Running Cat5e in new construction home

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sexyjeep

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I am currently building a new home and plan on running my own cat5e or cat6e Ethernet cable throughout. Our contractor charges $80 per run and I plan on having at least two runs per room x5 rooms, so running my own cable is going to save me thousands. I am a Network Administrator and have been making my own Ethernet cables for years, but I’ve never run cable through a home being built where I could pre-install as many lines as I wanted before the drywall goes up. This is a unique opportunity because I will be able to make the installation very clean. The problem is that I am not sure how to run the cable through the home.

Examples (what I am not sure about):

1. If I use UTP do I need to drill separate holes through each of the studs (keeping them at least 12 inches away from the electrical lines and outlets to minimize crosstalk?), or can I get away with using STP cable and run it through the same holes as the electrical, or is STP still not going to be enough protection running right along side of the electrical?

2. I’ve heard that stapling Ethernet cable to the studs is not a good idea especially when using solid cable because of the wear. I’ve also heard that this is a bad idea in general because of the increased possibility of crosstalk (from the staple smashing the cables together). I am looking for some confirmation or advice on this one.

3. I would like to use UTP solid cable for all the runs because I hear that as long as I keep them 12 inches away from any electrical and don’t excessively bend the cable that I will get more bang for my buck because UTP is less expensive and the solid cable will give me a stronger signal over longer distances than standard cable. My only concern is that I plan on hooking all of the cable runs straight into a switch rather than a patch panel (where they meet in the basement), so they’re going to potentially get moved around a little more than they would if I wired them to a patch panel. This is my only fear in using solid cable - I don’t want to wear them out or have them break on the switch side of things from moving them around. I could try using standard cable, but again, I understand that standard is best used for short distances because it cannot carry the signal as strong for as long. However, the longest stretch of Ethernet cable in my entire home will run no longer than 100’. How much signal degradation will be lost if I use standard for everything vs. solid at this maximum distance? Will the difference be negligible?

4. I also plan on running Quad shielded Coax cable along side of the Ethernet cable. From what I have read they shouldn’t crosstalk, but I wanted to throw this out there to get a second opinion. Maybe the Coax can be run with the electrical…?

5. I have thought about running cat6e in my home rather than cat5e, but after spending multiple hours researching this online it seems like I would be better off saving the extra $80 and sticking with cat5e. I don’t believe this decision will affect my homes resell value for me because I don’t plan on living there for more than 6 years and I doubt that people will be using 1000mb+ networks at home in that amount of time. That’s my thought. Any additional input is welcome. Let me know what you think is best.

Thanks in advance for any and all replies.

I am looking for technical confirmation, additional thoughts, considerations, and opinions.

SexyJeep
 
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My thoughts:

1. UTP Solid will be fine, stay 12 inches away from electrical wherever possible, drill a seperate hole but run all the network cable together through the same holes (to a reasonable extent, obviously don't drill a 3" hole in a 2x4.)

2. Don't staple them, look around the electrical section at the hardware store, they sell round plastic/metal clips that will not damage the cable.

3. In wall cabling should all be solid, I recommend using a patch panel because it's so nice to be able to swap cables around however you like, and abuse the stranded patch cables instead of the vertical wiring. Vertical wiring should technically be plenum rated and may need to be per your local fire code, which is another good point, if this is a new build there will be electrical and fire inspectors checking your work, do some research and check local codes or you could end up delaying your move in date.

4. Not sure on this, I wouldn't expect much interference and I have plenty of cat5e cables crossing or running parallel to coax in my basement, but you have a unique opportunity to do it right, I would take advantage of that wherever possible.

5. I would save the money too and buy cat5e, you'll hear otherwise here, but I think a proper run and spending the budget on tools/accessories/patch panel is more important in doing it right, than the price of going cat6 for no added benefit.
 
Electrical inspector has no say in low voltage wiring. Only the fire inspector does.

Keep away from parallel electric wires but you can cross them perpendicularly. I've never had or heard of issues running them next to other wires. Businesses/schools/etc. run bundles of quite a lot of network cables together with no trouble.

You can use the same "clips" as cable wires, or you can fit 2-3 CAT5/6 wires under the ones meant for 10-14 gauge electrical wire. I would recommend at least 2 runs per room and more in the living room.

By the way, Belden has tri-shield coax that's better than quad-shield stuff such as 1694A.
 
I'm in the same boat and these are good questions. In my first house, I had to run the cables after the sheet rock went in because the builder would not let me pull the correct permits and install cables into the home.

Items I have found:
1) You must pull permits and get the work inspected if you do it yourself. The cost of permits and the inspection usually makes the builders charge equal out.
2) If you have a builder that is willing to work with you, you can have them install cable that you buy. This helps in terms of speaker wire installed and cat5e/cat6 when they only do cat5.
3) Researching Cat6 cables, you can see that getting the "perfect signal" requires premade cables because of signal distance and how the ends are crimped. You can get into the battle of "cable is cable" and "you need monster cable" BS but it's not worth the stress. If technology keeps increasing, wireless networks will become faster and the Cat5, Cat6 wire in your walls will be for secure networks. I'm waiting for the day when computers only come with wireless adapters and you have to upgrade to a wired adapter. I've researched installing Cat6e (required for copper 10Gbps) because new technology coming out lets you put HDMI signals over RJ45 Cat6e cables. Long story short: Cat5e will work fine. By the time you can push the Cat5e to the limit we will have all moved to a new house with Cat6e cables in it.
4) I would 100% talk with the builder and find out how they are running the cables in other construction. If they are just wading them together then they have no clue what the difference in wire is. You could get the builder in trouble if they are doing this because some building codes prevent low voltage wiring to be ran waded together with 110-220V wiring. Our current builder has model homes being built and you can go in and look how they are running wires throughout the home. Also watch for them running Phone wire twisted around your cat5 cables. While we never use a home phone, that 40 volt ring current through phone wire could cause some major cross talk.

Some ninja tricks you could do: :eek:
5) You could watch the home every day and the same day the electrician goes to install the Cat5 cables you could double up the wires in the boxes yourself. I tried this and it didn't work so well. I didn't go to the home for three days and it went from no wires to sheetrock. Drilling more holes in the studs or doing more work after the electrician left could get you and the electrician in trouble.
6) You can ask the builder who the electrical company is that will be installing the wires in the home. If it's a local company, you can call them and ask who will be doing your home. If a builder is working on multiple homes at the same time the electrician will come run cables in multiples homes in a single day. Talk to the guy doing the work and I'm sure you could slip him a $20 or some beer to double up the wire, more so if you paid for the wire. The permits pulled state that he is running low voltage wiring in the home, not quantity or amount.

Good luck and let me know what you decide. This time I just let the builder run the cables because if a pair does not work, I don't have to rip up the walls to fix it, the builder does.
 
Uh, you don't need any permits for ANY low voltage wires. At least not anywhere that I've lived. The electrical permits in my town have different checkboxes for what it's for and LV wiring isn't even an option.
 
Thank you all for your responses.

I did have a friend at work who went to their house when nobody was there and ran their own Ethernet lines. The builder didn't have a problem with it and it just so happens that I am building through the same people. I'm pretty sure I won't have to worry about any type of inspection that's going to get me in trouble. The only concern I have with this is whether or not I will need to use plenum rated cable for the rooms that are above the basement. Aaronearles had mentioned this in one of the replies and I had read this elsewhere as well. If my house ever caught fire and it spread faster (to the upper levels) because of the network cabeling then I am going to be in big trouble with my insurance company - I would hate to not be covered because of going with non-plenum rated cable, but then again if it's not 100% required and I can get away with running the non-plenum cable then I am going to save more time and money... Does anyone have any additional insight here?

My main worry at this point is getting comfortable enough to drill holes through the studs of my new home to run the cabling. I don't want to make a mistake or compromise the structure of my home due to a mistake on my end with the power tools. I wish this part was not a 'learn as you go process' If anyone has detailed steps or additional advice in this area I welcome it with open arms..

SexyJeep
 
You (usually) don't need plenum cable for in-wall. You need it for large open spaces such as a space above a drop ceiling in a commercial building which may be used for HVAC. It is rarely required in residential installs. Nicholas apparently lives in a crappy area with an a-hole town government, so it might be required for him.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plenum - definition 1B is what plenum cable is for. Also, the difference is in what sorts of gas the cable emits as it burns, not how fast it burns.
 
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If you're running wire may as well go with the latest and greatest. Either cat6 or cat6a but I think cat6a is still "draft" not sure... I run cat6 in my walls but I just do it whenever I need a drop since my basement is not dry walled and I do not plan to drywall the ceiling ever. Will go with drop ceiling.

I wanted to go plenum but it was very expensive so went with solid 23awg. Check out monoprice for cabling, very cheap.

As for making holes, try to make holes in areas that don't really load much. For example if joists, do not make a hole at the very top or very bottom. These portions have the most load. The top has "compression" load and the bottom has "pull" load. (I'm sure there are proper engineer terms for this, I'm far from one). The center is where you want to go.

Now if you want to stay away from electrical (normally at the center) then just run them below the joists with hooks. That's what I do. If you can get away from making holes, then go that route. Don't make holes for nothing.

The only holes I ever make when running data cables is in the floor inside the wall to get the wire from the jack to the basement. I only make holes in joists if I'm running electrical wire.
 
Red Squirrel said:
If you're running wire may as well go with the latest and greatest. Either cat6 or cat6a but I think cat6a is still "draft" not sure... I run cat6 in my walls but I just do it whenever I need a drop since my basement is not dry walled and I do not plan to drywall the ceiling ever. Will go with drop ceiling.

I wanted to go plenum but it was very expensive so went with solid 23awg. Check out monoprice for cabling, very cheap.

As for making holes, try to make holes in areas that don't really load much. For example if joists, do not make a hole at the very top or very bottom. These portions have the most load. The top has "compression" load and the bottom has "pull" load. (I'm sure there are proper engineer terms for this, I'm far from one). The center is where you want to go.

Now if you want to stay away from electrical (normally at the center) then just run them below the joists with hooks. That's what I do. If you can get away from making holes, then go that route. Don't make holes for nothing.

The only holes I ever make when running data cables is in the floor inside the wall to get the wire from the jack to the basement. I only make holes in joists if I'm running electrical wire.
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Don't bother with CAT6, doubt you'll be doing 10gigE anyway. 5E is fine for gigabit ethernet.
Plenum rated cable differs from riser cable due being jacketed with a fire retardant plastic jacket of either a low-smoke polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or a fluorinated ethylene polymer (FEP). One isn't "better" than the other in terms of conductivity or any other performance characteristic.
Most local codes allow you to have holes in the joist no larger than 1/3 the joist width (so you can have a 2" hole in the center of a 6" tall joist) Nothing wrong with running cable "through" your joists in your basement. the size of hole you can make also differs if you have engineered joists or solid joists. (so basically, consult your home building or local building codes)
 
The only problem with using hooks on the joists is that I plan on finishing my basement. I am going to have to drill holes to keep the wires above the drywall line. I suppose I can use the hooks when I run parallel to the joists though - if that's what you mean.

It's going to be tricky and require perfect timing to get in there and not be in everyones way to do this too. I was just talking to a friend who said he wired his home right away and then the electrical guy came through and mounted power wires right next to the Ethernet cable he ran and it jacked everything up because of crosstalk. I am almost wondering now if I should plan on going with STP over UTP incase something like this happens to me. The cost of going to STP is going to be around $120 more though.

Argh.... right when I think I have everything all figured out it changes. I plan on contacting the Indiana Building Codes Department to ask about the whole 'low voltage' and joist drilling thing. When I hear back from them I'll post my findings.
 
1. If I remember, the EIA/TIA recommendations say that ethernet cabling needs to be spaced at least 12" from electrical wiring and 3' from other sources of EMI (namely fluorescent lights). You can cross electrical wiring, but try to do so at 90 degree angles. Apparently that cancels out a lot of the EMI. You should drill your own holes and run the ethernet cabling separate from the electrical wiring whenever possible. I've run CAT5e UTP next to electrical wiring (14AWG residential environments) without any major issue. Sometimes it cannot be avoided.

2. Correct, stapling is bad. I've done it in a pinch, not proud of it, it will work but not recommended. That said, if you have access to open stud bays now, you should not need to do any stapling or holding of wires.

3. Personally, patch panels are cheap (roughly $30 for a 24port CAT5e patch panel) and thus I'd install one. Then I'd use patch cables to hook up to the switch. It keeps the install neat and is easier to troubleshoot the wiring.

4. Unless your RG-6 Coax runs are over 100' in length, you'll be fine with regular RG-6. Quad shield is a bitch to work with and to terminate properly (making sure the braided shield and foils don't short out for instance). You can get more RG-6 in a hole vs. RG-6 Quad Shield.

5. CAT5e is fine for now and for the near future as far I can tell. It is a bit less expensive than CAT6, in both connector cost and cabling cost. A box of 1000' CAT6 at Home Depot is almost 2x as much as CAT5e during my last trip there. Connectors as well.

As for the basement, I prefer drop ceilings. Then you can always get to electrical, water, heating, coax, and data cabling. Bust a water pipe and you got to rip out the ceiling to fix the leak. Drop ceiling, you throw out the bad panel(s), and you still have access to replace wiring. You can get nice looking drop ceiling panels that aren't tacky. All depends on your budget.
 
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The only reason I said cat6 is because it's not really any more expensive or harder to work with then cat5 so at least you get guaranted gigabit. Great for streaming video and what not.

Also if you wont have access to do this in the future, then I suggest run 4-6 jacks per area. Do all ethernet, even for phone, at least the cabling will be there for future needs.

You may also want to do cable TV while you're at that stage. Have everything go to a patch panel then from there you can connect to whatever. Use keystone patch panels, that way you are not limited to just ethernet, but you can put phone, cable TV and so on.
 
for all you Cat6 nay-sayers, the cost of a 1000 foot box of cat5e is about $90-100. the cost of a 100 foot box of Cat6 is $110-130. does an extra cent or two per foot warrent installing "old tech" in your brand new house?

in 2004, 100 megabit was PLENTY fast. 6 years later now gigabit is pretty much the standard for new network installations. i wouldnt put anything less in my house, i sold most of my 100mbit gear already. in another 6 years is it that hard to imagine running 10gbit networks? hell my personal home server has 3 trunked 1gbit connections and when we have lots of people in the house using its services it gets up to 200-300MB/sec thoroughput (~2.4Gbit) for short periods of time. im sure main stream 10gbit hardware will be out by the end of this decade. houses last 50-100 years, might as well future proof.
 
ghost6303 said:
for all you Cat6 nay-sayers, the cost of a 1000 foot box of cat5e is about $90-100. the cost of a 100 foot box of Cat6 is $110-130. does an extra cent or two per foot warrent installing "old tech" in your brand new house?

in 2004, 100 megabit was PLENTY fast. 6 years later now gigabit is pretty much the standard for new network installations. i wouldnt put anything less in my house, i sold most of my 100mbit gear already. in another 6 years is it that hard to imagine running 10gbit networks? hell my personal home server has 3 trunked 1gbit connections and when we have lots of people in the house using its services it gets up to 200-300MB/sec thoroughput (~2.4Gbit) for short periods of time. im sure main stream 10gbit hardware will be out by the end of this decade. houses last 50-100 years, might as well future proof.
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what do you work for the national cat 6 association or something? Haha.
 
nope, i just dont understand the rationale of people, when 98% of installation costs are spent actually laying the cable in the wall, why would you choose to save the 0.25% ($20) of the total cost and use an inferior grade? especially on a brand new house that is going to be around another century....

kind of like if regular unleaded gasoline cost $2.90/gal and premium cost $2.91, why wouldnt you use premium?

(btw in the previous post that "100 foot box of cat 6"- i meant to type 1000 foot)
 
I tend to agree that CAT-6 doesn't cost much more and it's certainly worth doing things as well as you can because you're not going to be opening those walls again. I have used CAT-6 and I do recommend it myself. It is better for long distances than CAT-5e and you are just less likely to have problems in general. But on the other hand, even CAT-6 is probably not going to be good enough for much more than gigabit.

If I had a new house and I were doing it, I would strongly consider conduit, or I might even go at least CAT-6a knowing that there's at least a chance that it'll be good enough in the future when 10Gbps comes to the household since I won't be opening walls.
 
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ghost6303 said:
nope, i just dont understand the rationale of people, when 98% of installation costs are spent actually laying the cable in the wall, why would you choose to save the 0.25% ($20) of the total cost and use an inferior grade? especially on a brand new house that is going to be around another century....

kind of like if regular unleaded gasoline cost $2.90/gal and premium cost $2.91, why wouldnt you use premium?

(btw in the previous post that "100 foot box of cat 6"- i meant to type 1000 foot)
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yeah i know, i was just giving you a hard time. Well, it's his money. I guess it just depends on if he sees himself using that much data in the future.
 
to bad you didn't live close to me, i would give you some free cat6 i just got 1000' for free LOL!

In Canada ( B.C ) you have to pull a permit for low voltage stuff, in the us you don't.
 
hawk82 said:
You can cross electrical wiring, but try to do so at 90 degree angles. Apparently that cancels out a lot of the EMI.
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A 90 degree angle cancels out all EMI completely. I forget the formula from physics class but it had something * Sin(Angle between two wires), so the closer you are to 90*, the less magnetic coupling.
 
Use a patch panel! If you don't want the hassle of punching down go with a patch panel for keystone jacks.
 
schapman43 said:
Use a patch panel! If you don't want the hassle of punching down go with a patch panel for keystone jacks.
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For sure, I love keystone panels. I will always go that route. The nice thing is they are cheaper, so you can get a full 24 port one without investing in filling it right away, you can add keystones as you require them.
 
I think 24 keystone jacks are more expensive than a cheap punch down panel from Ebay... Or at least close.
 
But still pretty cool for at home if you want to run coax, audio or hdmi to the same patch panel. I never thought of using the keystone style panel.
 
Just an update (I know it has been a while), but I finished wiring my home just over a year ago. I ended up drilling 3 separate holes through all of my joists' to minimize the amount of compromise in my homes structure. It passed the city building inspection/requirements with flying colors.

I ended up going with the keystone jacks, Cat6e, and Quad Shield Coax throughout. In addition I purchased a TrendNet 24 port patch panel and bought a 8x8' sheet of 1/2" think maple to mount everything too. The installation took 20 hours to complete and was done in 20 degree F weather (I will never forget this night for the rest of my life).

When it was all said and done I saved roughly $2,400 in material and labor when compared to what a contractor was going to charge. The speeds of my network have been amazing and I am very happy with how everything turned out.

Thank you all for your support and advice - I greatly appreciated it! You guys are the best! :)
 
sexyjeep said:
Just an update (I know it has been a while), but I finished wiring my home just over a year ago. I ended up drilling 3 separate holes through all of my joists' to minimize the amount of compromise in my homes structure. It passed the city building inspection/requirements with flying colors.

I ended up going with the keystone jacks, Cat6e, and Quad Shield Coax throughout. In addition I purchased a TrendNet 24 port patch panel and bought a 8x8' sheet of 1/2" think maple to mount everything too. The installation took 20 hours to complete and was done in 20 degree F weather (I will never forget this night for the rest of my life).

When it was all said and done I saved roughly $2,400 in material and labor when compared to what a contractor was going to charge. The speeds of my network have been amazing and I am very happy with how everything turned out.

Thank you all for your support and advice - I greatly appreciated it! You guys are the best! :)
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pictures :)
 
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