Making a house "future proof" during a renovation

Page may contain affiliate links. Please see terms for details.
Hi

Revisiting this again because i am at the stage ready to install wires. So............... are we all agreed on 2 Cat 6 and a top quality screened coax to each room?? And loads of ducting, house is mostly all dry-lined so one massive duct.

Thanks,
 
Assume that you have a decent size garden as well; did you look at geotherm heating?
 
Assume that you have a decent size garden as well; did you look at geotherm heating?

No, house is in the city and garden not huge so i discounted it from the outset.

Thanks,

230K
 
No, house is in the city and garden not huge so i discounted it from the outset.

Thanks,

230K
you could always sink a borehole for a ground source heat pump, even if you don't have much garden. These are v expensive though & will take a long time to repay cost
 
Hi

Revisiting this again because i am at the stage ready to install wires. So............... are we all agreed on 2 Cat 6 and a top quality screened coax to each room?? And loads of ducting, house is mostly all dry-lined so one massive duct.

Thanks,


We moved into a new build almost 3 years ago with Cat 5 throughout. Despite there being 5 of us there is only the main computer (mine) that uses it. Everyone else has laptops & uses wi fi with the router. When I replace the computer with a laptop, no one will use it anymore, obsolete as soon as it was built almost.

With the advent of FREESAT TV, cables from the dish to every room would have been nice.

Russ
 
Hi

Revisiting this again because i am at the stage ready to install wires. So............... are we all agreed on 2 Cat 6 and a top quality screened coax to each room?? And loads of ducting, house is mostly all dry-lined so one massive duct.

Thanks,

What are the benefits of cat 6 over cat 5? I asked my brother-in-law (who had a network cabling company) a few months ago and he said he would not bother with cat 6 in a home. Didn't say what the differences were though.

I would take coax to every room and multiple coax to main tv/sky position. In our lounge we have aerial feed to tv via sky box, 2 from dish to sky box, 1 from dish to panasonic plasma tv, return cable to distribution amp, 5 total!
On the cat 5/6, you need at least 2 - my kids use x-box & pc's on network in their rooms. In my study I have 3 connections - pc, printer & bu**ered if I can remember what the third one is.
In the lounge, we use 1 for the TV & they sometimes move an x-box in there to use the bigger screen.
I understand that audio/video can also be distributed via a network, also telephones.
I put telephone to each room though we don't use the sockets as modern digital phones just have 1 connected base unit & multiple dect handsets.

Just remembered 3rd network cable in study is for plugging into laptop.
 
Last edited:
Guys, no need to pay for cat6! Please stick to cat 5e. I bet that you don't have network cards, switches etc ready for cat 6! (Which is shielded, that's the main difference).

Cat 5e will do as good as cat6. And trust me- WiFi would be better choice anyway as it is pain in the neck to have laptop with cables ;) Saying that, I hate wireless stuff.

Category 6 cable - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

cheers
Chris
 
Guys, no need to pay for cat6! Please stick to cat 5e. I bet that you don't have network cards, switches etc ready for cat 6! (Which is shielded, that's the main difference).

Cat 5e will do as good as cat6. And trust me- WiFi would be better choice anyway as it is pain in the neck to have laptop with cables ;) Saying that, I hate wireless stuff.

Category 6 cable - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

cheers
Chris

One of our laptops doesn't get a good connection in all areas on the wireless. Also the wired connection is 10 times faster:)
 
Wired is not 10x faster. Your switch can go up to 1GB with cat 5e cables. Wireless - up to 54 or new N which is still a draft can go up to 600 Mbit/s. Yeah, fair enough.

But the question is - Why do you need to go that fast? How you are going to use this speed? I'm all for cables - and actually I'm going to wire my house with cat5 but I'm still going to provide fairly decent wireless.

My point is- don't bother with Cat6 - stick to cat 5, get decent patch leads, ask decent contractor to lay cables (it is not THAT simple) and get decent patch panel (You have mentioned big house, how many sockets you are planing to install?).

Keep in mind that cable can't be bended too much! And 100m distance is actually in STRAIGHT LINE - the more bends you have, then shorter the distance cable can transmit decent quality network packets.

Other very important thing - get someone who actually knows how to use patch panel OR if you are going to connect everything into the switch- make sure that someone knows how to actually do 8P8C connectors (don't untwists pairs!).

Cheers
Chris
 
Wired is not 10x faster. Your switch can go up to 1GB with cat 5e cables. Wireless - up to 54 or new N which is still a draft can go up to 600 Mbit/s. Yeah, fair enough.

But the question is - Why do you need to go that fast? How you are going to use this speed? I'm all for cables - and actually I'm going to wire my house with cat5 but I'm still going to provide fairly decent wireless.

My point is- don't bother with Cat6 - stick to cat 5, get decent patch leads, ask decent contractor to lay cables (it is not THAT simple) and get decent patch panel (You have mentioned big house, how many sockets you are planing to install?).

Keep in mind that cable can't be bended too much! And 100m distance is actually in STRAIGHT LINE - the more bends you have, then shorter the distance cable can transmit decent quality network packets.

Other very important thing - get someone who actually knows how to use patch panel OR if you are going to connect everything into the switch- make sure that someone knows how to actually do 8P8C connectors (don't untwists pairs!).

Cheers
Chris

Laptop that suffers is 802.11b so slower than current standards! Also, we lose signal in one bedroom & kitchen. A puzzle really as signal is fine in the garden which is beyond the kitchen:confused:
I have sub-contracted to brother in law (when he was in his networks business) so familiar with cable routing, bend radiuses, patch panel wiring, etc.
In my current house I have 16 outlets to a 24 port patch panel, connected to a 4 port modem & 8 port switch. Obviously not all 16 outlets in use.
Problem I found was that patch panels not designed for domestic "flush" installation. Patch panels seem to be designed for "cabinet/rack" installation and I didn't really have room for a cabinet in my chosen location.
In the next house I will give more consideration to the patch panel and TV distribution amp location.
 
Hi

Has anyone got any standard wiring diagrams for what is required with Co-ax around the house.

Basically i want a tv point in most rooms and will want free view and cable/sat (possibly in the future).

Anyone help??

Thanks,

230K
 
TBH, this all seems an expensive way of doing it....and I doubt you'll get the return if you sell. Although if you have free access into the walls during a refurb, then why not..

Our house has 2 foot thick brick walls - inside and out! So although wireless is easiest, it just doesn't work well in many parts. Problem solved by using powerline networking between different parts of the house, garage & office, and a couple of wireless base stations (Apple Airport Extreme) hooked together via WDS.

Airport express units are plugged into amps in rooms with speakers but no TV( I really don't like the little in-wall/in-ceiling speakers....much prefer big boxes that move lots of air) take care of music distribution, and a little Apple TV unit under each TV takes care of movies, pics, music etc...

It all works perfectly and plays together nicely without having to go to the expense of any cabling or dedicated multi room audio/video kit.

We don't watch much live TV though and don't have Sky (really don't see the point of paying money to be advertised at!), but I would imagine that good co-ax distribution would be useful if that's your thing.
 
Hi have coax from each room going up into the attic - a central point.

In the attic I have a sky coax splitter/feeder about £40. The cable from the Living room feeds this box, which then feeds the other rooms. As its sky, these cables allow any person in any room to control the sky box, but it also feeds a normal digital signal into the room for freeview.
 
Hugh - I am currently looking to do something similar in my house.

What type of sky coax splitter/feeder did you get ...and where from ?

Does the sky cable from the dish, feed directly into this ?
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom