Suggestions for building a new house
AACJ
Newbie

I am going to be building a house in the next few months.  I have a few questions for Verizon and anyone else that might be interested in commenting.

There currently is FiOS in our new neighborhood and I would like to pre-wire the house.  What should I wire it with, ie..cat-5 or cable or BOTH?  I would like to have cable TV and network connections in most bedrooms, living/great room, office and kitchen. 

Do I need a larger router with more connections to utilize this as well?  the current router we have in our old house only had 4 "outlets" in the back and I would like to have at least 7 for the new house.

Thanks

Art

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Re: Suggestions for building a new house
viafax999
Community Leader
Community Leader

@AACJ wrote:

I am going to be building a house in the next few months.  I have a few questions for Verizon and anyone else that might be interested in commenting.

There currently is FiOS in our new neighborhood and I would like to pre-wire the house.  What should I wire it with, ie..cat-5 or cable or BOTH?  I would like to have cable TV and network connections in most bedrooms, living/great room, office and kitchen. 

Do I need a larger router with more connections to utilize this as well?  the current router we have in our old house only had 4 "outlets" in the back and I would like to have at least 7 for the new house.

Thanks

Art


Cat6 cabling as you want to carry minimum Gigabit - I actually am running gigabit on cat5 with no issues but that was all there was when I did it.

You need to add a gigabit switch somewhere - prsumably 8 or 12 port they're reasonably prices.  Connect one port of the router to the switch.  Probably need a small wiring closet somewhere where at a minimum you can put the switch/s and where all the home run ethernet cable terminates.  Terminating all your coax in the same place would make sense too.  What you really need is a residential Structured wiring panel.

Re: Suggestions for building a new house
prisaz
Legend

I would say get one of those cable organizer boxes that support network, phone, and coax for tv. Run Cat 6, and at least one RG-6 coax to each room. You may wish to run two of each. Or one cat 6 and another cat 5 for phone if you wish to keep the cost down. There may not be that much difference in cost now. I would locate this box and all the home runs to where the utilities service will enter the house. If I were building a house, I would ask for conduit from each location back to a central location in the utility room. But that is me. You would be good for what ever you may want in the future. Have a drag line left in each box even after the specified cable is run. Locations and number of cables really are up to you.

Re: Suggestions for building a new house
spacedebris
Master - Level 2

Prisaz has it right.

I added mine after it was built (old home) but it would be easy when building. Plan ahead. I would run Ethernet (cat 6) to each room and install a jack. I'd run coax (RG6) to each room and install a jack.

How I did mine (if this helps)

I have two coax and two Ethernet run to each room. I have one coax jack and one Ethernet jack on two separate walls. (so I can move the room around). Each cable in each room is then run back to my wire closet where they are all labeled. I.E.  Livingroom A and B (a for one wall and b for the other). This way, if I have the TV for example hooked up to A, A is connected to my service in the closet. I also have my router located in the closet and I just connect the cables to the router for the jack in each room that I want "live".

With this setup, it doesnt matter who's service I have (Verizon, Time Warner, Comcast, etc), They all just put their device in the closet and I then connect to my system. Makes for a easily customizable system.

Re: Suggestions for building a new house
AACJ
Newbie

Hey guys,

Thanks for the replies.  I googled structured wiring panel and came up with this site.  http://www.swhowto.com/

It has basically everything I am looking for and all of your suggestions, Cat 5 for phone and cat 6 for data,conduit...etc...all of which I am going to incorporate into my new home. 

On this site, he used what looks like a normal breaker box but I think I want to go with Leviton for all of it,  do you think it will be cheaper that way?

Thanks again!!

Art

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Re: Suggestions for building a new house
viafax999
Community Leader
Community Leader

I think you'll find Leviton more expensive but will probably look much better.

A structured wiring center in the scope of a whole house build will be a miniscule piece.

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Re: Suggestions for building a new house
spacedebris
Master - Level 2

Yup, thats pretty much what I was trying to convey. Mine looks a little cosmetically different but that is the goal right there. Good find. With that type of setup, it doesnt matter what kind of service you get, it can all be incorporated easily allowing you to customize your service to your hearts content. Also make for a good selling point when/if it comes time to sell. Its also very neat for the WAF (wife approval factor)

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Re: Suggestions for building a new house
cjacobs001
Contributor - Level 3

ALSO keep in mind that when they bring the FiOS line into your house, it will be on the same side of the house as your electric meter (usually REAL close to it so as to be able to attach their ground to it.  If your spot to patch into your home network is not close to where the line is brought in from Verizon, they will not 'snake' their cable to where you want it to go.    That will be up to you.

Re: Suggestions for building a new house
StuffOfInterest
Enthusiast - Level 3

If you run one trunk from your Leviton panel to where the FiOS conneciton will come into your house you will be OK.

I have a Leviton box in my garage with a trunk running over to the utility closet where my ONT is located.  This allows for both cable and phone (if needed) to be run from the ONT back to the central splitter.  My structured wire trunks have two coax and two Cat5E cables inside which allows for video, phone, and gigabit ethernet to run to every room in the house.

One word of advice, whatever size of box you think you need put in one twice as big.  When you start routing things inside the box you find that the box gets crowded really quickly.  My box ended up being smaller than was practial to the point where I went from the back of the box into a closet where I have a gigabit switch and the FiOS router running.  Had the box been big enough I could have put the switch right inside the cabinet.

For obvious reasons (metal box) you don't want to put the wireless router inside the structured wiring cabinet.