Drilling holes & cable

I'm set to have cable installed for my internet. And, I've heard some horror stories about cable installers. Someone even asked me if I seen the movie called (Cableguy) or something like that. Now, no disrespect for anyone installing cable, because I know every profession has some employees that prefer to take shortcuts, instead of doing it the right way. But, what should I insist on, or watch out for?

I live in a bi-level home. There will be 2 hook-ups in the front part of the house, and 1 hook-up at the back of the house. The downstairs is finished, so they won't be able to run cable through floor joists.

I'm thinking, they will have to split it outside, and run two separate cables out front, and the one to the back.

I'm sure they do this all the time, but I don't want cable just draped or running sideways across the house. I want nice neat cables, and there are (shadow?) lines on the siding where the cable won't be so obvious.

I don't want the installer think he's dealing with some jerk (maybe I am!) telling them how to do their job. But hey, I got to live in this place.

Thanks!

Reply to
Sam S.
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Don't know where you live or what cable company is involved, but in NY, Cablevision is the major cable company and their installers do no internal wiring. They will only staple the cable to the outside of the house and drill a hole through the siding to connect it to a TV or computer. If you want neat, cables snaked inside your walls and coax jacks installed you need to hire and electrician

Reply to
RBM

A nice smile and a twenty dollar bill and the guy will run it any way you ask him to.

Reply to
JerryL

Well you can ask the guy if he is a pro or some greenhorn hack that is in a rush to get the job done. I guess it is a crap shoot to see who you get.

Sounds like what I have.

Depends on the construction of the house. I have siding and they ran the cable along the bottom of the siding and you can't see it. It goes around the door and can be seen if you are looking but 99% of hte people coming to the door would never notice it.

The guy that did my house explained how he was going to do it. The upside is the house is white and so is the cable so on the side it is barely noticeable where it runs up the wall. If I had a darker house I'd have to paint it to hide it. Be sure to ask before he stats so you get no big surprise when he drills the hole.

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

Why not install a wireless router? I am about to do the same thing. My son, who is a software engineer, told me that the new 805.11g systems are faster than the cable itself. You can put the router wherever you want and have wireless access everywhere in your house.

You will need to buy a wireless card for workstations and wireless PCMCIA cards for laptops, but the whole thing should cost a few hundred dollars.

For more information, check out alt.internet.wireless. If you are using Windows, also check microsoft.pulic.windows.networking.wireless.

Reply to
LurfysMa

Better make that a $ 50.00.

Reply to
Jim McLaughlin

I thought of that, but don't want to provide wireless service for my neighbors or add yet another potential hack / data theft opportunity.

I ran Cat 6 for internet, Cat 5 for phone, and quad shield RG 6 coax for cable tv to every room in the house and "home runned" it all to a closet in the daylight basement that backed up on an outside wall.

Had the cable guy install the cable drop though the wall that the closet backed up upon. Installed a 24 port 10/100 cable switch / router in the closet, along with a serious splitter amplifier for the cable tv.

I had to buy a long flexible bit (48" or 60", can't remember which) for the cable and a second fish tape and the tv amplifier splitter. I already had the network switch. Had to buy the coax, the Cat 6 and the Cat 5, and the

12v boxes and the end fittings / plates (nice Siemens stuff) for the various cable connections. Spent maybe $ 400.00 all told.

Took several weeks of evenings, but its a sweet system.

Hiring someone to do it will probably cost you about $ 1,500 from what I see here in PDX.

To me, the security of not using a wireless net was important, as I run my business from my home and use the internet a lot. My clients' data is private and needs to stay that way.

You may not have those concerns.

Reply to
Jim McLaughlin

That's why you turn on the security features in wireless.

Mike

Reply to
Michael Daly

The n'hood association decided it wanted lights on the end of each row of townhouses. I said, OK you can put one on mine, but you have to go in through the wall behind the fixture, and you have to connect the ceiling light, the fan, and the new outside light, that I hadn't been able to squeeze in the same box. Their electrician did all that. It looks fine.

A few years later, my next door, neighbor in the next building let them put a light on the end of his house and they ran alumimnum conduit from the front of the houseb 15 feet back and then 5 feet up, when he had dark brown aluminum siding. It looks like a factory. AFAIK, he isn't even annoyed.

Isn't there pre-made brown conduit they could have used? Conduit looks bad no matter what, but it could have been brown.

And then there are several of my neighbors who put in flood lights in the back yard by running conduit or romex from what had been their back porch light. I used the receptacle in the bedroom wall, went one foot up and put in a switch** and straight through the wall to put in the fllodlight. Looks great.

**Used a low profile switch, and an extra layer of something so that the wall plate is high enough to keep me from turning the light on or off with my pillow when I'm sleeping.

Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.

Reply to
mm

Exactly. My son tells me he has encryption for the data and huge passwords for each PC. The neighbors are not using his hot spot. He, on the other hand, can go out on his back porch and connect to 2-3 neighboring networks. ;-)

Reply to
LurfysMa

"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote

Thanks Ed,

For the one room, it will have to cross the front door. I was thinking about how he would do it. I have a kickplate which he could run behind then up the wall again, but I like the idea going over/around the door.

Reply to
Sam S.

"LurfysMa" wrote

Thanks, I am getting a wireless router tonight because of a desktop in another room. But, I get three rooms installed free, and two of the rooms are for the boob tubes.

Reply to
Sam S.

"Edwin Pawlowski" wrote

How far off the floor should the holes for the cable be? I kinda would like to use the stud finder, and mark where I want the holes.

I know enough that they shouldn't be between 14" & 16", because of electrical wiring.

Thanks again.

Reply to
Sam S.

Your faith in "security feaures" in wireless is both sweetly touching and dangerously naive.

Reply to
Jim McLaughlin

Your faith in "security feaures" in wireless is both sweetly touching and dangerously naive.

Reply to
Jim McLaughlin

Mine are between 14" & 16", the same as the receptacle boxes. They are terminated in a wall mounted cover plate and the cable runs from there to the TV.

Reply to
Edwin Pawlowski

Some cable companies have two tiers of installation wiring:

1) "standard" (no extra cost) 2) "custom" (billed by the hour at a rather high rate).

If "custom" service is available to you and it is an important issue for you, then you can pay the extra charge to have a good looking installation.

I had 4 new cable installations added in our 2-story home several years ago. I wasn't in the mood to pay $65/hour to have some wires snaked through the walls, so I drilled the holes and snaked wires through the walls before the installers arrived. The installation was trivial for the installers. They went to the basement cable entry point and installed a 5-way splitter. Then, one at a time, they tied each new cable to one of my cords hanging from the basement ceiling. After which they went upstairs and pulled on the cord to snake their coax cable through the walls. Obviously, I paid no "custom install" charges.

Snaking the 4 cords through the walls took me less than 2 hours. If I had paid for the installers to do that work, I'm certain that I would have been billed a minimum of 1 hour for each of the 2 installers. Less than 2 hours work to save $130 or more and to get a clean install was well worth it to me.

My basement is unfinished and the cable runs were fairly easy, although I did violate code by running part of one cable through a section of cold air return.

If you have a finished basement, can you run one coax wire up to the attics, install a 3-way splitter up there, and then drop lines down the walls to the appropriate rooms? I'm not very familiar with bi-level homes, but I'll bet you can find a solution.

I've seen enough ugly exterior coax cable wiring to know that it is worth the effort and/or cost to do it right. The house across the street from me has black coax cables running all over the white exterior of the house. Looks like crap.

Gideon

Reply to
Gideon

If someone wanted to, they could eavesdrop on your cable (that's cable TV, DSL/phone or cat5/6). So much for your security.

Mike

Reply to
Michael Daly

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