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Cabling for remodel -- using conduit but have questions..

post #1 of 8
6/8/07 at 5:38pm
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Hi all..

Our contractor just started doing demolition work on the house (we're adding ~1kSF, including 1 bed, 1 bath). Anyway, I'm planning on running a bunch of home run style cables from various points in the house to the garage where I'm planning on having some sort of rack-style patch-board to accept all of the cables and do stuff with them -- depending on what they are. I was talking w/ a DirecTV installer yesterday and he suggested using the flexible conduit to future-proof the house and also suggested running 6 cables (RG6?) from the HD dish to the garage and ~4-5 RG6 (or better) from the garage to each place a TV will be at. This way if a cable goes bad you've got a redundant one (or two).. Perhaps that's not needed if you're using the conduit? (you could just pull another one?). Anyway, a few general questions remain:

1. What sort of cable to use for HD satellite signals?
2. I'm planning on using CAT5e from all rooms to the garage patch panel -- should I bother with CAT6 or is 5e good enough for now for Gigabit ethernet?
3. What sort of panel can I/should I use to take all of these orange flexible conduit "pipes" and neatly organize them to their intended function? I see systems like Leviton has an other vendors that aim to do this but I feel like there may be alternatives...Comments?


One of the things I'd like to have as part of my garage "distrubition" center is some gigabit ethernet equipment (e.g. gigabit switch among others, wifi,etc -- some rack-mounted), so a small rack would be good -- wall mount preferably.. However, I didn't see a wall mount rack that looks like it can take the conduit directly -- perhaps a distribution panel that can feed the rack is in order?

Also -- is there some rhyme or reason to picking out the conduit size for certain things -- obviously I'm guessing that you want room to allow the cables freedom to move -- for speaker wires (where only 1 wire goes from a receiver to the speaker), I'm assuming the smallest 3/4" is fine.. What about 2-3 RG6 or equiv plus a CAT5e -- is the 1" better for that? Anyway, just trying to get my ducks lined up since my time to figure this out will be disappearing quick once framing starts. MTIA!
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post #2 of 8
6/9/07 at 10:20am
1. HD satelite will run on one RG6 that's rated for sat frequencies (most are these days).

2. This gets into the debate I've had with people for the last year or so. Do you use gigabit now? Is it slow? Most people are running 100Mbs these days and can't use gigabit if they tried to (no need to pull that much data). Are you thinking of trying to future-proof your network in case your internet gets faster? I doubt an internet connection is going to get near gigabit speeds in the next 10 years. You can get fiber service in my city now, but that's still only 40Mbps, it's expensive, and there's a bandwidth cap. I'd pull the 5e unless you happen to have 6. I wouldn't go out of my way to get 6.

3. Cable management can be done any infinite number of ways. You can get a panel and connect the conduit to it and make it look picture perfect. We do this with all our jobs, but our jobs need to be picture perfect. At my house I just mount plywood on a wall and mount everything to that. You can just strap the conduit to the top of the plywood. It's cheap and there's zero compromise on function. In fact, it's easier to do and easier to maintain later.

You want rack mounting? Get some rails. Build a 2x4 wall. Mount the rails on the studs. Done.

Conduit needs to be big enough not just for the wire, but when we pull conduit for a projector, we pull 2" because of connectors on the ends of the cables. ALWAYS pull bigger than you think you need. If you have attic access, run some 2" from the basement to the attic, then just run 1" down to the jacks if you want. Personally, I'd just run the 2" from the basement to the attic and only put in other conduit where it'd be a pain to pull later, like outside walls. Finishing the basement? Then your first floor access will be limited and you'll have to plan accordingly. In a ranch house though, conduit to the attic and just go from there.

I see no reason to put speaker wire in conduit. Use good quality 14gauge wire and be done with it.
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post #3 of 8
6/9/07 at 12:23pm
Don't fill up your conduit with wires during construction. Drill holes and run the wire normally (outside of the conduit). That way you save the conduit of future use. Conduit is of no use if it is filled with wires when you realize you need to pull one more.

Personally, I would run at least 4 RG6 wires and 2 Cat5e wires to each video/TV location. You can run component video over 3 RG6 wires and digital audio over another - hence the 4 minimum (if you want stereo audio you will need a min of 5 RG-6 cables). Other distribution systems run over 2 cat5e wires. Putting in this much wire now will allow you to have boxes at each TV and run the source feed to each location OR to have a central location where all your source feeds and boxes are, which are then distributed to all the TVs using some sort of audio/video distribution system.
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post #4 of 8
6/10/07 at 8:32pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the suggestions & info.. I like the idea of a sizable piece of plywood in the garage for mounting various pieces of equipment. I'll look into that. I know that was what a friend did -- under the stairs for their equipment.. Anyway, I'll let you know if I've got more questions.. It's a bit too early yet for everything.
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post #5 of 8
6/11/07 at 10:04am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by giddonah View Post


2. This gets into the debate I've had with people for the last year or so. Do you use gigabit now? Is it slow? Most people are running 100Mbs these days and can't use gigabit if they tried to (no need to pull that much data). Are you thinking of trying to future-proof your network in case your internet gets faster? I doubt an internet connection is going to get near gigabit speeds in the next 10 years. You can get fiber service in my city now, but that's still only 40Mbps, it's expensive, and there's a bandwidth cap. I'd pull the 5e unless you happen to have 6. I wouldn't go out of my way to get 6.

In short, yes, I'm trying to future proof my network.. I've got 10/100 strewn throughout the house now (up in the attic) that some prior owner ran (very messy job that was done).. I just want to run something that is able to run any 10/100 I've got today but remain compatible for future growth in terms of speed/bandwidth capacity, quality,etc. At this point I'm leaning towards 5e, but if I can find some quality 6 that isn't tons more $$, then I might get it instead..

Quote:


3. Cable management can be done any infinite number of ways. You can get a panel and connect the conduit to it and make it look picture perfect. We do this with all our jobs, but our jobs need to be picture perfect. At my house I just mount plywood on a wall and mount everything to that. You can just strap the conduit to the top of the plywood. It's cheap and there's zero compromise on function. In fact, it's easier to do and easier to maintain later.

One question I've got regarding attaching the conduit to the plywood -- are there end connectors made (by Carlon for instance) that have screw tabs on them or are you using something akin to wireties wrapped around the end connectors sent through holes in the plywood to "hold" them in place? Also, if you do a job using a standard panel but have some small equipment (e.g. small switch, power brick,etc) that doesn't have mounts on it, do you just use velcro or similar to hold it in place? Just curious!

Quote:


You want rack mounting? Get some rails. Build a 2x4 wall. Mount the rails on the studs. Done.

Interesting idea.. I'll keep that in mind!


Quote:


Conduit needs to be big enough not just for the wire, but when we pull conduit for a projector, we pull 2" because of connectors on the ends of the cables. ALWAYS pull bigger than you think you need. If you have attic access, run some 2" from the basement to the attic, then just run 1" down to the jacks if you want. Personally, I'd just run the 2" from the basement to the attic and only put in other conduit where it'd be a pain to pull later, like outside walls. Finishing the basement? Then your first floor access will be limited and you'll have to plan accordingly. In a ranch house though, conduit to the attic and just go from there.

I see no reason to put speaker wire in conduit. Use good quality 14gauge wire and be done with it.

Hmm.. Sounds good I think. I saw what sic0048 was suggesting about not running cables in the conduit initially -- this seems a little counter to what I was thinking, but I understand why he did it.. What do others do here? In my case, I've got no basement (I'm in Southern California -- home of basementless houses) and only 1 story so all runs will be more or less horizontal from the garage to the end points (bedrooms, family room, kitchen, etc).. Thanks guys for all the great info so far!
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post #6 of 8
6/11/07 at 7:33pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by osx-addict View Post

In short, yes, I'm trying to future proof my network.. I've got 10/100 strewn throughout the house now (up in the attic) that some prior owner ran (very messy job that was done).. I just want to run something that is able to run any 10/100 I've got today but remain compatible for future growth in terms of speed/bandwidth capacity, quality,etc. At this point I'm leaning towards 5e, but if I can find some quality 6 that isn't tons more $$, then I might get it instead..

If you can find Cat6 for not much more, then feel free. I'm not aware of anything out there right now that needs Cat6 over Cat5e. You're running 100 right now but Cat5e can do 10x that. Personally I don't see a need for it either now or in the next 5-10 years. Yes, we're pushing the limits of Cat5e now, but how many of us are actually the ones doing that? Unless you're transferring huge files around all day you'll be ok with Cat5e. I'm running a gigabit network now and when I'm transferring files I'll use 20% of the bandwidth.

Will it be superceeded in the future? Yes. Is it worth pulling today? That's debatable.


Quote:
Originally Posted by osx-addict View Post

One question I've got regarding attaching the conduit to the plywood -- are there end connectors made (by Carlon for instance) that have screw tabs on them or are you using something akin to wireties wrapped around the end connectors sent through holes in the plywood to "hold" them in place? Also, if you do a job using a standard panel but have some small equipment (e.g. small switch, power brick,etc) that doesn't have mounts on it, do you just use velcro or similar to hold it in place? Just curious!

Plumber's tape and screws. You can get straps for it, but for 2" we just use the tape. At the end you can drive a screw through it from the inside to hold it in place or just use a strap or tape at the end. Zipties will work too, but not as good as the plumber's tape.

Quote:
Originally Posted by osx-addict View Post

Hmm.. Sounds good I think. I saw what sic0048 was suggesting about not running cables in the conduit initially -- this seems a little counter to what I was thinking, but I understand why he did it.. What do others do here? In my case, I've got no basement (I'm in Southern California -- home of basementless houses) and only 1 story so all runs will be more or less horizontal from the garage to the end points (bedrooms, family room, kitchen, etc).. Thanks guys for all the great info so far!

We usually don't run the cables in the conduit during pre-wire if we don't have to. Put them there and the drywallers have one more wire to cut.
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post #7 of 8
6/12/07 at 1:16pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by giddonah View Post

We usually don't run the cables in the conduit during pre-wire if we don't have to. Put them there and the drywallers have one more wire to cut.

Ahh.. I think the question I was aluding to was that sic0048 was suggesting that you not even use the conduit at all until the time comes (much later) when you want to run more cables and then you can snake the new cables through the conduit -- up to that point the cables would be run normally (w/o conduit).. That way you use the conduit for future growth/expansion.. I'm not sure which side of the coin I fall in yet on that decision.. I guess if you've got a large enough diameter conduit then adding more cables later won't be too hard I guess. Of course, it's always easier said than done..
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post #8 of 8
6/12/07 at 1:57pm
Well, if you house is only 1 story and you have good access in the roof, then running wires in the future isn't really a big deal. So using conduit now/later probably isn't a big deal. However, if there is a location that you will not be able to reach in the future, I would use conduit and make sure it had plenty of room left for future wires.

No other wire is run in conduit during construction, so why should your LV wiring need it. Yes, you may have a wire that is damaged during drywall (it does happen), but with proper wiring technics this isn't a huge risk (actually attach the wire to the center of the studs rather than letting them hang down, etc.).

But again, given your house being a 1 story ranch, you shouldn't have a big problem running new wiring in the future - although wires on the exterior walls are always tricky with the insulation and limited access due to the roof slope.
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