the wall for aerial and satellite cables.  Some cables installed, room to pull new ones through in the future.

 

Surround sound AV from each main tv to all it's speakers, i.e. speaker cable buried in walls so no visible clutter.

 

Hifi is located in the cupboard, rarely any need to access it, it's remote controlled, but easy to get to if you want to.  Speaker cables from there to where you want the speakers.

 

What I wish I had done:  AUDIO cables from AV cupboard to other rooms.  I had to improvise and use 2 spare coax cables as audio L and audio R when I found the need for that cable I had forgot.

[WestcountryWonderer]

57 minutes ago, ProDave said:

My findings:

 

Telephone (broadband) enters into under stairs cupboard.

 

1 * telephone and 1* Cat 5 to a more central location in case router did not give good enough wifi coverage from the under stairs cupboard.  It does so these remain unused.

 

3 * coax to each bedroom, 4* coax to each living room.  These get used (not necessarily all of them)

 

Phone cable to every room.  Only 1 in use, the rest are terminated behind back boxes so they could be fished out should we ever have a use for another wired phone.

 

Cat 5 to each room.  Only 1 in use for hard wired ethernet to the desktop pc.  The rest sit, unused, for "one day" just like the phone cables where they can be accessed if ever needed.

 

I put as much of my AV clutter as possible in the under stair cupboard, so satellite tv box there etc and long HDMI cables to living room tv's, so from AV cupboard to each living room 2* hdmi and 1* component video, each 10 metres long.

 

For aerial cables entering the house, a hockey stick buried down through the floor and out through the wall for aerial and satellite cables.  Some cables installed, room to pull new ones through in the future.

 

Surround sound AV from each main tv to all it's speakers, i.e. speaker cable buried in walls so no visible clutter.

 

Hifi is located in the cupboard, rarely any need to access it, it's remote controlled, but easy to get to if you want to.  Speaker cables from there to where you want the speakers.

 

What I wish I had done:  AUDIO cables from AV cupboard to other rooms.  I had to improvise and use 2 spare coax cables as audio L and audio R when I found the need for that cable I had forgot.

 

That is a very comprehensive list, and is what I was aiming to achieve with my last house (renovation not build) but I got a bit lost along the way.

 

A couple of thoughts though. To save running telephone wire and cat cables, telephone can utilise the cat cables.

The down side to that is cat5/6 is slightly more expensive than telephone wire. Up side being that one cable can do either/or job.

 

Long hdmi cables are OK, but if you're burying cables and/or running them any great distance you'd be better off looking at hdmi over cat.

Again, it increases the cost slightly, but the reliability and quality will be better.

You can do similar for audio too.