Coaxial cable and phone wire installation

This may be the wrong place to ask this question, but here goes. I need to wire the house for cable (TV). This is a peer and beam house with limited attic space -- an attic install would require a hearty, short person with a tolerance for blown insulation.

Questions:

1) The cable TV installer said he couldn't do the job under the house because he needed some sort of right angle drill bit. He said I should call an electrician. What's that all about?

2) I figure I should run CAT 5 cable along side the coax at the same time to be proactive. Can they coexist side by side without interference?

3) Is it cool to run the lines straight under the house from point A to point B or should they snake around the perimeter, walls and beams to stay out of the way? (I like to do things the right way if it doesn't double the cost.)

4) My house has no ground wires running to fixtures or outlets. Should this be done at the same time or is that a whole other mess to deal with later?

Thanks in advance, Crabshell

Reply to
Crabshell
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CATV installers often do not snake wires or run them internally. They can be run with Cat5 and terminated on the same wall plate. Electricians and alarm companies often run these cables, snaked in walls . All your cables should be home runs to a designated point, usually where the main line comes to the building. Are your non grounded cables non metallic, and how did you determine that they have no grounds?

Reply to
RBM

Answered inline for clarity

It is called a lazy installer. Assuming you are putting boxes in the wall this does require some careful measuring and moderate difficulty pulling the wire.

Coax and cat5 are fine side by side. They can terminate in the same box. You can even buy face plates that have a cable/ network or phone jack.

Direct lines are fine if supported. Along structual members or perpindicular to joists is the preferred method. Note that all cable runs should serve only one outlet (called home run) and should run from the point of entry to the oulet. I actually prefer to run my phone lines in this manner also but they are frequently ran in a series (from box to box).

If you are thinking you might want a wired network you should home run each cat5 box to a central loacation where you can then configure the wires as you see fit. Note that it not reccommended to use the same cat5 wire for a data network and POTS. If you are thinking network or other communication equipment this termination point should not be in the crawlspace (a closet is good)

That is a whole different ballgame. Do one project at a time.

Reply to
Colbyt

In all fairness to cable installers, they are not necessarily "lazy installers". It is often cable company policy not to do internal installations as it would take to much time and simply cost to much

Reply to
RBM

Our cable company states they charge extra to run the wiring in the walls if you want it done that way.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

As others have written, there will be no interference between Ethernet and coax. In theory, direct point-to-point wiring will provide the least signal loss but inside the footprint of a small house there is probably not going to be much loss anyway. While you are at it, instead of Cat-5 cable you may want to consider Cat-6 to be ready for future needs. Of course gigabit Ethernet equipment has come down greatly in price already so right now might be the time to start using it. I'm seriously considering re-pulling all of my Cat-5 before closing up the last openings in the basement.

Reply to
John McGaw

It's a lot more work, it should cost more. You're lucky you even have the option

Reply to
RBM

Unless you have a network of computers in your house, that regularly transfer massive files,between themselves, you're wasting your time as your bottleneck is in your internet connection, which is good for maybe 15 mega-bits per second

Reply to
RBM

The other posters covered 1-3 well. I might add that you should use a cable amplifier with 4 or 8 outputs and run one to each room where you can then use a splitter. Avoid using splitters at all cost in the basic distribution system and you will have a better picture all around. If you only went to one or two TVs then a splitter would be fine but people rarely have such simple networs anymore. A splitter in one spot or a two way amplifier is needed if you have cable internet.

Splitters don't add noise (at least not white noise) but they divide the signal until it is competing with the noise and can no longer be reliably detected by the tuner. This usually turns up on some channels first as ghosting or patterned snow.

  1. No not at the same time, you don't even want the AC wires close to your network or cable wires if you can help it. Rewiring ground is best done one room at a time as you gut and remodel these rooms. I suggest adding a GFCI to the ungrounded outlets you want a ground hole on for extra protection. Its not a direct substitute for a safety ground but does provide some overlapping protection against shorts to ground.

Now if you had the walls open for some reason, then yes, put in every type of wire you think you might ever need.

Reply to
PipeDown

My brother had me wait for the Verizon cable installer in Dallas, who refused to put the computer cable in the room my brother wanted it. It was partially prewired to several rooms and he did go in the unfinished attic and connect a couple things.

When I discussed this at a Baltimore hamfest with a computer cable guy (that is, a public relations guy with a booth.), he insisted that they would put it whereever the customer wanted it, and the guy in Dallas should have also.

I don't think he was trying to sell me anything, because I'd made it pretty clear I wasn't in the market. In addition, it would be easy in my house to put in anywhere.

Reply to
mm

#2. Not only ok to run side by side, but you can buy it as one cable.

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#3. Ok to go point to point if it doesn't interfere with other things. Avoid running parallel to electrical cables.

Reply to
Steve Barker LT

According to my inspector, the electrical outlets have no ground. Most of the outlets around the house are 2-prong. He said even the few 3 prong plugs are not connected to a ground.

"RBM" wrote in news:TJYmg.1141$ snipped-for-privacy@fe11.lga:

Reply to
crabshell

"Colbyt" wrote in news:zI-dnddrccrqxwHZnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@insightbb.com:

Mostly I was going to use the cat5 for the POTS. I assumed every line had to run to a central location vs series. Series may be easier/more efficient. The network can run wireless I'm thinking...

Reply to
crabshell

He (installer) offered to run it through the exterior wall but discouraged that. I already have one hole in the brick where the AC lines run into the house so I figured I'd use the same hole for the coax then get out the expanding foam...

"RBM" wrote in news:Oh_mg.1169$ snipped-for-privacy@fe09.lga:

Reply to
crabshell

John McGaw wrote in news:mf_mg.30054$ snipped-for-privacy@bignews5.bellsouth.net:

Mostly I'm using the CAT5 for POTS -- but I thought the extra capability would be worth running that instead of CAT3. I've heard about CAT 6 and will price that. If it's not too much higher then that may be the way to go. However, if it's being used for the phone then I assume each line has to be run to the main phone block, so it may not be worth considering for a network run.

Reply to
crabshell

"PipeDown" wrote in news:oJ_mg.237$ snipped-for-privacy@newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net:

What the heck does a cable amplifier do? I figured I'd need a cable box in every room I want to watch TV in.

I figured I would run a single cable from the entry point into the home to a single location in each room. Do I need something more than that?

If I want cable internet some day vs dsl should I do a double coax run to at least one room and run the wireless connection from there? I can't see needing a home network where every room is on ethernet, but now that I think about it, I guess having a double coax run in every room along with cat 5 allows me the freedom to set up the network hub anywhere in the house, right? Ir is there some other reason for this? I feel like this is going to be overkill at some piont but again I'd like to do it right. Besides, if I run ethernet throughout the house it still all has to meet at a central location -- wherever that is.

Reply to
crabshell

mm wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I'm in Dallas. Must be something in the water....

Reply to
crabshell

That in itself does not verify that there is no ground in the cable, only that it is not attached to the outlet. What are the cables made of? what year was the house built?

Reply to
RBM

Cable as in 'coax cable'- a seperate issue from the decoder box. It amplifies trhe signal stength of whatever is going down the wire. I've never had any luck with them, personally.

Coax hasn't been used for ethernet for years. An extra cat5 run to each room, from wherever the cable modem/router is, or just get a wireless cable modem/router, and a card for each PC. Most cable internet companies assume wireless these days, and discourage wired systems. Makes life easier for them.

Ir is there some other reason for this? I feel like this is

If you want wired ethernet, yeah, they need to be 'home run' to a central point. A wall-mount router or hub next to the telephone wiring, which should also be home-run instead of point-to-point, and then an upstream link to the server or cable modem.

aem sends...

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Reply to
ameijers

Properly installed coax runs normally do not need an amplifier unless there are more than 5 outlets per house. That number may vary from different providers based on the signal they push down the wire. Generally the cable company will sell and install an approved unit at a nominal cost if you need one. It is normally ageist their TOS for you to install an unapproved amplifier on their system.

Running the second cable to one room or a closet might be a good choice since you have no basement. If you have enough wire and want to run it to more than one room.that is okay also. The internet connection is split off the main line at the entry point and it and the TV signals travel separate lines.

The last time I bought this stuff, 11-04, I bought 1000 feet of cat5 and 500 feet of coax for $130 including tax. Overall wire is higher now but there is not a lot of copper in either of these. I completely did a small house and have enough left over for a couple of more. What I am saying is that if you buy it right, it may not matter how much you use. The labor is virtually the same either way.

Colbyt

Reply to
Colbyt

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