The best way to run network cables to upstairs?

[JohnBishop]

Hi All,

The wooden decking floor is still exposed before I put the wooden underlay for the laminate flooring.

It is the best moment to think how to run the cables. I don't really want to damage the walls even the plaster boards.

I won't be installing network sockets, just run the network cables to each room, either conceal them for the time being and commission only those that I need but I also want to future proof it so lay twice as many cables.

I have counted 6 will go upstairs and 6 on the ground level, 1 or 2 of the ground level ones will go to the backyard for a wired connection in the middle of the garden and one to the very end of the garden where the future workshop / shed will be.

 

But my main question is what is the best way to run them from downstairs to upstairs and to conceal these 6 cables.
Should I drill in the hall directly above the shelf where the network equipment is then run them under the wooden decking across as there is empty space otherwise get an oscillating saw and cut as much I need of the wooden skirting board and run them there? I think it's also better to run them under the door frames.

All the videos about this topic I found on the internet are made by Americans with their wooden houses so the advise is not applicable to English non standard construction concrete house.

 

I don't think I even need CAT6A as CAT6 can do 10Gbit up to 50 meters.

 

At the same time I am not sure if I want to run any other cables. I am not a TV guy but anyone who buys the house in the future maybe would want to see the coaxial in each room or maybe HDMI. It's not a big house so probably an overkill but wired network would help reduce the need of a powerful Wifi network for devices that use a lot of bandwidth and can be wired.

 

I was looking into intelligent home systems like 20 years ago, perhaps a lot have changed since then, I could also cater for that but only open standards not some proprietary so Amazon or some Chinese corporation knows what I do in the house. A lot of stuff I can see is wireless anyway, maybe this intelligent home stuff makes more sense in a bigger house and I pass the idea. All the proprietary closed stuff discourages me.

Best

[elite]

11 hours ago, JohnBishop said:

But my main question is what is the best way to run them from downstairs to upstairs and to conceal these 6 cables.

 

Difficult to advise without knowing your layout, I would look to locate your network stuff in a central location - under the stairs maybe? Then look to terminate all your CAT cables there

 

I'm not sure I'm going to bother with COAX other than at the main TV location as everyone is now streaming, but obviously it is a lot easier to run cables during construction than afterwards. If your build allows I would recommend running some kind of coduit / ducting to allow pulling new cables easier

[JohnBishop]

41 minutes ago, elite said:

 

Difficult to advise without knowing your layout, I would look to locate your network stuff in a central location - under the stairs maybe? Then look to terminate all your CAT cables there

 

I'm not sure I'm going to bother with COAX other than at the main TV location as everyone is now streaming, but obviously it is a lot easier to run cables during construction than afterwards. If your build allows I would recommend running some kind of coduit / ducting to allow pulling new cables easier

My stairs are located in the centre but I also have 6 feet high fridge in that space. I could still use the space above and drill direct below the stairs what would be central location to run the cables in each direction. I just need to run the Internet coaxcial to that location.

Thanks

[TonyT]

What about 1 network cable to upstairs to a switch, and then first floor cabling from this switch?

Edited July 23, 2022 by TonyT

[JohnBishop]

I definitely want to make use of the empty space that is under the stairs and there is a lot of empty space there but I have to remove some of the plasterboarding.

 

I think I need two different kinds of cables.

 

for indoors:

https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Products/CACAT6slash100.html

 

external duct for outdoor

https://www.cef.co.uk/catalogue/products/4318440-cat6-unshielded-twisted-pair-utp-external-duct-black-box-of-305m

[kommando]

14 hours ago, TonyT said:

What about 1 network cable to upstairs to a switch, and then first floor cabling from this switch?

In the future that will potentially create a bottleneck as technology moves on, the single cable will limit all the connected devices upstairs shared bandwidth to the capability of that single cable plus a create a single point of failure. So 2 cables to link the two floors would be better, giving duplication and doubling bandwidth. 

[SteamyTea]

I am intrigued as to why we think we need so much bandwidth.

 

[PeterW]

No idea why people still try and run and terminate their own Catx cables as there are lots of pre made, screened Patch cables available that are suitable for this purpose in lots of lengths for pennies. You can also colour code them for different things (red - PoE cam, green - TV points etc) and they are quick to run and there is no painful krone panels or other stuff required. 
 

Unless you are running UHD multiplex screens from remote servers, you will never get anywhere close to the limits of Cat5, never mind CAT6 or fibre. I’ve seen 250 contact centre agents running voice and business apps concurrently on significantly smaller connections than people are taking about - Virgin Gigabit fibre for example is a marketing gimmick and your upstream speeds are only marginally better than anyone else on copper .. 

 

Rant over … 

[kommando]

20 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

I am intrigued as to why we think we need so much bandwidth.

 

I started off with a 56kbs modem, then 128kbs ISDN,  next 0.5mbs ADSL, that got upgraded over the years to 10mbs ADSL but the decaying copper wire made it unreliable and unusable, next 25mbs area Wifi, then single 4G at 80mbs, now two 4g routers at 145mbs combined and before the end of 2022 I get FTTP and will go for 150mbs but keep a 4G as backup until the contract ends. Internally my network transfers with 6 camera's, various controlled switches, music casting raspberries  etc struggle at times. Currently its the router as its Firewall computation is overloading the CPU restricting throughput to 350mbs, next router is setup and will allow full utilisation of the 1gig ports. As time goes on these loads will increase again and will be looking for a router with 2.5g ports and the cpu power to support. Best to only need to run wires behind cavities once.

[markocosic]

Don't run one cable between downstairs and upstairs. Run two for when you break one. 🙂

 

 

I run this as a router. £50 and runs at the full 900 Mb/sec that Vodafone offer with hardware offloading for what it's worth.

https://eu.store.ui.com/collections/operator-edgemax-routers/products/edgerouter-x

 

One switch / subnet for "the house" (IP cameras, noddy TP Link WiFi access point, Internet of Shite devices)

 

One switch / subnet for "the work" (desktop PC and various work hardware) in the attic.

 

 

In terms of routing I had a box of spare CAT5 offcuts so ran two cables from a central location to each room before plasterboarding. Direct clip to wall with no protection. Drop from 0.5m on first floor into the floor void. Run in the ground-first floor void to a central location. Drop to a patch panel on the ground floor. Dot and dab plasterboard over the lot once they're fitted.

 

Another pair run into the attic office and were just run up the 1st floor wall before plasterboarding.

 

For the "outlet" end they run into a socket box that's next to a double socket. At the moment  most are coiled up and taped up and there's a socket on top of that socket box that's spurred off the double socket so there's two sockets on the wall. If I need the network cables I can remove that socket and fit the RJ45 outlets.

 

For the "switch" end they sit in a cupboard and for the most part aren't connected as everything except the work stuff in the attic and the house alarm is WiFi anyway...

 

 

If you're retrofitting then you're either making a mess indoors or you're pretending to be Virgin Media and covering the outside of the house in Spaghetti.

 

 

 

In the past I've router-ed a groove in chipboard floorboards, tucked CAT5 in it, then stuck the underlay and carpet back down again. That can work for getting from floor to floor. Switches shouldn't be a bottleneck but I'd still put a pair of cables in in case you break one.

 

 

TV people...will do their own thing anyway. I'd ignore.

[JohnBishop]

In my case where my network equipment is going to be under the stairs (ground floor) central location so all the CAT6 cables will go in all directions so no need to worry about the ground and first floor.

I just have to run the ISPs coaxial to that central location.
I would also cater an extra cable upstairs for the future attic conversion.

 

2 hours ago, PeterW said:

No idea why people still try and run and terminate their own Catx cables as there are lots of pre made, screened Patch cables available that are suitable for this purpose in lots of lengths for pennies. You can also colour code them for different things (red - PoE cam, green - TV points etc) and they are quick to run and there is no painful krone panels or other stuff required. 
 

Unless you are running UHD multiplex screens from remote servers, you will never get anywhere close to the limits of Cat5, never mind CAT6 or fibre. I’ve seen 250 contact centre agents running voice and business apps concurrently on significantly smaller connections than people are taking about - Virgin Gigabit fibre for example is a marketing gimmick and your upstream speeds are only marginally better than anyone else on copper .. 

 

Rant over … 

I like your idea of using different colours of cables, makes sense even for small deployments (the label is eventually got missing) I know you can order terminated cables in different colours for cheap but what about running them through holes, plugs won't fit.

Where can I get CAT6 in different colours? The websites someone suggested here on the forum have only 2 colours.

 

[PeterW]

4 hours ago, JohnBishop said:

what about running them through holes, plugs won't fit.

 Standard CAT plug will fit through a 12mm hole, 5 cables will go through a 20mm hole.

 

Cable Monkey do them in 10 colours, can’t think why you would need that many but they aren’t expensive.

 

https://www.cablemonkey.co.uk/rj45-network-cables/12-cat6-rj45-patch-cables.html#/17-color-orange/61-length-3m/3295-boot_type-lsoh_with_latch_protection_boot

 

At lengths up to 20m I can’t see why you would need to use cut cable 

 

 

[Dreadnaught]

Interesting discussion.

 

Playing devils advocate, @PeterW, the reason you might buy a spool of cable and terminate it oneself is because Cable Money only sell a range of lengths (3, 5, 10, 20m, etc.) and, with decent gear, terminating is actually quite easy. What say you?

 

(This is relevant for me is I will be running my ethernet network soon-ish in my new build.)

[Adrian Walker]

I agree with @Dreadnaught, using a virgin roll of cable means that there is lot less waste and it's relatively easy to terminate, and if you don't want to terminate, most electrician do termination and most importantly testing, not just continuity. Damaged cables don't perform well. That said YMMV

 

[Carrerahill]

On 23/07/2022 at 01:12, JohnBishop said:

Hi All,

The wooden decking floor is still exposed before I put the wooden underlay for the laminate flooring.

It is the best moment to think how to run the cables. I don't really want to damage the walls even the plaster boards.

I won't be installing network sockets, just run the network cables to each room, either conceal them for the time being and commission only those that I need but I also want to future proof it so lay twice as many cables.

I have counted 6 will go upstairs and 6 on the ground level, 1 or 2 of the ground level ones will go to the backyard for a wired connection in the middle of the garden and one to the very end of the garden where the future workshop / shed will be.

 

But my main question is what is the best way to run them from downstairs to upstairs and to conceal these 6 cables.
Should I drill in the hall directly above the shelf where the network equipment is then run them under the wooden decking across as there is empty space otherwise get an oscillating saw and cut as much I need of the wooden skirting board and run them there? I think it's also better to run them under the door frames.

All the videos about this topic I found on the internet are made by Americans with their wooden houses so the advise is not applicable to English non standard construction concrete house.

 

I don't think I even need CAT6A as CAT6 can do 10Gbit up to 50 meters.

 

At the same time I am not sure if I want to run any other cables. I am not a TV guy but anyone who buys the house in the future maybe would want to see the coaxial in each room or maybe HDMI. It's not a big house so probably an overkill but wired network would help reduce the need of a powerful Wifi network for devices that use a lot of bandwidth and can be wired.

 

I was looking into intelligent home systems like 20 years ago, perhaps a lot have changed since then, I could also cater for that but only open standards not some proprietary so Amazon or some Chinese corporation knows what I do in the house. A lot of stuff I can see is wireless anyway, maybe this intelligent home stuff makes more sense in a bigger house and I pass the idea. All the proprietary closed stuff discourages me.

Best

I would 2 no. fibre cables from the downstairs comms position to the upstairs comms position. I would then run in CAT6 cable from your switch/patch panel to each room where you require service.

[TonyT]

1 hour ago, Carrerahill said:

I would 2 no. fibre cables from the downstairs comms position to the upstairs comms position. I would then run in CAT6 cable from your switch/patch panel to each room where you require service.

Seems a bit overkill reading the OP’s original request