What Wires To Hide in New House

[jrangi]

Hi All



1st time I am using this website, therefore I hope I have used the correct forum.



I have bought a house that needs completely renovating before I can move in. This includes many internal walls, replastering the whole house and also rewiring. The electrican who is rewiring the whole house has asked me what "other" wires I wanted in the walls, and he may be able to feed them through at the same time. This has completely thrown me, as I was not expecting this question.



I have given it a bit of thought, and decided I could have Wireless Internet and Phone (cordless). I should feed some speaker wire in the lounge that I could connect up to a Plasma? -This is about it, please cam someone advise what other wires/cables I should consider putting behind the wall now that it should be fairly easy to hide. FYI I will use Telewest Cable for TV purposes.





Thanks in advance

[ricdiggle]

Welcome to the forum.



In order to answer your question you really need to say what you would like in each room in terms of computers, audio and video equipment.



I would run Cat 5 cable from every room back to your basement or loft for starters.

[jrangi]

Hi



We have a couple of laptops, therefore will use Wireless broadband. We are fairly simple and stick to having audio/video in the lounge only - however it is open plan. There is a biggish lounge and kitchen (all open plan) - therefore I would like to put some speakers in other parts of this "open plan".



With regards to using Cat 5 cable - is this solely for Computer Networking purposes? or can Cat 5 be used for other purposes?



All help is grateful received.



Thanks

[ricdiggle]

Hi



We have a couple of laptops, therefore will use Wireless broadband. We are fairly simple and stick to having audio/video in the lounge only - however it is open plan. There is a biggish lounge and kitchen (all open plan) - therefore I would like to put some speakers in other parts of this "open plan".



With regards to using Cat 5 cable - is this solely for Computer Networking purposes? or can Cat 5 be used for other purposes?



All help is grateful received.



Thanks








I think Cat 5 can be used for anything but I wouldn't honestly know.



I would certainly wire up to have speakers in you kitchen (pointing towards the cooker is a good idea) If you have nothing done yet and aren't too bothered about sound quality, I'd look to place speakers in the ceiling inside your area, all leading back to wherever you are going to place your equipment. If you think you'll end up going for a 7.1 surround system at some point then you need to decide where your sofas and screen are likely to be before you put any wiring in.



I was in a similar position to you about 2 years ago and ended up doing nothing. We run a wireless network as well but I wish to god I'd put cat5 into every room still. Home networking is likely to grow and grow and there is only so much that Wi-Fi can cope with.

[jrangi]

Thanks for your advice.



Speakers in the ceiling + kitchen - that does sound good.

[camsman]

i guess it all depends on how far you want to go



many people get confused when refering to data cabling and call everything "cat 5". Cat5 was fazed out in the mid 90's and replaced by cat5e and now there is cat6 and cat 7 will be officially released soon.



Each grade of cable allows faster communication speed BUT only if your active hardware can handle it... e.g. spend thousands on the active gear (giga speed network cards, switches, routers, etc) and you will run cat6 to its full potential. i personally have a cat 6 wired network in my home but am only using a 10/100mb router atm so i am not running at full speed however, as the active prices drop i will be able to upgrade without touching the cabling.



Personally i would be thinging about where the communications industry is heading and use that as a guide. think internet fridges, TVoIP (TV over an IP address) VoIP (telephones over an ip address, in house entertainment, and also your over home networking requirements.





i hope to be building within the next 2 year and i am already planning my cabling options. i plan to have a central media room & outdoor media entertainment (speakers, tv, network,dvi/vga) , in house pa system for music, data access to any area where i may want to use a laptop etc.



It is important to remember that the cabling is the cheap part and the labour is the dear part. it will be much cheaper to get it all in now rather than in a years time.



btw i am not saying that u will need everything i have mentioned...just food for thought.



Here in australia, dedicated media/theatre rooms with surround sound/projectors/large tvs are VERY popular!! most new home designs include this? is it common over your way aswell?



Thank,

Dave.

[marc]

hi,

I finished my building my house 2 years ago. Here are some of my tips from experience. Put network cables in, it will always be faster than wifi. Our house is a concrete contruction with floor heating and wooden floors throughout and the wifi and cordless phone signals can't go through the floors (there are 3 floors) and are somewhat decreased trying to go through walls so we cant have a centralised wifi nor cordless phone system. We will have a phone base on each floor, and im only using wifi for the garden. If you have a garden think about puting in some speaker cable, maybe near your BBQ :roll:



Also put in some empty tubing in the walls or floors so you can pass cable through for any future plans. Say you want to hang plasma on the wall, or connect 2nd sub in the back of the cinema.



Have you thought about you home security; alarms, window and door traps and cameras :roll: with all the wires ending down at the server that's internet connected. Where you see who's entered your home while you're on holiday or see what the kids are doing while you're at work. All the cameras can be connected to your TV system too and then watched from any TV in the house, including from your cinema. You can see who's rung the door bell while your watching a film with just a flip of a channel.



Theres alot to think about, the best advise is think about everything now. Its better to have it installed and not use it than not having it and needing it later.

[Lorddalron]

Hi Marc.

Sounds pretty impressive as does you equipmetn list.

Any pics yet??