Need Help Prewiring My New Home

[sevendustweb]

I'm getting ready to retrofit a two-story brick house, and I need some suggestions on how to wire my network.

My house is two stories, but it features and unfinished basement that has no insulation in the floor joists. My initial thought is that I should run my networking and home automation servers in the basement and network the rest of the house for high-speed Cat6 wiring with some Cat5e wiring for use in POE applications.

My issue involves wiring to the second floor of the house. Do you think it would be cheaper to run every line from the basement to the various rooms throughout the house, or do you think it would be cheaper to run one line to the second floor which then connects to a gigabit switch and from the upstairs switch it patches into the upstairs rooms?

My basement will have the cable modem running into a new Cisco wireless router which will then connect into a 24 port D-Link POE switch.

Thank you for any comments you may have.

[upnorth]

pull all cables to demarcation point

[sevendustweb]

Anyone else? Surely someone else has experienced this issue before.

[SamS]

Run all lines to wherever the switch is going to be.

[sevendustweb]

Originally Posted by SamS

Run all lines to wherever the switch is going to be.

I have an unfinished basement with a concrete slab that seems like a good centralized location in which to run wires from. Initially, I am wondering about the temperature (hot during the summer, cold during the winter). Has anyone installed their networking equipment in an unfinished basement?

Thanks.

[jdabbs]

Many switches specify a operating temperature range in their documentation.
The DGS-1210 series recommends between 32° and 104° F. You should be able to estimate how hot/cold your basement is going to get.

[kanewolf]

I run a used HP commercial switch in an attic in TX (20F to 140F) without any issues. Check the Environmental Specs of the equipment you desire to use. Humidity could be a bigger problem in a basement than temperature.

[clintb]

I'm of the thought to pull everything to one common point, and that tends to work better (not best) in practice. However, it all depends.

Dependencies:
Budget
Access
How many runs

You specifically used the term "prewire" and that, for me, brings up the vision of a house that has yet to have drywall hung, thus access between studs. In your case, I'm thinking that's not accurate.

If it were me, and funds were not unlimited (read: limited moolah), I would get at least two CAT5e/CAT6 and two RG6 (tri or quad shield) to the outside demarc for your incoming services. On the inside, I would do everything possible, within budget, to get AT THE VERY LEAST one CAT5e/CAT6 and one RG6 to every room FROM the common point in your basement. If that is not do-able, then your idea of a switch on the second floor and distributing from there is not a problem. If you go the second story switch route, pull at least two runs of CAT5e/CAT6 between the basement and second floor switch location. If one run goes bad, you have a spare. You can also do some link aggregation if you're ever in a position to push tons of data.

[coolspot]

Originally Posted by sevendustweb

My issue involves wiring to the second floor of the house. Do you think it would be cheaper to run every line from the basement to the various rooms throughout the house, or do you think it would be cheaper to run one line to the second floor which then connects to a gigabit switch and from the upstairs switch it patches into the upstairs rooms?

It's cleaner to terminate in a single location - i.e. in the basement. You won't save much doing what you're thinking as you're only saving on the cabling and not on labour.