OOPS! How to move an aerial and a Cat 6 ethernet point or lay new ones without breaking up the house too much

[Adsibob]

Below plan is my ground floor, showing the front room on the right and an open plan area on the left.  We are post first fix, and they have just plastered the front room. Second fix of that room starts next week.

The problem is that we never properly thought through our sofa and TV arrangement in that room, and I'm coming to the conclusion that we probably need to move the TV aerial point and ethernet socket from position A to to position B, as shown by the green arrow.

 

Both cables are buried in the wall, with the plan being that they will cut through the plaster and fish them out to do the second fix. Location A is also where the router is going to be, and from that we were going to install a splitter to serve various ethernet cables going to different locations in the house. Although the router has not been installed yet, so presumably when Virgin Media come in a couple of weeks we could ask them to put it elsewhere, though we would still need to get a connection from the router to the splitter which I think will have to stay in position A as otherwise all the ethernet cables in the house will need to be moved, which is not possible.

 

We also have:

• a second tv and second ethernet point at position C and 
• a third ethernet point at position D

The room on the left has not been plastered yet and in fact the wall either side of the sliding pocket doors on the left side is still open/unboarded.

 

Options as I see it to get an aerial and ethernet point at position B are

 

1. Fish out both cables from A, extend them by about 12m so that they can be concealed in a recess behind skirting board (which has not yet been purchased, so we could get the skirting board that has the recess already routed) and go all along the perimenter of the room (because we can't go across the fire place without drilling through it, although maybe that is an option?) then go over the sliding door and back down into the B corner.
2. Leave the services at A alone and try to split the cables serving C so that they also serve B - not sure what this would do to the aerial signal as presumably splitting it weakens it, or whether one can split an ethernet cable into two with a splitter - I thought splitters only worked if they are plugged directly into the router).
3. Run the cables from A to B in front of the fireplace (which is only decorative) and cover them up with the floor tiles that are being laid as a decorative hearth there, but I'm not really sure this is an option as we will end up seeing some cable as the area to be traversed is wider than the hearth (which only occupies

 

What a mess.

 

 

[Nickfromwales]

LAN C can go into a powered router / splitter and then feed C + a second LAN cable off it. The second cable can go down and behind the skirting and along through the wall to B.

Coax at C can be split TBH, if you do not see both TV's using the coax at the same time routinely? If you can hide it at location A, a 5ghz AV sender could be used to get TV signal from A to B.

[TonyT]

I would rather make a few holes and get the cables in right place  and get the plasterers back to fill.

 

I wouldn’t want to be looking at any surface cabling.

[Adsibob]

6 hours ago, TonyT said:

I would rather make a few holes and get the cables in right place  and get the plasterers back to fill.

 

I wouldn’t want to be looking at any surface cabling.

Thanks.  Just to clarify, we wouldn’t have surface cabling, not after the money we have spent on this money pit! It needs to look good! There are floor standing built in cabinets on either side of the chimney breast, so whatever we do, as long as we can recess in skirting board it will be hidden.  I was just trying to work out what the options were. One solution would be to drill through the chimney breast, but I would need to make quite a deep hole. Either side. Not sure how easy that is.

[Adsibob]

14 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

LAN C can go into a powered router / splitter and then feed C + a second LAN cable off it. The second cable can go down and behind the skirting and along through the wall to B.

Coax at C can be split TBH, if you do not see both TV's using the coax at the same time routinely? If you can hide it at location A, a 5ghz AV sender could be used to get TV signal from A to B.

Thanks, that’s helpful. So splitting Coax only dilutes  signal if both are being used at the same time? If that’s the case, that is a good solution as I think the chances of both TVs being on AND both watching terrestrial is minimal.

[Nickfromwales]

1 hour ago, Adsibob said:

Thanks, that’s helpful. So splitting Coax only dilutes  signal if both are being used at the same time? If that’s the case, that is a good solution as I think the chances of both TVs being on AND both watching terrestrial is minimal.

Yup. One TV at a time will each receive undiluted signal.

[Adsibob]

3 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

Yup. One TV at a time will each receive undiluted signal.

Very helpful, thanks. Looking at what to purchase, the options available vary in the amount of “gain”, ranging from 0dB to 11dB of gain. E.G.: https://www.screwfix.com/c/electrical-lighting/splitters/cat4740084

 

[TonyT]

https://www.screwfix.com/p/labgear-2-way-passive-splitter-with-power-pass/99105
 
 

would even fit in a double box with a blank plate over the top.

 

with appropriate F plugs to terminate cables