404 Tech Support

Hardwired – Cat6 Networking My House

For some reason, Summer always translates into big projects around the house for me. Last year’s involved putting a new roof on the house. This year, the project was far less work in the heat and much cheaper. Being tech-inclined, I’ve always expected to have my house hardwired with network jacks in places where they would be useful. Wireless wasn’t really cutting it for range, reliability, or speed. I bought some time with powerline networking (See Networking Your House or Apartment Without Punching Holes In The Wall) but when I started streaming large files from the office to the TVs at opposite ends of the house, I decided it was time to run some cables.

I went with Cat6 cables and made everything else Cat6 (data jacks and patch cables) and a gigabit switch to speed up the network. I only had to cut one new hole in the wall. I was able to use some pre-existing holes from coax cable boxes and in one case, I improved the coax that the cable company had running outside, up a wall, and back inside by bringing it inside the wall with the new network cables.

My house has a crawlspace which was more accessible than the attic, so I ended up running the cables under the house and spent a lot of time down there getting things figured out.

Tools/Materials:

Here are some of the general tips I picked up through this project.

Cutting

Drilling

Wiring

I was torn between the 500′ and 1000′ box of Cat6 cable but ended up opting for the 500′ box because based off of my estimates, it would still be more than enough to do my 6 pulls.

After all this, I had nice professional-looking network jacks reaching opposite ends of the house all wired up with gigabit speed. The TiVo, PS3, and laptop are noticeably more reliable and faster than going through the wireless or powerline adapters. I’m enjoying the ability to stream videos without any chugging or buffering.  Along with some shorter patch cables and a 26-port gigabit switch upgrade to the infrastructure, the project is very functional and looks great.

Knowing what I know now, I would estimate that I could get this project knocked out over a weekend if I had all the materials available.