Newish house outdoor run CAT5/6 and speaker cables

[Juzzy]

Guys,

I've just bought a new ish 3 story house, it is only 3 years old doesn’t have any structured cabling. The lounge is on the ground floor and guest and master bedrooms in the two stories above. I can guarantee it is going to be impossible to drop cables down the cavity so I'm planning on going through the wall to the outside and protecting the cables somehow. Luckily the exterior wall on that side isn't really visible as it is between houses and there is a fence blocking the view from the front.

I'm thinking of using some sort of trunking outside to protect the cables and using quad banana plug face plates for my front/rear speakers and dual sat for my HD. I'm also thinking of putting CAT6 in and running direct component connections upto the bedrooms to my LCD panel from the component output on my HD box, keeping HDMI for my pana. Using CAT6 modular face plates and CAT 6 fly leeds to connect everything up.

Has anyone got any views about what trunking to use, where to get such face plates and using CAT 6 without any baluns to transfer component video?

Lots of questions so any help appreciated! If this is the wong forum please tell me.

[Stuzo]

I'd go for some round conduit to run down the walls, that way you can use PTFE tape on the joins to keep it water tight, you can hold it up with clips rather than fixing through the trunking (again, keeping it water tight). Also, it should look less out of place running down the side of the building than any square trunking would as it would look like plumbing pipework.

[putbinoot]

If these cables have the connectors already attached then putting them through conduit might be a bit tricky. Plastic trunking would be a could idea, something by MK with seperate compartments if you want. Or if you want to disguise it, how about getting a couple of lenghts of the same colour drainage downpipes you will no doubt have coming from your gutters to the the ground and put one of them from top to bottom of your house so it looks just like another drainage pipe and simply glue in a couple of inspection T's where you want the cables to enter the house, even with connectors on the cables they should go through.

[Juzzy]

Originally Posted by putbinoot

If these cables have the connectors already attached then putting them through conduit might be a bit tricky. Plastic trunking would be a could idea, something by MK with seperate compartments if you want. Or if you want to disguise it, how about getting a couple of lenghts of the same colour drainage downpipes you will no doubt have coming from your gutters to the the ground and put one of them from top to bottom of your house so it looks just like another drainage pipe and simply glue in a couple of inspection T's where you want the cables to enter the house, even with connectors on the cables they should go through.

Thanks, I plan on using CAT6 face plates so there shouldn't be any issue with connectors on the end of the cables. You have given me an idea of tie wrapping the cables to the downpipes, that would help to hide them and make it 10x easier.

[putbinoot]

Originally Posted by Juzzy

You have given me an idea of tie wrapping the cables to the downpipes, that would help to hide them and make it 10x easier.

I was actually meaning run them inside fake drain pipes.