Attic location

I’m planning on running network cabling to certain rooms in my house but I was wondering about the best place to locate the hardware required to do this. I think the ideal location for my situation would be the attic but I’m worried about the extremes of temperature the hardware would be exposed to and dust getting into it. Is it something to worry about and if it is what can I do to mitigate the risk?

Thanks for any advice.

The attic is never a good place for network hardware.

A fully lined and boarded attic - more of a room than an attic - would be OK as long as the temperatures in summer and winter weren't too extreme.

Know of folks however who have put things like 4G/5G routers in their regular attics (better signal and not visible to the outside & elements etc) that that had overheating issues with them in the summer. Not surprising really. Mine can get like a sauna up there in the height of summer.

Mine is boarded & plastered with with around 15 power sockets ... ONT, rotuer, switch, PoE power supplies, alarm and more, previously had modems, ISDN adapters too.

It gets warm in summer but nothing overheats.

My network switches, ONTs, router, UPS etc. live in the attic without issue.

It is well insulated but still gets hot in summer. Not quite to the level where I'm worried about the equipment, but I do keep an eye on the temperatures.

If there is a reasonable option for a cooler location you should take it, but most of us do not live in houses with air-conditioned comms rooms.

I live in Kent and have had network hardware in my attic for the past 18 years. There is glass fibre on the floor of the attic in between the rafters. The roof is tiled with felt underneath. I have not had problems with the equipment failing because of the temperature. The outside temperature got up to 36 C this summer. Dust does not collect on the tops of the equipment. The original reason for having equipment in the attic was because that is where the overhead telephone line enters the house and because of the 63db signal loss on my 6.1km telphone line I wanted the shortest possible cable distance in the house.

Some time ago there was a Plusnet ADSL router that used to keep locking up and had to be powered off/on.
I got a 2nd similar router which had the same problem. Later the Plusnet web site had a link to a later firmware version which I downloaded and installed. After that the routers worked perfectly.

Edited by Michael_Chare (Wed 28-Sep-22 01:05:05)

Although it's probably OK in the attic, I think it would be better if you could run the cables to a different location with easier access.

I brought all my Cat5e cables via the loft down to the cupboard under the stairs. That did involve chasing in some conduit, but I think it was worth it. I now have a wall-mount open 6U rack for the patch panel, router, PDU, and some shelves - and can get to them easily.

Not quite the same thing, but my neighbour had his combi boiler installed in the roofspace to free space in his kitchen. Any work on the boiler involves a trip up the ladder, as does quarterly pressure topups to the system. Now he finds it an extra chore to adjust the flow temperature after I told him that reducing to 60deg from his normal 68deg really makes a difference to consumption -- though of course winter isn't here yet ...

Thanks for all the advice, I think it may be more convenient to locate everything in an upstairs room.

Thanks everyone.

In reply to a post by Wilfx:

I’m planning on running network cabling to certain rooms in my house but I was wondering about the best place to locate the hardware required to do this. I think the ideal location for my situation would be the attic but I’m worried about the extremes of temperature the hardware would be exposed to and dust getting into it. Is it something to worry about and if it is what can I do to mitigate the risk?

Thanks for any advice.

Various factors can come into play.

What is the layout of your home and which rooms are you looking at cabling up? (a quick layout drawing would be good)

How was you planning on running the cables internal or external?

People mentioning temps being an issue which can be true but it's the humidity that is the real issue. (might be worth putting a sensor up in attic see what the average readings are first)