Cabling the house

Afternoon all,

I am a self-confessed lazy b*****d but would like to create a 1GB network in my house to speed up network transfers from the PC upstairs to my Cyclone media player downstairs. I have ethernet over power but find it too variable to tolerate HD files.

Can anyone recommend a decent engineer in the Edinburgh/Fife region who could install the required cat 5 cable for me?

I know I shoudl do it myself but a) I'm lazy and b) I may want to sell the house 1 day so getting it done neatly and professionalyl may come in handy!

Thanks in advance!

Where about are you (city/town)?

Depending on the requirements / budget, I might know someone.

Consider

1. Neatly tacked to skirting boards
2. Running it in visible trunking
3. Running underneath the floor boards

All will have widely varying costs. Also if doing this to add value to a property, to be worthwhile, consider ethernet in each room and a patch panel under the stairs/in cupboard to make things easily configurable.

Kits to do single ethernet runs should be around the £30 mark.

In reply to a post by camieabz:

Where about are you (city/town)?

Depending on the requirements / budget, I might know someone.

I wonder how much experience he has?I think I know who you may suggest!

Hi Camieabz,

I run my own IT business and do a lot of of this type of work for my customers.

The best / cheapest option if you don't want to do it yourself is to get an ex BT engineer to do it for you if you can find one in your local area.

I subcontract all my network cable installations out to two guys who worked for BT for years and were then made redundant. What they don't know about cabling and wiring is not worth knowing.

If you can't find anyone let me know. but be aware, I am based in Derbyshire!

How many ethernet over power units do you have. They work best with just 2 units.

Hi all, I'm based in Dunfermline, Fife so quite possibly no where near any of you!

I'll have a look at those kits. I wouild prefer to run the cable under the floor where possible (not only better cosmetically but in some cases may provide a more direct route as well).

Sand, I only use 2 but I wonder if the fact the wiring in my house is 60+ years old might be a factor? The speeds vary quite a lot thus making streaming impractical. At the moment I download content to my PC upstairs which has a direct 1 GB link to my home hub then copy the files over the power lines to a NAS downstairs which is left on most of the time. The NAS is on the same network switch as my laptop and my media streamer so all hooked up 100 mbps ethernet so I can stream even large mkv files without stutter.

Possibly more info than you wanted/needed!

Away for a few days, but see where this thread goes. Got loft/cellar access?

I have loft access but I think the cable will need to run from back of the house upstairs (where the hub sits - next to line coming into the house) across to the front of the house and then down through the floor, tacked into the corner and then into the skirting board.

I would be looking for a drop to the skirting behind the wall if the loft allows for it. Usually easier to drop into existing spaces. I installed my BB extension six inches to the left of a power socket. Running that cable to that point took about a minute (the other end of the cable was a nightmare, but that was due to horizontal wood in the way).

If the drops are possible, you get a couple of module plates which look nice and prfessional on the wall. No cables on skirting or under carpets etc. If you really want Gigabit, you'll need to get CAT5E (not CAT5), or CAT6 (requiring CAT6 RJ-45 boots). Have a think. I'm 20+ miles North so there might be the option for a visit. You in a rush?