Cable routing advice please

rwttm001

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Hi all,

We moved into a 4 year old house a month ago and now I'm itching to get cracking on it before we start to decorate in the autumn. I want to run Cat6 cabling from either the airing cupboard in my study or the loft, to 6 locations in the house, 4 upstairs and 2 downstairs.

My initial thoughts were, lift the carpets take up a floorboard or 20 and run the cables to faceplates at the various locations. However I've lifted a corner and we have blockboard which I've been advised is a nightmare to take up and make good, any thoughts on this please? The alternative is to go up into the loft, routing some runs internally behind builtin wardrobes and 3 externally, which I really didn't want to do from a visual point of view.

I have a contact via a friend coming to take a look, he's a Sky installer by trade so should have some good ideas but wanted to sound out the forums first, especially on the blockboard issue.

Thanks in advance
 
Hopefully when you take the carpet up you will see on the boards where it is screwed to the joists and which way the joists are running. That will help guide you on where to cut the boards up. Then you can use a circular saw and adjust the depth of it to the thickness of the board so you do not go to deep and hit pipes or cables. Cut whatever section you need out along the centre of the joists and then you can piece in the bit you cut out when done.
The only other problem you might encounter is the nogins between the joists, then you will have to cut out more of the board just to drill holes through them.
 
Thanks for the advice.

So I'd need to hop across all joists and noggins in an attempt to zig zag my way from one room to the next? Once the cables were in place though I wouldn't be able to place the cut out piece on top as it would be proud? I also need to find out how many cables I could run together and their thickness - how wide is a standard joist?

I'd read that it 'should' be possible to run cables under the boards without lifting them using rods but not sure how that works and which trade that comes under!

More questions than answers at this stage!:(
 
You don't place the cables on the top of the joists. You drill a hole through the joists or nogins and pull the cables through the holes. Even using rods you might still come across nogins. To get an idea of what I mean try and google an image of 1st fixing of wiring in a domestic premises. You might come across an image of cables inbetween the joists and going through nogins.:smashin::smashin:
 
:clap:

Just make sure they dont suggest to you running cables surfaced. It wont be a good look. I dont know of any sky or bt people to start taking up floorboards and chasing cables in walls.
 
I'd read that it 'should' be possible to run cables under the boards without lifting them using rods but not sure how that works and which trade that comes under!

It's really very easy once you have access to the sub floor areas. You just need a set of Electricians Rods (flexible fiberglass rods that screw together). Just gently feed them through, then tape your cable to the end and pull it all through
 
Curious why you want to run Cat6. I realize that future proofing is always preferable but unless you need bandwidth in excess of 100MHZ and intend to install from start to finish with cat 6 you will need to adhere to the installation standard that sets minimum requirements up to 250 MHz for cables, connecting hardware, patch cords, channels and permanent links -
Just running Cat 6 cable doesnt in itself give you the service. Cat5e would give you everything you need at a reasonable saving.
 
I had run all my data cable in cat6. The main reason i done this is because i eventually want to use hdbaset 5play, which carries hdmi infra red, internet ... over a single cat6 cable. Cant do that on cat5;)
 
Plus, if you get good cat6 (the Black Box stuff is 550mhz), then you have the option of eventually replacing your patch panel and switch, and getting 100GbE
 
I have run all my cables from under my stairs. I have 3 cat6 and 2 hdmi v1.4 cables and a coax running to the living room tv. And just 1 cat6 and coax running to each bedroom. And 2 coax just under the stairs just incase i get sky.

I did start a thread of what i am doing. I just need the time to sit down and update and make it better.
 
You really should have run at least 2 Cat6 to each room. HDMI Distribution and Smart Tv would use 2.

I know HDBaseT Play5 can carry networking but most of the manufacturers of matrixes aren't implementing it as only !00Mb/s and quite frankly cheaper to run another cable than the uplift in the cost of Play5
 

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