House Rewire

[Virtual_Unknown]

I'm getting the house we've just moved into rewired in Jan/Feb and aside from the changing of cables, extra plug sockets and light switches etc what should I be looking at for future proofing the house?
Is it worth getting ethernet cables run to every bedroom for wired internet access?

Whilst I'm having the work done, spending the money and making the mess I want to make sure I'm as future proof as possible so I don't have to worry about doing anything again.

 

[JamesBryan]

Ethernet cables would be a good shout.

 

[Stay Puft]

Unless your house is huge are ethernet cables necessary? Surely in the future absolutely everything will be wireless

 

[Steve]

New consumer unit, power in garage if you have one, power front & back of house (lawn mowers, pressure washer etc)

 

[Virtual_Unknown]

Unless your house is huge are ethernet cables necessary? Surely in the future absolutely everything will be wireless

It's not super huge (4 bed detached), just thinking that it gives a better connection for my son on his xbox in his room and my wife for her laptop in the room shes using as her office for not much extra cost and hassle whilst we're doing the whole rewire.

 

[Akay]

Cat6/or 5e, if you can route it easily, is nice to have. You can use pairs of Cat6 to form HDMI for example, its also great for taking the load of your wireless if you can have devices hard-wired for streaming etc.

That being said you can use Powerline for this if you really wanted to.

 

[adamlstr]

Ethernet everywhere, did the same to my house during its renovation last year. The less reliance on wifi and powerline, the better.

You could always run extra ethernet to places like your front door, external corners of the property, for security and cctv. And if you ever want to do smart-home stuff, run a load more ethernet than you need and leave it dormant.

I also have my main BT socket and virgin media coax all terminating in the same place as the cat6.

 

[iimushroomzii]

I wouldn't bother with any Ethernet cat what ever cables there is zero point. Just get plenty of sockets put in, put more than you think you need.

 

[iimushroomzii]

Ethernet everywhere, did the same to my house during its renovation last year. The less reliance on wifi and powerline, the better.

You could always run extra ethernet to places like your front door, external corners of the property, for security and cctv. And if you ever want to do smart-home stuff, run a load more ethernet than you need and leave it dormant.

I also have my main BT socket and virgin media coax all terminating in the same place as the cat6.

Do you use it?

 

[Martin.]

Ethernet for sure. I hate to rely on wireless.

Also consider virgin cables, or BT cables from the junction box at the front of your house to where the TV etc might be. I put in virgin cables, ethernet cables and BT cables through all my walls in the lounge with nice sockets ready to plug anything from possible providers.

 

[adamlstr]

I wouldn't bother with any Ethernet cat what ever cables there is zero point. Just get plenty of sockets put in, put more than you think you need.

I'm in IT.

I dislike wifi.

Any device in my house that can be wired, is so. Every TV, every apple TV, every computer, every console.

 

[iimushroomzii]

I'm in IT.

I dislike wifi.

Any device in my house that can be wired, is so. Every TV, every apple TV, every computer, every console.

Why? Serious question

 

[R3k1355]

It's faster than wifi, more reliable than wifi, the latency is lower so it's better for gaming. POE mean you can run it for security cameras too.

Cat 7 cable is available now, it supports pretty mental speeds, plenty to ensure future-proofing.

 

[Virtual_Unknown]

New consumer unit, power in garage if you have one, power front & back of house (lawn mowers, pressure washer etc)

Ethernet everywhere, did the same to my house during its renovation last year. The less reliance on wifi and powerline, the better.

You could always run extra ethernet to places like your front door, external corners of the property, for security and cctv. And if you ever want to do smart-home stuff, run a load more ethernet than you need and leave it dormant.

I also have my main BT socket and virgin media coax all terminating in the same place as the cat6.

That's what I was thinking, are you using a switch? If so where have you located it? Considering the loft if I go for one.

Did you have to get BT out to move your main BT socket?

 

[adamlstr]

It's faster than wifi, more reliable than wifi, the latency is lower so it's better for gaming. POE mean you can run it for security cameras too.

Cat 7 cable is available now, it supports pretty mental speeds, plenty to ensure future-proofing.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Also, the less I have to hear the wife complain about the wifi being broken, the better.

 

[adamlstr]

That's what I was thinking, are you using a switch? If so where have you located it? Considering the loft if I go for one.

Did you have to get BT out to move your main BT socket?

Switch/cab is in the loft, but beware of temperatures in summer. You will need to think about getting some air circulation up there.

My switch is a passively cooled Juniper one, so there's no noise.

Moving a BT socket is a piece of piss, just be wary they carry a couple of volts.

 

[Ol’ Tarby]

Hardwired is always going to be better than any wireless equivalent....and that's coming from someone who specialises in radio and wireless stuff.

Wireless stuff is just convenient

 

[Virtual_Unknown]

Switch/cab is in the loft, but beware of temperatures in summer. You will need to think about getting some air circulation up there.

My switch is a passively cooled Juniper one, so there's no noise.

Moving a BT socket is a piece of piss, just be wary they carry a couple of volts.

It was either the loft or under stairs cupboard but assumed the cupboard would get too hot.
Your BT socket is in the loft with your switch then?

 

[adamlstr]

Yeah, not that it's in use right now.

As soon as BT hurry up and FTTC my nearest cab, I'll use it again.

 

[Virtual_Unknown]

Yeah, not that it's in use right now.

As soon as BT hurry up and FTTC my nearest cab, I'll use it again.

And then will you have your Sky hub on some sort of smart plug so if it needs resetting you can do it without having to go up into the loft? This is basically my plan. It started out as just using the 4 ethernet ports on the back of my Sky hub and has now escalated.

 

[adamlstr]

My virgin router is modem mode (no routing or wifi), and I use a few Asus AC86 routers meshed together spread around the house.

With my setup, I never have to reboot a thing.

 

[Rojer]

@adamlstr Do you watch LTT on YT? He released a video yesterday which i found really interesting using fiber cables etc.

 

[The Psychedelic Socialist]

I'd definitely go for ethernet. I've never seen wireless or powerline get close to ethernet for sustained transfers (at least with the kit I've tried).

We ran ethernet outside our house to wire everything up. It's an old house with lots of really solid stone walls internally and even with three decent access points hardwired into the ethernet there are some slow spots.

Also there are oddities like our LG TV is notionally 802.11n but the wireless adaptor in it is to a 100meg network controller so it can't stream properly on wireless. Plug in the cable and it's fine.

 

[ChrisR]

If doing a rewire it’d make sense to run some Ethernet whilst you’re there.

Annoyed I didn’t get it sorted when we moved house into a new build, although ones we’re looking at now come with some already (I’d probably add a few more to the ones they give you).

Saying that running wireless in this and last house was no problem, never had an issue with reliability or latency. Yeah speed will never match a wired connection, guess how much data you’re shunting about and how often

I get a reliable 400Mbps (40ish MB/s transfer speeds) in the furthest room.

Power line was a lot less when trying that.

I’d also get a could of cable runs to sit in the ceilings in appropriate locations so if you wanted to stick an access point up the cabling is already there.

 

[Jamie86]

Just remember not to run data alongside the power unless its shielded.
But as everyone else has said hardwired is always better imo.

 

[glenn_adam_doble]

(haven't read the thread so may have been mentioned) i wouldn't worry about wired internet access, wifi is good enough now to not really require it, for the average joe internet user,

cat cable is a good shout for AV though, centralise all your sky, virgin, PS3, xbox ect in one cupboard and have it sent over cat to every telly, saves on a s**t load of clutter under each tv,

or if not of interest,

assuming they will be chasing the walls in for new T+E
HDMI's buried in the walls between the tv and a side cabinet or corner of the room