If the office floor has floorboards then you could consider lifting them - I've certainly done that when installing solid core CAT5e LAN and it can make the job much easier when the holes in the ceiling and floor are not aligned...also one can check that any electric cables under the floorboards are not disturbed if there is a need for drilling etc.

In reply to a post by 4M2:

If the office floor has floorboards then you could consider lifting them - I've certainly done that when installing solid core CAT5e LAN and it can make the job much easier when the holes in the ceiling and floor are not aligned...also one can check that any electric cables under the floorboards are not disturbed if there is a need for drilling etc.

An ideal but I would not look forward to the furniture moving...............CAT5e is relatively cheap so may stick with trying to pull the stranded one and replace it with 'solid cored' when we need to empty the room to decorate as that will expose better access to the floorboards

I know the problem: the thought of moving furniture has put me off doing any decorating for years!

Best of luck

The thought of doing decorating has put me off moving furniture for years...

Just found another question

In the case of buying CAT5e by the metre what is the difference between patch & non-patch variants??? I have noticed the Maplin page I linked does not mention patch but if you hover over the image of the cable and it magnifies the cable marking says "patch" ~ er!!!!

Bearing in mind for my purposes at this stage I will be crimping on RJ45 plugs and not wiring into network boxes.

Talking of crimping I have read that stranded core cable is more suitable than solid core for crimping the plugs!

Edited by deleted (Fri 25-Oct-13 22:41:35)

Yes, basically by using stranded CAT5e you will be making up a "patch" cable with rj45 plugs. Solid core is best suited for use with rj 45 sockets where one would use two short ethernet cables also: one from the modem to the downstairs rj45 socket and the other for the upstairs rj45 socket to the router.

I've used a 20 metre rj45 "patch" ethernet cable for testing a gigabit LAN setup prior to installing solid core CAT5e and it worked OK. For your setup, where initially gigabit speeds wont be needed for FTTC, a long patch cable should be fine.

BTW. Because FTTC is now available to my neighbours and myself I've got all the kit ready to go: solid core, 4 pair, 100% copper CAT5e, rj45 sockets, filtered NTE5 faceplate, NTE5 master socket etc. - may need all that stuff since contract installers may not do a good job. Personally I'm not interested in getting vdsl myself at the moment because a 13Mbps ADSL2+ sync is adequate for my needs but I'm certain some of my neighbours will

Edited by 4M2 (Sat 26-Oct-13 00:11:30)

Patch cable will be stranded for flexibility.

Thanks both for the added insights

Now one last question

What do you find the best way to "join" either cable to cable or cable to cord for pulling through???

I am thinking that cable to cable, one should strip back to expose the cores on both cables and entwine/overlap the ends to make as firm a join as possible then over wrap the join tightly with electrical tape to hold the overlap together and reduce the potential for it to pull apart during the pull through. Possibly even using a piece of the outer insulator as sleeve.......................though of course this join must not be so stiff or fat or it will stick on the holes and lack flexibility to make the 'journey'.

So how to make the join supple enough ??? Maybe even strip the inner cores at differing lengths and solder them together having hooked them into each other ~ I say differing lengths to make sure that no two individual joins overlap and make the whole too thick & possibly this way keep the join supple enough??? But which method would be best for strength???

Sorry never done wiring that way - I would lift the floorboards upstairs.