Best Way to Run Ethernet Cable Through House

At present that we've adamant ethernet offers much better download speeds than wifi, how exercise we make it happen? There's a great commodity on Instructables (via LifeHacker) covering some high-level topics, and I encourage y'all to check that out. I'll try not to simply repeat all those steps here, but offer some alternatives on my particular installation.

Wiring a two-story house with a basement wasn't easy, just with some drywall-patching feel, running cables betwixt floors is possible. I have cable service coming in from the street into the basement, so that'southward where it fabricated the most sense to install the cable modem (the in-firm coax cables are pretty shoddy, so avoiding them allows the cable modem to go a stronger signal). There's a Wi-Fi access point downwards at that place, and a CAT-7 cable that runs up two floors into the cranium, then back downwards to a closet where another Wi-Fi admission betoken is set up, along with a switch and some other gear. The Television on the main floor and function also accept hardwired connections – more 1 to the TV room to comprehend the other electronics in the entertainment system.

Dropping a cable down from the cranium to the next floor is pretty straight-forward, and covered in that Instructables mail service. But when traversing more one floor, some drywall surgery is necessary considering you need to be able to access the joints betwixt floors. This isn't as hard as information technology sounds; basically yous cut a hole large enough to fit a drill in and drill a 1-two inch hole into the 2×four. Recall that because you'll be patching the hole in the wall, smaller is not necessarily better – give yourself plenty of room to work with.

Utilize a coat hanger to fish the wire through on the other side, and tack your cables to a stud to keep them not bad and out of the way in case there is whatever futurity wall cutting. Annotation that yous'll want to go on these cables away from ability lines in the walls, and if you practise have to intersect a wire carrying live current (say to an electrical outlet), effort to cross the wire at a 90 degree angle to prevent interference on the line. Also keep in mind that at that place is a gap of upward to 16 inches between floors, so you'll need to drill holes from both the top and bottom on each level. Earlier sealing things dorsum up make sure to spray in some fire-break foam in the pigsty, which will prevent the wall cavity from acting like a mini-chimney.

Y'all may find that the walls don't line upwards when going betwixt floors; depending on the orientation of your floorboards this might not be besides much of a trouble. Later drilling downward from the floor above, I cut a small-scale hole in the ceiling to find the hole inside the wall from the flooring above.

Using a coat hanger I was able to thread the ethernet cablevision through the infinite and over to another small hole in the ceiling, where I was able to continue the path down the far wall. Fortunately the floor joists went the right direction; if they went the other style I'd have had to cut open a much larger hole, and drill horizontally through each floor board, which would Not exist fun.

Finally, y'all'll install a 1-gang box and apply some KeyStone connectors, then patch upward all the drywall. Hither you lot see ane set up of ethernet ports already installed, with some other cable coming in from another location (yes, I could accept put them all in a single 4-port wall plate just they were done at dissimilar times.)

As always, apply circumspection when cutting into walls or drilling through flooring joists; you lot never know what'due south on the other side of those things! During my projection I only had a unmarried near-miss to a PVC h2o pipe, but piercing that would have been catastrophic. Not to mention if information technology would accept been a gas line or power cablevision…

Equipment you lot may demand:

1. Jab Saw – for cut the drywall.
2. Long, Large (at least 1 Inch) Drill $.25 – y'all may be drilling through at to the lowest degree 2 ii×iv'southward in those floor studs, so you'll desire the bits to be reasonably long. And since you'll be running cable through there, they'll need to be pretty wide besides
3. CAT6 Ethernet Cablevision – I mostly recommend Cat6 at least (if not the unofficial Cat7 cable) since these things aren't going to be very accessible in the walls, and I've had a bad experience in the past with "cross-talk" where a cable line was running likewise close to a power line. The higher the number, the more than shielding there is to avoid this blazon of interference.
4. Ethernet Crimp Tool – This isn't strictly necessary if y'all buy the proper length wire, but y'all can find longer lengths much cheaper, so cut them to size and add your ain connectors.
5. Platinum Tools 100010C EZ-RJ45 Cat half dozen+ Connectors, Clamshell, fifty-Pieces – if you're planning on cut your ain cable lengths, I suggest these guys. They're a niggling pricier but easier to use because you pull the individual wires through the front.
6. Borescope – this also isn't strictly necessary, only it'due south squeamish to exist able to insert a photographic camera into the hole you just drilled to encounter what's on the other side. That's how I discovered the "almost-miss" on that water pipe.
7. Coat Hanger – for pulling cablevision between floors and wall spaces.
8. Fire-Retardant Sealing Cream – you'll spray this stuff in the holes in the floor joists after dropping the cable to re-seal the pigsty. This prevents the pigsty from condign a fire hazard, and insulates the hole against air leakage.
9. Unmarried Gang Depression Voltage Mounting Subclass – this bracket volition hold the wall plate in place on the drywall, and doesn't need to exist nailed or screwed to a stud.
10. Keystone Wall Plate and Connectors – These come in a variety of configurations, with the wall plates having 1, ii, iii, 4, or 6 empty ports that y'all click in whatever connector you demand – in this case information technology would be RJ45 Inline Keystone Couplers, but the neat matter almost this modular setup is that you could have, say, two ethernet ports, an HDMI port, and a Coax port all in i wall plate by your abode entertainment system.
11. Tape, spackle, putty knife, pigment – for patching up the drywall that was cutting open up.

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Source: https://homeautomationguru.com/wiring-ethernet-between-floors/

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