Help Me Put Together a DIY Kit for Installing CAT6 and Speaker wire

If you had the luxury of time, to learn how to do it, I'd say go for it. If you only have a week, I'd say hire someone. And make sure they're experienced. Anybody can run cables, but not always well. PITA to fix a bad cable run, after the house is finished.

And have your pages forwarded as texts to your phone. Call the pager company.

If it's ready for wiring right now, and you've not done any of this before, Neurorad is right, you should probably get someone to do it. There's a lot of things to learn, especially about not getting in the way of the contractor and doing things that could screw them up.

If anything, let the builder's guys do the work they expect, and then come in afterwards to add your stuff. If you can visit any other homes nearby under construction that have their wiring done and exposed, you can learn a lot by seeing how they've done it and copying.

Yes, in-wall rated UTP solid. Figure 50-75' per run at least.

Leave them unterminated until you know what you're attaching. Wall plates are done with keystone connections, not RJ45's. WHA keypads are usually RJ45 terminated, but if you're not going to install those now, no reason to spend the effort now.

You'll want one eventually - even a basic one that detects the correct wiring and identifies mistakes, shorts and opens can be sufficient.

For pre-wiring you can use a sharpie on the cable (if it's the right color!), but a Rhino labeler is the best answer. A regular label-maker with vinyl labels can work, just keep the "flags" small.

You'll want 2-conductor for the runs between the keypads and the speakers themselves. But if you're not going to do keypads (and just pre-wire for them), and don't want to expose a blank plate on the wall, you'll want to just home run the 2-conductor, looping by the keypad location. You don't want to bury any splices in the wall (which would be necessary if you home run 4-conductor and hide the keypad location).


Jeff

I've never heard a builder quote a number so low on a per-run basis! It's usually in the $75-130 range...

I'd be hesitant to use the builder, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

In addition to the whole house audio, I'd run RG6 x 2 and cat6 x 3 to each potential TV location, cat6 to each potential WAP location, thermostat wire and category cable to each thermostat location, cat x 2 to the front (and rear) doorbell, RG6 with a carrier cable from the service entrance to a satellite dish location, RG6 from the satellite dish location to your wiring closet, a dedicated line voltage circuit in the wiring closet, cat6 to the future irrigation system location.

Just thinking about all the stuff I've had to do or plan to do.

Do yourself a favor and use these http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/27-5065
You can strip the wires as long as you want and they pass through the front of the connector to be chopped off by the crimper. This saves a lot of time and frustration.

Crimper: http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/22-10800&green=1F85967A-1E58-528E-B53D-1A66B5EDCBC8


LAN Tester: http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/72-9945

You can find 4-conductor speaker wire anywhere, I would go with 16 ga. The more expensive wire is going to be "high strand count" (better for audio).

I have prewired hundreds of homes and these are the best tips I can give you.

1. Wait until the electrician is about 75% complete before starting your wiring.

2. Try to keep your cabling from running parallel with electric wiring.

3. Drill your own holes (don't use electricians or plumbers holes no matter how convenient).

4. At your speaker locations coil extra wire up tight and staple inside the framing, Drywallers love to do you a "favor" by pulling wires through holes that they make in the wrong location.

5. Take pictures and draw a diagram with dimensions for every speaker location.

6. At your speaker termination location leave PLENTY of wire so your options are not limited. I usually putt 10-12' through a single or double gang mud ring and wrap the wires in plastic so they dont get paint all over them.

7. Go back after drywall is complete and make sure they didn't do #4

Congratulations on the new home.