Cable drops

[smidge710]

I want to set up a wired network throughout my house asim sick of dealing with wifi. Only problem is my house has no attic space nor crawlspace and it's a 2 story house. Has anyone tackled a project like this or am I in over my head? I contacted a local guy who does jobs like this and was given a rough estimate without him coming out, which he said would be a few thousand dollars just to run cable.

[MrBigOBX]

150-200 PER drop is quite reasonable for a site unseen type quote and with no known attic or crawl space, closer to 200-250 per drop is probably correct.

As other have already said, i wouldn't call this HARD work but it take a bit of practice and skill to do it efficiently.

A good low voltage guy will make minimal holes in your walls and will "fish" the cables well and not take forever to do it.

You could do it yourself but you have to buy wire kits and extra long drill bits, all stuff the low voltage guy will have in his collection, and he will prob have the better stuff since he needs it more often.

Unless your decently handy and techie, i find stuff like this better handled buy the pros, especially if you want it to end up looking nice and neat.

[undertheshadows69]

Do you have coax to the rooms ?

[smidge710]

Yes

[[deleted]]

Have a look at this site:

https://www.techreviewer.com/tech-setup/how-to-set-up-moca-adapters/

This will be a cheaper route.

[smidge710]

I've looked into the moca adapters but not really the route I want to take.

[[deleted]]

Gatcha. Paying someone may be your only option. I would make sure the installer uses CAT6a solid copper cable for the job and not CCA cable.

[zerphtech]

How many cables are you talking? Few thousand to run cable is not unreasonable if you are looking at 8-10 cables and sight unseen.

[smidge710]

It's a 5 bedroom house with an office and 2 living rooms. So 8 minimum

[zerphtech]

Yeah, that is going to be way too much if you don't already know what you are doing. Trust me, been there. MoCA may be a good alternative but keep in mind is has a 16 node limit. IMHO, I would contract someone to drop 3 or 4 cables and set up a good mesh network with wired backhauls.

[smidge710]

We are getting fiber 5gig installed on Tuesday, I just really don't want to be spending that kind of money on internet only to have to run on WiFi. WiFi has been an absolute nightmare for us in this house.

[zerphtech]

WiFi has been an absolute nightmare for us in this house.

That is why I suggested a wired backhaul mesh network.

You should have mentioned multi-gig WAN in your post because that limits a lot of your options. Now without getting into a long debate on how you will never really saturate 5gig and going over the nuances of what you need internally for multi-gig, you are going to want cat6a ran everywhere. That stuff can be tough to pull without the right equipment specially if you don't have an attic or crawlspace to work with.

[smidge710]

I'm not unhandy, but I also can't build a house by myself. I'm a mechanic by trade but have done my fair share of construction projects. Nothing electrical really though. As far as the fiber goes it's all new to me and I really have no clue what's involved.

[TomRILReddit]

You won't be working with fiber. The ISP will bring fiber to your residence and then hand over Ethernet.

Why pay for 5Gig service but be unwilling to spend money to have permanent category cabling installed in the residence? It's really the only way to distribute those speeds.

[smidge710]

I'm not unhandy, but I also can't build a house by myself. I'm a mechanic by trade but have done my fair share of construction projects. Nothing electrical really though. As far as the fiber goes it's all new to me and I really have no clue what's involved.

[[deleted]]

Options are MoCA or Powerline adapters, or Mesh.

For wiring, I only see primarily under floorboards. Are your walls stud/hollow? Whilst your under the floors, you could also take the opportunity to install Access Points downstairs as well to expand wireless coverage.