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Mersault
join:2007-10-26
Toronto, ON

Mersault

Member

Running Ethernet Between Floors Of A House?

Not specifically TSI related, but I figure someone here might have a good answer. Some family friends of mine live in an old house (circa early 20th century, heavily renovated). I suspect the plaster was put up using chicken wire or similar, so you can imagine how well wireless travels between rooms and floors. They have the DSL modem on the second floor, connected to an Apple Airport Extreme Base Station, and two Airport Express' on the first and third floors, respectively. They're all setup using WDS, but because the wireless signal dies so much between floors, the connections through the two Airport Express' can be extremely poor.

An easy solution would be to run Ethernet from the Base Station to each of the Airport Expresses. I'm wondering if anyone here has any experience with running Ethernet through walls in an older home. They have nice glaze finishes on the walls, so they're not interested in having people tear the walls apart to run the cable. Are there companies that do this in a fairly non-destructive manner? Who would I call about this? Any estimates on costs?

Angelo
The Network Guy
Premium Member
join:2002-06-18

Angelo

Premium Member

if you don't want a mess do it your self i found companies you hire do a piss poor job... ie make you redo the wall.

get a pencil and trace what you need to cut out.... double check.. when it comes to cutting the wall make it slightly smaller

this will ensure you make the whole the right size . finish the install off with your prefered face plate. (crimping cat5 i'd buy the right tools cost you about 100 bucks... without one your end up with a poorly done connection.)

cabling wise i'd go cat6 but cat5e is also fine.
Expand your moderator at work

JayMan26
Whoot
Premium Member
join:2002-06-05
Earth

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Re: Running Ethernet Between Floors Of A House?

And I said what I do and have/had no issues with it.

Angelo
The Network Guy
Premium Member
join:2002-06-18

Angelo

Premium Member

the issue is the insurance companies will void any house insurance you have once they inspect the house...

please don't give people stupid advice you do...

if he was to listen to you he would be paying whatever his house insurance is for nothing.
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Angelo

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Re: Running Ethernet Between Floors Of A House?

Mersault i should mention that you can also rent these tools from places like home depot.. i'd inspect them first before renting... If they are in fairly good shape it may be cheaper to go that route.

Mersault
join:2007-10-26
Toronto, ON

Mersault

Member

I'd really rather let them suffer with crappy wireless than try and attempt this project on my own. The other option is that apparently during the last renovation, the house was wired for the latest greatest high speed 10base2 coaxial cable. If I can find out where these cables are run, then I might be able to actually use the coaxial to pull the cat6 through. But that might be a long shot.

Angelo
The Network Guy
Premium Member
join:2002-06-18

Angelo

Premium Member

yes thats another option and they probally followed all the bylaws if it was done by a company

fourboxers
Mod
join:2003-05-04
Toronto

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(topic move) Running Ethernet Between Floors Of A House?

Moderator Action
The post that was here (and all 4 followups to it), has been moved to a new topic .. »OT

TilhasBB
Premium Member
join:2000-08-05
canada

2 edits

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Re: Running Ethernet Between Floors Of A House?

psssttt. i'll tell you guys a secret.
There is a much cheaper and hassel free solution.

its called Powerline Ethernet .

It's exactly what its called, it uses your powercable to run ethernet connection. its 85megabit so its pretty good !

Angelo
The Network Guy
Premium Member
join:2002-06-18

Angelo

Premium Member

said by TilhasBB:

psssttt. i'll tell you guys a secret.
There is a much cheaper and hassel free solution.

its called Powerline Ethernet

It's exactly what its called, it uses your powercable to run ethernet connection. its 85megabit so its pretty good !
yes, this is also anotehr good solution.

I've never done this as of yet so i couldn't tell you how much strain it'll put on your powerline system or if its worth the hassle.

TilhasBB
Premium Member
join:2000-08-05
canada

TilhasBB

Premium Member

Plug and Play !

Angelo
The Network Guy
Premium Member
join:2002-06-18

Angelo

Premium Member

here's some links i found for TilhasBB's sudguestion

»www.linksys.com/servlet/ ··· 22279B50

»www.linksys.com/servlet/ ··· 22279B49

»www.linksys.com/servlet/ ··· 22279B07

»www.linksys.com/servlet/ ··· 45678B05

TheBog
@ody.ca

TheBog to Mersault

Anon

to Mersault
Ethernet over the powerline is a good alternative, but there are a couple of things you may need to do...
First - when you link (plug in) the feed line - it will only feed to outlets on the same "side" of the power line - your house will have a 220 volt feed - from the road they will be red and black line feeds (plus the white and ground) if the Airport is power fed from the "black" and the upper is from the "red" you will need to move your breaker in your fuse panel. Max distance is (I believe) 150' (of cable distance)

Option 2 - look for a couple of Linksys WRT54G routers and install DD-WRT or Tomato and make or buy better antennas - boot the transmit power up to 200mw (standard wireless routers transmit at 13-17mw

I use option 2 - with an antenna from SharperImage and transmit set to 85, I can use my laptop, iPod touch and HP iPaq at up to 150' from the antenna and the total cost was under $100 - I got 3 used routers on kijiji.ca for a total cost of $70 - the antennas were $30, software was free with an hour to set up as wireless bridge.

whizkid3
MVM
join:2002-02-21
Queens, NY

whizkid3 to Angelo

MVM

to Angelo
For the record; you can run the ethernet cables in air-ducts, provided you use plenum cable. Its safe, code legal, and won't result in any ins. co. problems.

Warzau
Premium Member
join:2000-10-26
Naperville, IL

Warzau

Premium Member

Whizkid3 is always correct, I saw the OT you cannot run regular ethernet, it MUST BE PLENUM RATED.

McLovin
Chicka chicka yeah
Premium Member
join:2005-06-12
Fairbanks, AK

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Question, if the house is heavily renovated, what cable is ran to each of the phone jacks, and how many pairs are there? If there are at least 3 pair, you can wire one pair for the phone jack and get a wire an ethernet jack there. Find the termination point, hope for it being a 110 block, and finding the cable and punch down the other two pair and either pick up a few 8P8C (more commonly known as RJ45, though RJ45 is incorrect terminology for this) jacks, or if you get ambitious and want to wire a lot of them, get yourself a patch panel and wire it there with a switch. Granted you will have to put the core of the network down there, with a switch large enough to accomodate for all of the ethernet jacks. Then you can put wireless APs around the house to your desire. Sorry for the long reply, but generally at work, we run in to a lot of these types of problems in a lot of older buildings, where the walls are usually made with concrete.
McLovin

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plenum-shielded cable is also incredibly expensive in comparison.

Warzau
Premium Member
join:2000-10-26
Naperville, IL

Warzau

Premium Member

said by McLovin:

plenum-shielded cable is also incredibly expensive in comparison.
Def but Im sure it was in response to »OT which was recently split into another thread.

robbin
Mod
join:2000-09-21
Leander, TX

1 recommendation

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said by Mersault:

The other option is that apparently during the last renovation, the house was wired for the latest greatest high speed 10base2 coaxial cable. If I can find out where these cables are run, then I might be able to actually use the coaxial to pull the cat6 through. But that might be a long shot.
Why not just use them. 10base2 should be fast enough for DSL. All you are really trying to do is to get a stable signal from floor to floor. You can get converters to go from 10base2 to 10baseT.

»www.amazon.com/dp/B000AA ··· Code=asn

Mersault
join:2007-10-26
Toronto, ON

Mersault

Member

So I'm liking the idea of the Ethernet over powerline, or possibly running plenum rated Ethernet through the air ducts if there happen to be convenient ducts around. There might be enough spare telephone cables in the walls to permit using one of them as a poor man's Ethernet cable. Wont be up to spec, but if it can carry signal better than the wireless connections than that's good enough.

Man, actually cutting holes in the walls seems like a dumb idea now.

bryanviper
join:2002-10-12
Toronto, CAN

bryanviper

Member

You could always run cat6 against the wall to whatever location. Sure it wont look as nice but you will get a great connection. Or even run it on the outside of the house to whatever level and room. Drill a hole and bring it inside.
TheMG
Premium Member
join:2007-09-04
Canada

TheMG

Premium Member

Or better yet, if you have carpet you can usually tuck the cable underneath the baseboards along the edges. As long as the carpet isn't glued down you can slip the cable underneath the carpet for where the cable needs to cross an area like a hallway.

joako
Premium Member
join:2000-09-07
/dev/null

joako to whizkid3

Premium Member

to whizkid3
said by whizkid3:

For the record; you can run the ethernet cables in air-ducts, provided you use plenum cable. Its safe, code legal, and won't result in any ins. co. problems.
Yes... The main issue with other sorts of cable in an air plenum is when you have a large building the drop ceilings are usually used as air returns and you have hundreds of ethernet cables. Problem is the plastic used in the insulation is toxic when burning. A single home with a single ethernet cable if it happens to burn isn't going to be a big deal. But It's still a hassle to run them in the air vents.

Why not drop an Ethernet cable out the 2nd floor window and into a 1st floor window? Or the same while just drilling holes on the walls instead of using the windows? Simply the EASIEST solution you can find.

Snakeoil
Ignore Button. The coward's feature.
Premium Member
join:2000-08-05
united state

Snakeoil to Angelo

Premium Member

to Angelo
said by Angelo:
said by TilhasBB:

psssttt. i'll tell you guys a secret.
There is a much cheaper and hassel free solution.

its called Powerline Ethernet

It's exactly what its called, it uses your powercable to run ethernet connection. its 85megabit so its pretty good !
yes, this is also anotehr good solution.

I've never done this as of yet so i couldn't tell you how much strain it'll put on your powerline system or if its worth the hassle.
I have been using a powerline adaptor for just over 6 months. I have had no problems wit it. I can stream video from youtube without a hiccup [I have cable internet]. I have played online games with no problem, can even dl files from newgroups/torrent sites with no problem. Installing was a peice of cake, just plug the powerline adaptor into a outlet, hook the ethernet cable to pc, then on the other one hook it up to the router. No software needed.

The only draw back is that you can't run them thru a surge protector. Also you'll need a few free outlets in your router room, if you have more then 1 pc located somewhere else in the house.
They also cost around 100 bucks and max speed is around 5mbs.

garys_2k
Premium Member
join:2004-05-07
Farmington, MI

garys_2k to joako

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to joako
said by joako:

said by whizkid3:

For the record; you can run the ethernet cables in air-ducts, provided you use plenum cable. Its safe, code legal, and won't result in any ins. co. problems.
Yes... The main issue with other sorts of cable in an air plenum is when you have a large building the drop ceilings are usually used as air returns and you have hundreds of ethernet cables. Problem is the plastic used in the insulation is toxic when burning.
No, plenum rated cable CAN be run in air return spaces because the plastic used does NOT emit toxic smoke.

supergirl
join:2007-03-20
Pensacola, FL

supergirl to Mersault

Member

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said by Mersault:

Not specifically TSI related, but I figure someone here might have a good answer. Some family friends of mine live in an old house (circa early 20th century, heavily renovated). I suspect the plaster was put up using chicken wire or similar, so you can imagine how well wireless travels between rooms and floors. They have the DSL modem on the second floor, connected to an Apple Airport Extreme Base Station, and two Airport Express' on the first and third floors, respectively. They're all setup using WDS, but because the wireless signal dies so much between floors, the connections through the two Airport Express' can be extremely poor.

An easy solution would be to run Ethernet from the Base Station to each of the Airport Expresses. I'm wondering if anyone here has any experience with running Ethernet through walls in an older home. They have nice glaze finishes on the walls, so they're not interested in having people tear the walls apart to run the cable. Are there companies that do this in a fairly non-destructive manner? Who would I call about this? Any estimates on costs?
Call Apple.