Registered: Jan 2000
Location: Twin Cities, MN
Posts: 1683

I'm remodelling my basement and want to put in the appropriate wiring to accomodate my current and future needs, and then run that through the rest of the house.

Has anyone done this?

I'm thinking that I should run 2 each of Cat-5, Coax, and Phone to each room, terminating everything in a closet in the basement (where it'd all hook up to the sattelite/cable, DSL/Cable modem through routers, hubs and the main server).

Some people also recommend Fiber-optics. But, given the cost, and the fact that I don't see anyone using it anytime soon, I'm a bit less inclined to do that.

I may also wire in speaker wire as well, but that seems to be a bit harder to decide where they will terminate. I'd like to run surround wiring in the basement (and maybe the master bedroom) and possible stereo wiring to the main bath, workshop, and upstairs living room.

Any tips/resources on doing this would be appreciated!

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Registered: Aug 2000
Location:
Posts: 36

I just recently put new phone and network wiring into my house. I used CAT 5 cable for everything. I ran one network cable to each room, i think that all i will need for network. If i want to add more computers into a room, i will recrimp that rooms network cable into a crossover cable and put another hub in there. All network cables run down to my office where the dsl/router is. For phone, i also used category 5 cable. CAT 5 has 4 pairs, so you can run more than one line on each cable. For standard phones, you only need 1 pair. My phone system is digital, so i needed two pairs per line. I was therefor able to run two lines per cable, and i usually just split it into the seperate lines in the attic over whatever rooms the lines were going to. If you choose to run speaker wire, get very good quality line. The longer the run, the better line you need. 18 gauge line over 50 feet will sound much worse than 12 gauge if you have good speakers and a good ear for that kind of thing (i personally feel that 18 gauge is terrible for any length, but most people would disagree with me on that)

Registered: Jan 2000
Location:
Posts: 434

re: Wiring closet in basement - - Not knowing where you live, and if the basement is above or below grade . . . anyway, do be careful that the writng closet can be cooled or heated to keep equipment within operating temperature (and humidity) ranges. For some folks, this might mean a move to the house proper.

re: DSL Router - - When you actually get around to hooking up multiple computers, you should budget for a combo router/firewall and maybe even a separate ethernet switch. A hardware-based firewall is going to be far more cost efficient over time than maintaining individual software-based firewall apps on each system, and it will also save you time and hassle. When the time does come, look for firewall features that closely match those in "full size" firewalls. With current products, you should exclude firewalls that only do packet filtering. NAT and DHCP should also be on the checklist.

[Edited by yucca on 09-18-2000 at 07:16 PM]

Registered: Jan 2000
Location: Twin Cities, MN
Posts: 1683

Yucca:

Good points. I'm in Minnesota and it isdefinietly below grade. Summers can get a bit humid down there, though we are going to be running a dehumidifier to keep things steady. It will also be completely insulated, so that will cut down on the humidity.

The firewall comment is good. Right now, we're running a Cisco 675 DSL Router, which acts as a psuedo firewall, as it does do NAT and DHCP. Of course, it's not a REAL firewall. We're running 3 Macs and a Linux box off of it now. The Macs aren't too prone to be hacked into, but once we get the entire system up and running with two linux servers, we'll want to protect those with a true firewall.

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We're all naked if you turn us inside out.
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Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Lincoln, NE
Posts: 56

My recommendation...

Put in CAT 5 for now but put in wire tunnels so that you can pull new cable in the future. Most offices/corportate environments use this sort of an arrangement so that they can upgrade their networks in the future. I am not sure how expensive these are but they are real nice for pulling cable through (firsthand experience). It is much better than trying to pull cable through plastered walls.

For now fiber optic is overkill unless you have about 200 PC's in your house or something like that. You should get satisfactory results with 100 or gigabit ethernet.

Registered: Apr 2000
Location: St Petersburg Fla
Posts: 224

http://www.homepcnetwork.com/
Has a wealth of information on home networks

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Chandler, AZ
Posts: 289

I am assuming the COAX is for television? If so, you could probably get away with just one cable going to each room -- if you want multiple televisions in the room, you could split the wire ... Now if your getting fancy with a dedicated satellite feed for each television, then you will need dedicated coax connections .. (that would be super cool.. )

The CAT5 is a good choice .. You can run 1000/100/10 over CAT5 (you may want to double verify that the cable you end up using is 1000base-t compliant cable) -- If possible, estimate how many systems will be in each room and run a dedicated line for each -- that should provide ample future-proofing .. (granted, bolson's idea of the wire tunneling is awesome as it allows a lot more flexibility in adding new wire, it is probably excessive in your situation) --

Regarding telephone lines .. running via CAT5 might be a pretty good idea .. who knows, maybe in the future you would have IP Phones hooked into your network and calls would be directed completely over the internet..

Joe

Registered: Jan 2000
Location: Twin Cities, MN
Posts: 1683

Wow...lots of good thoughts here!

As for the Coax, yea, that's for cable. I was thinking of running two to each room though, as it is my understanding that some sattelite systems and//or Digital/HDTV may require dual cables. Has anyone else heard of that?

I've had several people mention that Cat 5 works fine for phone lines too, so I'll probably run at least two Cat 5's to each room. Is there such thing as a "phone" hub to split the phone signals?

As for wire tunnels, what would those be? PVC pipes? I think that's a good idea, though I'll probably just be running everything through my basement in the ceiling.

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Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 638

I have heard rumors on site's that two coax cables will be necessary in the futur, but I don't know if they are true.

A "hub" for phone cable would be a bus bar which you can buy at radio shack. Phone cable does not need to be put through a hub like Network cable does, so if your lazy (like me) then you can just connect the red to red, orange to orange, and so on. This will work also.
BEN