Home network closet

[BigJayDogg3]

tl;dr: I'm in the early planning stages of putting a network closet in my parent's old house. How are most sealing the conduit that runs into the closet in a non-permanent way?

My parents live in an older home (1950s IIRC). Obviously, the house wasn't designed with networking in mind. My old bedroom rooms is a closet that is going fairly unused, and is fairly central to the house. Right now everything is just on a shelf in the living room. They are wanting to do cameras around the house, and since that's going to require running some wiring, a) having a bunch of wires run into there is not ideal, and b) while it is in the corner and out of the way, it's unsightly once you notice it.

My thought is to convert that closet into a central point to run network and branch out from there. There are a total of 6 rooms I'd want to wire for ethernet, with 8 or so drops, 4 connections per drop.

Most of the builds I've seen have PVC coming from the attic and down into the closet. That's not a problem, but those guys also seal it off with spray foam or something, and while it isn't likely we would need to add to the drops after the fact, I'd like to keep the option available. How would I go about sealing off the room from the attic without ruining the conduit for future use?

My first idea is getting a pvc cap, cutting the top off, then a slit down the side so the wiring can pass through, then using expanding foam in/on that so it can be removed/refoamed after the cables come through. The other is only using a small amount of foam, then in the future drilling through, running wire, and foaming over the top. Both ideas seem fairly stupid to me though. Anyone else have suggestions?

 

[bds1904]

Is there a reason you can’t fish the drops through the wall and use a passthru style double gang wall plate with a low voltage cut-in box?

https://www.garvinindustries.com/low-voltage/media-boxes-and-wallplates/pull-through-wallplates/lvp2

Just add fire rated calking at the attic penetration that goes into the 2x4 wall.

Conduit is ugly....

If your dead set on conduit then you seal it with putty you can find in the electrical section at any big-box hardware store. It doesn’t eat cables and stays flexible for years. Just tell one of the helpers you need putty to seal conduit from water.

 

[BigJayDogg3]

Is there a reason you can’t fish the drops through the wall and use a passthru style double gang wall plate with a low voltage cut-in box?

https://www.garvinindustries.com/low-voltage/media-boxes-and-wallplates/pull-through-wallplates/lvp2

Just add fire rated calking at the attic penetration that goes into the 2x4 wall.

Conduit is ugly....

If your dead set on conduit then you seal it with putty you can find in the electrical section at any big-box hardware store. It doesn’t eat cables and stays flexible for years. Just tell one of the helpers you need putty to seal conduit from water.

That sounds like a much better idea. When we run cabling at work, we have dropped ceilings, so getting cable down to racks is a matter of either conduit, running through walls down under the floor, or if the install is temporary, just letting the cables hang. a pass through like that isn't something we've dealt with.

Thanks! Back to research I go.