I have a home with all floors being finished. Now all rooms already have at least one ethernet port thats wired already but I want more.

How do you run wire to each of these rooms without cutting holes in the drywall (exception being the wall plates)?


This is my switch. As you can see I want to expand ALOT.

Generally there is a place you can pull wires from basement up to the attic. If you don't actually have a spece for cables look around the vents for your sanitary system. (Do NOT pull the LAN cables along the electrical runs -- that can get you some interference.)

Once you are "in" the basement and attic you can access rooms from the top or the bottom. Then drill a hole into the top or bottom of a wall space and fish it out where you want it. Electricians use a long flexible shaft on a drill, inserting it at the wall plate and drilling through the bottom (or to the top). Leaving the shaft in place, they disconnect the drill, attach a thin wire or string to the shaft and use the shaft to pull the wire/string through. Then they use that to pull in the cable. (Some have a hole in the drill bit instead, but the concept is the same.)

When you do that, use a string more that twice the length you will need and leave it tied off at both ends. When you need a replacement cable it will be there for you!

No basement? Use runs around the exterior, tucking it up tight against the bottom of the siding.

_________________
....JBick

EX475, 2 GB, LE-1640
PC1: Vista-->W7 Ultimate/32, (D-Drive RAID-5 Array)
PC2: Lenovo Laptop, Win XP Home SP3
2xLinksys WRT54G v1.1 and 2xNetGear GS105 Gbit switch

Thats good advice. I think I'm going to have to try to find a way into the attic from the basement but as of now I'm unsure how thats going to happen. Only one are in the basement isn't completely dry walled and thats the furnace room where all the wires currently run. I also noticed that long drill bit thing you are referring to at my local hardware store. When I saw it I was thinking "WTF is that for." Now I know.

I actually just finished running Cat6 from the first floor of my house to the basement, the thread is here. I was fortunate enough that when I had an alarm system put in a while back the alarm company ran the alarm wires from the floor of a closet on the first floor down to the basement. I was able to find this hole they drilled under the carpet in the closet, so I just snaked the cat6 down along this hole as well. I had to do a little drilling just to make the hole a little bigger, but nothing major. I got a 1/8'' x 48'' round rod from Home Depot, put that through the hole and by gently tapping the rod was sturdy enough to go through the drywall in the ceiling of the basement. I then taped the Cat6 to the Rod on the first floor, went down to the basement, and pulled it through.

My one word of advice, pull the Cat wiring through slowly, and preferably you would pull from one end while someone else guides the wire on the other end. I made the mistake of pulling it through to quickly on my own, the wire got into a knot in the wall. Needless to say, I have a 5ft piece of Cat wiring floating around in the walls. I will post some pictures this weekend on the other thread. It wasn't the prettiest work but it did the job (and also my first time ever running wires so a but of a learning experience). Next up maybe in the next few months is to run Cat wiring into the bedrooms upstairs via the attic (my BR is the only one that has Cat6 currently)

_________________
Cheers,
Damian

DIY WHS - 12.5TB and growing, too many gadgets to list

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OMG! You have what, 144 PORTS! I have 16 and I thought it was excessive! And those switches (esp if they are 1GB) are NOT cheap...
To pull that much wire, you are going to need a minimum of a 5 to 6" diameter pipe from the basement to the attic.
Now there are two ways to run the wire, the right way and my way.

The right way is to fish the wires through the walls which is NON-TRIVIAL as there are other wires there and sometimes cross members in the middle of the damn wall! Then there is the matter of drilling through 4-6 inches of sill plates and headers at the top and bottom of each wall. The only real way to do this is the same way electricians do which is to cut holes in the drywall to fish stuff through and then patch it up later. Like I said, non-trivial.
http://www.crutchfield.com/Learn/learni ... tml?page=8

My way was to use closets and baseboard. I ran ALL my wires through the plywood floors in the closets and built a wooden pipe around the wires as they ran up the wall next to the door trim (inside the closet of course). When I got to the attic I just drilled down into the closets in each room and dropped the wires down. For first floor installs, ran the wire around the basement and then drilled a sloping hole through the baseboard to the basement below then surface mounted a box over the hole.
Once in the closet I drilled THROUGH the baseboard trim then pulled the wire BEHIND the baseboard trim to get to where I wanted the ports to be. I surface mounted the boxes ON the baseboard trim.
Notice that my way completely avoided fishing wires through walls and cutting holes in the drywall (I HATE patching drywall!). If you ever go wireless, just replace the baseboard and no one will ever know!

_________________
John E Pombrio
Do not meddle in the affair of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger.

I'll be honest and say I got it from a business that wrote it off as depreciated and it's currently discontinued. That doesn't stop the lifetime warranty of all ProCurve products As for cost, I was told that with all the components in it and it's redundant power it cost over $13k. I'm only using I think at most 10 ports causes thats what is wired in my house already. Like I side in my post I do want to add many more ports throughout the house so there is never a shortage of ports cutting down the need for additional switches.

Now that's funny!

I'm lucky, I have a single story ranch house with an unfinished basement. Running wires was a piece of cake. I drilled a very small hole in the floor right at the baseboard where I wanted to add a box for the wires. Once the hole was drilled, I would insert a straightened coat-hanger through the hole. I'd then locate the coat hanger in the basement and drill my 1/2" hole a couple inches over to make sure it come up the middle of the wall. Finish up by cutting in a box and run the wire.

One word of caution...
Run more Cat5e that you think you will need!! I ran 2 cat5's (one for network and one for phone) and one RG6 to each location. That was dumb!! Finding out the hard way that I need more network ports!!! Before I finish the basement I plan to add more network homeruns, and replace my 2 vintage Netgear hubs with a single D-Link 24-port gigabit switch.

Cables ran be ran through any home. You'll just need to study, plan, and buy some tools.

I know of people that have used the cold air return in the HVAC to run wire from upstairs rooms to the basement. Straight shot! Only thing is you have to exit the return and seal the hole somehow.

Sean

_________________
Sean
"I do not like the cone of shame."
Boom Boom Room

Also remember to get a "grommet" or some other covering on those duct edges -- they are big-time sharp and there is vibration in those ducts. I made that error looonng ago when running speaker wire. Two years later I had a short in the speaker line. Back in those days it meant I needed to replace the driver transistor in the amplifier. Do NOT ignore the edges.

That said, this is a great way to do it in a home with a hot-air furnace!

_________________
....JBick

EX475, 2 GB, LE-1640
PC1: Vista-->W7 Ultimate/32, (D-Drive RAID-5 Array)
PC2: Lenovo Laptop, Win XP Home SP3
2xLinksys WRT54G v1.1 and 2xNetGear GS105 Gbit switch

Air ducts are a great solution for routing low-voltage wiring. Make sure to use Plenum-rated cable to stay out of code trouble.