CAT5 into loft

[CandT]

Moved into my nearly new Redrow house last year, and even though I have Wifi access all over the house, the reception in the 'office' (rear bedroom), is not as good as I'd like, so what I would like to do is to put the access point in the loft for the upstairs, as the router (in the lounge by the phone socket), has a wireless capability, so I can use that when I'm downstairs, and the loft AP for upstairs to give me great coverage...

So basically, the access point need a CAT5 connection to the router (Lounge-->Loft). Getting the cable there is another matter though... These are my conclusions so far...

A) Go out of the Sky cable hole in the wall, and pin to the outside of the house and into the loft. I don't really want a cable externally as I don't have a big ladder, and the light grey CAT5 is ugly !!

B) I thought about pulling the cable up into the loft with the TV coax which is presented behind the TV, and after joining the coax, the cat5 and a piece of sting to pull the coax back down, I got into the loft only to find that I couldn't budge the coax from that end, it really feels like it is caught quite close to the top, but I can't get close enough access to see what the problem is...

C) There's no option to run the cable through the house, up walls, through ceiling, etc as my wife would kill me for butchering our luvly new place!!

So there we go - any other non-destructive ideas?

Cheers all,

CndT

[Grunff]

And won't last more than a couple of years outside.

Either live with having a cable running along an internal wall (who'd notice it, really?), or chase in the cable (get your chisle out and make a channel in the wall for it to run up).

[CandT]

Blimey - that was quick..

My wife would notice it !! And chasing it isn't an option, as it would require decorating at lease 2 rooms, and going through 2 ceilings!!

Back to the drawing board I suppose...

I don't suppose theres a RJ45--->Coax type system - as I don't actually use the coax cable at all, it's not even connected in the loft!!! That would be ideal..

Cheers,

CandT

[Julian Fowler]

Cable duct placed wall/ceiling in a corner, subsequently painted the same colour as the room walls, is a reasonable alternative, and more amenable to subsequent rewiring/additional wiring.

Julian

[Parish]

What colour is the Sky cable? Black? If so, why not use black CAT5. 15m should be long enough and Dabs have 4 in stock, £11.75 inc. VAT

've run a CAT5 round the outside of the house from the office at the back to the front lounge - it's *pink* 'coz that's the only colour I could get a 30m one in at the time. Fortunately it's not visible from the front of the house :-)

[Lurch]

Never mind.

Get another colour cat5 then.

You've got no chance basically. Not worth explaining.

Don't do that then.

Yes, but none that I think you could manage. There is the cavity wall route, I managed to route all the TV, computer and phone cables through our house without having one on show or having to decorate anywhere. It all depends on your house layout.

SJW A.C.S. Ltd.

[CandT]

office window!!!!! See - thats what getting a second opinion does, what a pleb...

So I can basically run a black CAT5 cable WITH the sky cable , and put it through the outside wall - straight into the office itself!!!, then have the Access point IN the office itelf.. Admittedly, I could plug the PC staight into the router with this cable, as the laptop doesn't have a problem with the wireless signal downstairs, so not need a second access point at all...!! But if I run 2 CAT5 cables, I have double RJ45 socket boxes, so could run 2 cables at the same time...

Thanks all - more to think about!! You can guarantee that the hole in the wall for the Sky cable won't be big enough for 2 Cat5 cables!!

CandT

[Grunff]

I guess if you like ducts - I'd rather see a bare cable than a PVC duct anyday!

[Grunff]

Depending on the coax, you could run 10baseT down it - but that's a

10Mbit maximum.

[CandT]

I get the impression you're not a big fan of people doing things themselves, I've enough confidence in my ability to wire up a socket in the loft without burning the house down I think, but I was just confirming that I wasn't doing anything illegal or stupid. The group is call uk.d-i-y after all ;-)

As for this thread, an external CAT5 will be the route I'll take, which negates the need for that AP in the loft, leaving the lighting the only thing I need - which should be fine running off the ceiling rose, through a 3A fused switch...

Cheers for your help though... sniff - whats that burning smell ;-)

CandT

[Harry Bloomfield]

CandT wrote on Thursday (29/01/2004) :

The TV cable will probably have been laid on the wall then channel nailed over the top, so unlikely to pull out.

Prior to CAT5 and RJ45 they used a 50 Ohm coax system for 10Mb LAN's. You might be able to pick up a couple of cheap routers which support both systems, then use the TV coax to link them. Although the TV cable is not really suitable, there would be no problems doing this over such a short distance.

Another way would be to drop a CAT5 down in the cavity wall, assuming you have no insulation in there and there are no windows blocking the intended path. It will not be easy fishing it through though, without taking a brick out at the ground floor.

Try the following, before removing a brick... Start by drilling a hole then feeding something steel through on the end of a long peiece of string. then try fishing for it with a magnet on the the end of another long piece of string..... You might just be lucky.

[Parish]

Unless you've got (or can borrow) a crimping tool to add your own RJ45 plugs you'll need a made up cable. I needed a 16mm hole to get it through, and even then the Belkin cables have "snagless" plugs which have "wings" either side to stop the release catch, err, snagging on things. I had to fold them over and hold them down with insulating tape to get them through the hole.

[Lurch]

If you're not putting a socket in the loft you only need to run a cable from a ceiling rose to a switch in the loft then onto the lights, no sockets or fuses in sight. And I'm not against diy, I'm against people doing things wrong, be they so called profesionals or diyer's

SJW A.C.S. Ltd.

[Parish]

I would expect UV to be the biggest problem there so it should be alright if it is on a north-facing wall (as mine is).

[Tim Downie]

It will probably be of no use to you but if you have an internal boxed-in soil stack and you can get from the lounge to the soil stack, you may be able to use this as a route to the loft. I've certainly been able to drop a weighted string down alongside my soil stack for a similar purpose.

Tim

[CandT]

I've got a punchdown to wire up some RJ45 sockets I have, then I can use standard patch cables for wiring from the socket to the router - so I only need to get the cable through the wall..

CandT

[Julian Fowler]

Once painted, a corner-fitted duct effectively disappears into the decor ... we have this in 3 corners of our sitting room (two carrying speaker cables, one carrying phone/network) -- barely noticable unless you know they're there.

Since the OP was concerned about the opinion of his SWMBO, a discreet, disguised duct is probably more acceptable than bare cable!

Julian

[Parish]

I thought insulation in the cavity has been mandatory for some time now, so a "nearly new" house would almost certainly have it.

[CandT]

I'm exactly the same with computer users who don't know what they are doing either, not having a go at you mate... We've just had a bunch of users in one of our offices get infected with Doom because they didn't want to reboot their PC's to get the latest virus update, because they like the windows where they are... ffs

Only just found this group, and already learned something though - so won't be making the loft mistake again ;-)

Cheers,

CandT

[Lurch]

Tell me about it, one of our clients has three offices. We've just upgraded their circa 1985 serial network affair to a multisite logon into a terminal server at the HO. Only trouble is no-one wants to do what we tell them. The most annoying problem we have is the person who keeps unplugging the ADSL link at the HO to plug their laptop modem in thus dropping all remote sessions on the server. For weeks they've been denying they do this so we've been scratching our heads a bit! But last week I saw them unplug it!! Can't see the owner of the firm being too happy when we send in the invoice for numerous callouts, phone calls, and having BT and the ISP people involved as well.

SJW A.C.S. Ltd.