Electrical first fix in an ICF house

[Meabh]

Hi - we are getting ready for the electrical first fix in our (almost watertight) house.

 

We have already noticed that in some areas of the house we have bad mobile phone reception so it's got us concerned about wifi etc.

 

I have spec'd Cat 6 sockets to all the places we will possibly have a TV and in the office. This covers all zones in the house. Can I connect a wifi extender to one of the Cat 6 sockets if people wanted to use mobile devices in that area?

I don't want to put Cat 6 in all the bedrooms  but have 3 kids who will all need to do homework on computers in a few years so I'd like them to be able to get wifi in bedrooms if needed. 

 

Any other electrical first fix tips much appreciated. eg just been told data cables and regular cables can't go through the same hole (to get out of my concrete plant room - FYI - concrete plant room was a bad idea....I focused on in staying hot and keeping things quiet.....but we've had to core loads of holes to get services out....MVHR/Plumbing?electrics!

 

Thanks

[Dan F]

59 minutes ago, Meabh said:

I have spec'd Cat 6 sockets to all the places we will possibly have a TV and in the office.

Use 2 for each room and 4 for TV/media locations.  3 for an office.

 

1 hour ago, Meabh said:

Can I connect a wifi extender to one of the Cat 6 sockets if people wanted to use mobile devices in that area?

Instead of using wifi extenders, run cable in the ceilings for dedicated PoE access points.  But yes, if you don't do this.. or need additional coverage for some reason you can plug in an additional access point to any network socket.

 

1 hour ago, Meabh said:

I don't want to put Cat 6 in all the bedrooms  but have 3 kids who will all need to do homework on computers in a few years so I'd like them to be able to get wifi in bedrooms if needed. 

The cost of 1-2 CAT6 runs to bedrooms isn't much, so I'd put it in any way.  You might use the room for something else if/when kids leave home, or they might want to hard-wire for lower-latency gaming or something.

 

1 hour ago, Meabh said:

Any other electrical first fix tips much appreciated.

You might not ever use coaxial, but put some in just in case between TV locations and plant room (or loft) and then from there to potential aerial/satellite locations.

 

Think about where your internet service comes in or might come in in the future.  Aside from bring BT in, think about how fibre will come in, or if you want to allow for

a 4g or Starlink antenna.  Also, think about where you'll put the internet modem and router.

 

Planning any in-ceiling audio, even if you don't plan it now.. might be worth pre-wiring if there is a chance you might in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

[oliwoodings]

+1 to having cat6 run into the ceilings for PoE APs. You don't even have to use it straight away, but then at least you always have the choice if you find WiFi deadspots.

 

What are your internal walls made of?

[Russell griffiths]

300m of cat 6 is £75

run two cables to every room, landing hall whatever 

all ends going back to one location were the clever stuff goes, it cost pennies now or a fortune to fit later. 

[Conor]

We have a three story icf house with concrete floors.

 

We use four Deco mesh units. One in the basement that acts as the gateway. It's wired in to our network switch. We have one unit in the middle of the ground floor, and two upstairs, one in bedroom and one in the office. All supplied by the network points. Works perfectly. 120mbs WiFi throughout the house and totally reliable and seamless. I would have a network point in all rooms. 

[JohnMo]

We have an ICF house, getting a mobile signal can be an issue due to the rebar in the walls, I assume. But have zero issues with WiFi, in the house.

[Nic]

On 11/11/2023 at 11:10, Dan F said:

 

 

Instead of using wifi extenders, run cable in the ceilings for dedicated PoE access points. 
 

ok deffo no WiFi CAT geek … how does this work ? I get putting cable in the ceilings what would you need to connect to the cable to make it a PoE  for the WiFi ? 
 

On 11/11/2023 at 11:10, Dan F said:

 

 

 

 

 

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[oliwoodings]

3 minutes ago, Nic said:

ok deffo no WiFi CAT geek … how does this work ? I get putting cable in the ceilings what would you need to connect to the cable to make it a PoE  for the WiFi ? 
 

 

You need a PoE switch in your plant room. It basically injects low voltage power into the ethernet cables in order to power whatever is on the other end without running a separate power cable. Only works with PoE-compatible access points, of course.

 

You can also use that PoE switch to power security cameras amongst other things. Very hand bit of tech.

[jamiehamy]

We ran Cat 5 (oir was it 6?) cables to most rooms on the first house - that was a complete waste of time, we've never used them. Most modern laptops don't have the ports any more and you're tied to one place. 

 

We have 3 Wifi extenders in the house and that fulfils all needs. 

 

Scrap the Cat. Wasted time and effort.

 

So to answer your question directly - why bother having a WiFi router connected to a Cat 6 cable when you can use your electrical circuits to create a great WiFi network which will have Zero extra cost.  

[oliwoodings]

8 hours ago, jamiehamy said:

We ran Cat 5 (oir was it 6?) cables to most rooms on the first house - that was a complete waste of time, we've never used them. Most modern laptops don't have the ports any more and you're tied to one place. 

 

We have 3 Wifi extenders in the house and that fulfils all needs. 

 

Scrap the Cat. Wasted time and effort.

 

So to answer your question directly - why bother having a WiFi router connected to a Cat 6 cable when you can use your electrical circuits to create a great WiFi network which will have Zero extra cost.  

The primary reason for most households to run cat6 would be to install proper WiFi access points on the ceiling to get great coverage. You're right that the vast majority of people don't need hardwired ethernet access, although it's nice to have the robustness for things like TVs, games consoles, desktop PCs etc.

 

In this situation, I don't agree with your recommendation of relying on powerline WiFi adapters, however. They are fine for retrofit applications where you can't easily pull a cable, but if you are able to run ethernet then you can get a much more robust WiFi network using proper access points hooked up together via ethernet, for not much more money.

[Jenki]

You can also get double sockets that act as WIFI repeaters.

I've gone simple with mine, but have added  cat6 to the TV and desk area.

I'll put a socket repeater at either end of the house. Just in case.

 

[oliwoodings]

15 minutes ago, Jenki said:

You can also get double sockets that act as WIFI repeaters.

I've gone simple with mine, but have added  cat6 to the TV and desk area.

I'll put a socket repeater at either end of the house. Just in case.

 

Repeaters are not great for reliability - worse than powerline extenders. There's a good explanation of repeaters Vs extenders here: https://www.screenbeam.com/wifihelp/wifibooster/wifi-extenders-beat-wifi-repeaters-every-time/

[Alan Ambrose]

If you ever need high bandwidth to any particular point in your house then proper network cable is a must. Once we got fibre here it took me a bit of work to get all that bandwidth back to my study etc. You need a fibre router, 1 gig hubs, and … cable. Shared wifi will be fine for internet browsing etc but it won’t handle the full bandwidth of fibre. Cable also allows poe to cameras, access points etc and avoids you having to have mains power near them. Also wired doorbells, thermostats etc avoids all that BS with batteries and the spottiness of low bandwidth connections. I think dependence on wifi is short-sighted.

[IanMcP]

As said. Run cable to ceilings for access points. Use Ubiquiti networking. This kit is awesome and will allow ‘roaming’ on WiFi as you go around the house. 
 

can’t have too many cat6 points.