I dunno. After looking at prices for some of this stuff, I might just keep my system the way it is. It IS working great for me, and I guess I can't really justify spending the money for it.

 

Anyways just to cap off a final list, you'll need;

1 x 500ft roll of wire ~$75
14 x RJ-45 jack ~$30
7 x Single port cover plate ~$5
1 x 4 port cover plate ~$1
1 x 3 port cover plate ~$1
9 x PVC electrical box ~$25

And you can have the cable guys run the RG-6 to your demarc when they do the rest of your house.

Initial investment is around $100 (wire and boxes), then another $40 to finish it off (You can always buy the router down the road, don't even have to put on the cover plates for a few years if you don't want to). What's $140 on a mortgage?
I can see if you don't want to deal with the hassle, but even to hire someone to do this for you would probably cost $350. This is something that is so easy and convenient to do now, why wouldn't you? It's such a small expense compared to things like kitchens and bathrooms, and you'll probably regret not doing it down the road. You can upgrade a stove or counter-top easily, but you can't do this without a major workover. See yourself 5 years down the road when your son trips over an ethernet cord and pulls the computer off the shelf. There's the money you should've spent on setting up your house properly.

/pushy salesman pitch

cool.gif Just giving you my perspective, it's your house and you can do what you want with it, I'm just saying that I haven't had a single customer who's said that he wished he would've saved his cash and not done this. If you plan on selling in a few years, no biggie, but if you plan on dying in this house, do it. You won't regret it.

 

I haven't found the jacks for under $6 each anywhere. Beyond that, don't I need the boxes that go in the wall at each of the Jacks?

I also need the tools here, as I've got none of them.

Got some links you can hook me up with to see that I'm getting the exact stuff I need?

My current setup is my modem and router right at the cable at the wall at the entertainment center. Both of my 360's are hooked up to it, and everything else in the house is wireless. Nothing else.

My biggest problem right now is being in the right place at the right time.

 

http://cgi.ebay.ca/Leviton-White-Quickport...A1%7C240%3A1318

Those are the jacks you want.

Yup you're right you need the boxes that go in the wall, I suggest PVC electrical boxes...

http://www.carlon.com/Product_SingleGangNo...allicBoxes.html

Anything that looks like a regular metal electrical box, but is not metal, is fine. If you find deeper than normal ones, get them.

To do the job you'll need a ladder, drill w/ ~1/2" drill bit, hammer, measuring tape, wire cutters, nails, and staples. I use S1 electrical staples (most likely what your electrician will be using to fasten wire to wood) but you can use pretty much anything as long as it doesn't damage the wire, something like this is fine. http://www.tnb.com/ps/fulltilt/index.cgi?part=17214

Make a list beforehand of each room you want a wire run to. When it comes to doing the job, start with mounting all of your electrical boxes (try to keep the same height as the electrical outlet boxes). Then invision how your wire is going to be run, either through walls or through the ceiling. Thing of the shortest path, while also trying to stay out of the way of other electrical wires, and other obstacles. Then drill all the holes you need. Then run your wire, working from one side of the house to the other. Label wires as you go (bed1, bed2, liv rm, kit, gar, etc) Leave the hub (office, or where your 360's are) for the end.

It comes to planning. As long as you've sought out what you need to be confident at doing the job, you won't have any problems. I wish I was still doing residential wiring, I would take some pictures/videos...

 

^^you put in wall boxes for cat6? I just use the low voltage rings, much easier to deal with when doing work on old drywall.

http://www.electrical-supply.net/category...._parentid_E_527

the first one in that list is the style I use typically then ones I get are caddy brand though. Really just a way to securely mount a faceplate on drywall.

 

Well, I started making a list up of what I need, and the best possible solution came out...

I went down to Las Lunas today to check out the progress on my house, the electrical guy left right when I pulled up, so I was a bit pissed I missed him.

Anyways, I went in the garage and noted all the wiring hanging down where the fuse/breaker panel will be, the usual wires, and 5 blue cables marked Cat5E.

hahaahah!

Looks like they prerun it there but the folks selling my house didn't know about it because they just recently started doing it. It sits in a wall jack with the phone line, just isn't finished yet. I'm going to make sure they get a line put to the living room still.

Currently there is one in each bedroom, the 3rd bedroom that we are planning on using as an office has 2 for some reason, and one in the kitchen.

Needless to say I'm thrilled. LOL


Thanks for all the advice folks!

 

wow, so all you need is wall plates? sweet!

 

Well, I think i figured it all out now.

Seems that most builders are using Cat5e for phone lines in the home now so that you can run 4 separate phone lines through the entire house, or turn around and use it for ethernet.

Lucky me!

So, this would explain a lot from when I went into a finished model of my home and saw telephone lines, but the sellers said they thought they ran cat5.

So now I should just have to get wall plates, connectors (gonna color code them), and a punchdown tool. I may have to get another router with more capacity, but now I'll have almost everything wired, and just have my phones and visitors hook up to the wifi.

I still want to get in touch with the electrician as there is NOT a line to my living room. I'm not sure if he didn't finish (there are other sockets and light fixtures with no wires to them yet still), but I need one in the living room. if I do it this way, I can put my cable modem and router in the living room, hook one ethernet cable up to the router, and then my wifi router in the office or on the cabinets in the kitchen for range.

You can daisy chain the connections like that right?

I decided to do some looking online at prices. I want to color code the room panel keystone jacks with the jacks on the side where the router are, for ease of use in the future. Anyways, it seems on ebay and elsewhere that the jacks are about $6 each.

So, I went to Monoprice.com as I had bought some very nice HDMI cables from there for cheaper than I could ever find them anywhere else, and what do you know?


http://www.monoprice.com/products/product....=1&format=2
^^^
$1.36 for one, but since I'm buying 2 of each color, it's only $1.31 each!

Check out all of the colors.
http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepar...amp;cp_id=10513

Also, on most of their items they have DIY instructions, check this out!

http://www.monoprice.com/manual/How%20to%2...20keystones.pdf


http://www.monoprice.com/products/subdepar...amp;cp_id=10509
^^^
Tools.


I started looking at the stuff they have for home surround sound wiring now too. BAD ASS!

For my surround sound, if I want to put speakers in the ceiling, do I need to power them? Or does that depend on the speakers?

 

It depends both on the speaker and the output from the amplifier. First, you should look at the amplifier that you are using. Find a speaker that is compatable in both Watts and Ohms.

It would make more sense to buy an amplifier which is dedicated to the system. This way anything you plug in will be able to play through RCAs.

 

To answer your question, no, you don't have to run power to the speakers. You just need to run your speaker wire, I would recommend any 2 conductor, 16 guage FT-4 rated speaker wire (rated for in wall, FT-4 is a fire code rating). You can use smaller guage if you're planning on running smaller speakers. Normally what I do is run a 4 conductor (or 2 x 2 conductor) wie from your amp to a wall/volume control, and then from the volume control run a 2 conductor wire to each speaker (both from the volume control). The volume controls are impedance matching, meaning that you can run any amount of speakers in the room, and you just set the spec of your speakers and amp, and it will match the speakers to your amp. This works great for any room with up to 8 speakers, and also very well when running multiple zones/rooms off of the same amp (each room will be wired the same, and then you insert another impedance matching control at the amp itself to balance all of the rooms).

That is the way I do it for simple volume controls. However the volume controls are around $100 each, and judging from your responses in this thread you'd rather not do that.

The other method would be to just run the wires direct from your amp to the speakers. When it comes time to buy the amp and speakers, you'll buy them together and be good to go. Run all of your wires from the speakers back to the amp, not from speaker to speaker, even if they're on the same channel. This will give you more flexibility down the road.

Also I'm not sure if I understood correctly, but with a normal phone cable install (or cat 5e instead), it will be identical to option 3 that I explained earlier. Your modem and router will go wherever all of the wires originate from (demarcation). And yes, you can put a wifi access point in the kitchen.