Home Improvement → Running Ethernet Between Floors Of A House?

Easy way, find a common wall from the first to the second, and run a ethernet jumper between floors. Then you will be able to use a Access Point for the first, and/or router upstairs. Going with Apple's Airport devices is overkill, and you can get the same performance out of Linksy or other products.

Sorry, not meaning to hijack this thread but was just wondering how you go about this? How does the cable enter and exit the duct work? We currently have hot water baseboard heat and our last house had it as well which is not conducive to central air. We may be moving in a year or two and my next house will definitely be forced air so if I need to string wires I may do it that way.

If you have thinnet in place, get some transceiver baluns to break them out rj45 and you should get atleast 10baseT through put which is fine for today's internet speeds.

You can get em for $5 bucks or less...

Well, then, the answer is right under your nose. 10 mbps 10Base2 is a helluva lot faster than DSL and plenty fast enough for a three or four computer network. Adapters, switches and everything you need are readily available, dirt cheap.

Use what's there, it'll be a long time before you'll wish you hadn't.

I wouldn't. Merely stating what is possible. I would run the wiring within the walls, to a home-run point at the house's DSL entrance, where I would situation the router. I would put in wall plates and jacks at every point I wanted connectivity.

The OP is looking for an easy way out. Running it in the walls for an experienced installer is a piece of cake; often even more so in older homes, especially if they have balloon framing. Plaster or gypsum board makes little difference with the right tools and experience. Running it in the ductwork - while legal with plenum cable - is a real crappy way to handle the job if you ask me.

Right and when you use non-plenum ("other sorts of cable") cable it will give off toxic smoke when burning.

The point of my post is in a burning home a single (or 5) Ethernet cables burning isn't going to matter but in a large building with 1000 cables you must be absolutely certain you are using the right stuff... also due to random fire inspections, and also just because 1000 burning cables giving off toxic smoke IS going to make a difference.

Have you ever tried to work with 10base2 networks? »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10base2

It was a Daisy Chain network, and if you lost one connection, you where screwed.
»www.sas.upenn.edu/~cns/10b2.htm

Also, the network would run as fast as the slowest device on the network, and if you had a bottleneck at one device, the system came to a crawl.

I have, and for just 'internet' use, not transferring large files often around the network, it should do just fine. If you're just making a hop between two floors, then having a transceiver on other end would be the only two 'points', so it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

I did something similar back before 10baseT became commonplace, when a 10Mb PCI card was $100.

I installed about 50 of them between 1988 and 1996. Beat the hell out of arcnet or token ring.

You comment about slowest device sounds a lot like the complaint about 802.11b/g wireless, now doesn't it?

If the wiring is already in place, transcievers and switches can economically facilitate a small network without tearing up a 100 year old house.

Also, if the wire is in place, most likely it is just hanging free in the wall, and you can tie on a Cat-5e cable and pull up to the next floor.

Don't you wish everything was as easy as just tying on a cat5 and pulling it up to the next floor in a 100 year old house?

You'd have to get real lucky for that scenario to work.

Only if the lines where not stapled in the last remodel. In Commercial structures, wires are usually ran through conduit, or Flextube across ceilings. If a drop ceiling, it will be in a tray, or tied in the bundle.

another bad thing about 10base2 is the latency. greater than 100ms/interface, if you're lucky.

beyond all doubt, WAPs coupled with ethernet over powerline (which comes in a more expensive, faster versions) for the floor hop seems best.

of course, i'm not sure i buy that one wap can't see another through the floor or walls, which would make the powerline stuff superfluous. OP: are you sure you are running your current wireless system in G mode only, and on a frequency that isn't being hogged by someone nearby and/or a wireless phone? i've found broadcast distances cut in half when shared with other devices, and N-type wireless seems more susceptible than regular g-type (mainly because N uses a wider spectrum).

sorry, forgot this:

»db.tidbits.com/article/9050

I would kinda think this is going to all depend on where the renovations (structural or otherwise) fall, relative to where you'd want to place your cable.

There should be a wet wall in there which likely would have a larger free space and could be used as a cable run. Trick is where is it, and does it fall somewhere that works with what you want to do.

The walls could be plaster lath as well which can be a PITA to cut into, but can be done neatly if you take your time.

I haven't worked with powerline ethernet but that does seem to be a decent idea assuming it would work on what may be an older electrical system in this house.

It's not that they can't see each other, but that they can't see each other well. This house eats wireless signals. Cell phones have zero reception in most of the house, except for right by the double doors to the patio, which are glass. And this is the case even though there is a cell tower on a hill about six houses up the street.

Each access point works reasonably well on the floor that it's on, and each access point can see the one above or below it, but the signal is very weak. I'm really thinking that Ethernet of Powerline might be the answer.

I'm also going to look into going just 802.11g. Presently the network is 802.11b/g, because there were some b only devices it had to work with. However, the last of those has just recently been relegated to the trash heap.

Just because the tower is on the hill, does not mean that it is your provider. If signal quality is poor, then there may be a issue of metal in the walls, which would not be normal for plaster walls.

As soon as I step outside my cell goes to full signal. The problem is that chicken wire was used to stucco the outside of the house, and also probably in several places where they plastered the interior. Essentially, the house is a large Faraday cage.

Due to the shape of the house, the access point with the direct access to the DSL modem on the second floor has a line of sight to the access point on the main floor that includes two exterior walls. This is what's causing the signal to be so weak.

Go with the cable to put a run between floors, and you may have to go with more then one A/P on the main floor. As for outdoors, you will have to put up a outdoor antenna to allow you to use on property.

At least you have Stucco, I have Aluminum Siding on my house, and lucky to get a signal 10 feet out the backdoor.

When drilling holes in 100 year old houses, try to minimize the dust created, and any inhalation of that dust, as it very likely contains Asbestos.

Something a lot of people overlook when making improvements to older homes.

While that may be true; the code applies to one, just as it applies to 10,000.