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[Ecrofirt]

We're building a new house, and about two months ago I expressed to my parents that I wanted to have an ethernet wall jack in the wall of my room and another one in the room that's going to have a router, so that I wouldn't have to use a wireless connection through walls and going down to the basement (Also, I'd be pretty screwed with my Xbox if we were wireless only).

My parents pussyfooted around on it, and when they finally asked a few days ago, it was too late to get something like that installed.

So now it's come down to having to have either someone else install a walljack, or installing one ourselves.

Can you get the jack and stuff at home depot or anything, and how hard is it to wire everything together? Or would it just be better to have the appropriate technician do it?

 

[Willco]

You can do it, but it's a pain in the ass to do, though.

 

[lexi]

I believe an electrician could install it for a fairly reasonable price, as in, $75 or less.

 

[Ecrofirt]

It really pisses me off that my parents pussyfooted around with it.

I asked them two months ago, and I offered to pay for whatever the costs were.

 

[alejob]

Is the house finished?

 

[Ecrofirt]

no. It's one of those modular home things, so it's not even in yet.

Their order had to be in awhile ago though, so it's too late now.

 

[teiresias]

When my dad had his new house built (this was about three or four years ago) he wired the entire house himself for ethernet. There are jacks in every bedroom, two in the garage, one in the unfinished basement room, one in the kitchen, and two in the living room. All the jacks go to his walk-in closet where he has a cable jack just for the cable modem and the router. He got all the jacks, cabling, and everything from home depot, as well as the wiring. When you do it you have to make sure you follow regulations for keeping the ethernet cabling certain distances from power cabling and everything.

If the house is already built though and you already have a wireless capable router I don't see what the point is in going through the hassel of trying to do it after the fact though. It's much easier to do before the walls are put up.

 

[Willco]

Is the house finished?

You can do it even when the house is finished, it's just a pain in the ass.

Again, as lockii said, an electrician should be able to do it for you, but if you do it yourself, it's a global pain in the ass.

 

[3phemeral]

Ah, it's too bad. All you need is an ethernet cable and some rj48 jacks, some room to travel through your ceiling and some access to thread the cables through your walls. I just finished rigging up my office at work and it's as pretty easy.

 

[SKluck]

I did it myself, with my dad who knows quite a bit about that stuff, 3 rooms to the basement. The house was 20 years old at the time.

Sucks they didn't plan it beforehand, usually on new homes they either use dual plates that support ethernet AND phone, or just ethernet plates and the phone can use it as well (I don't believe that works with gigabit (cat5e, cat6) though, which any new home SHOULD most definitely use now).

If you JUST want to run ethernet, it is easy. Just get a couple face plates, run the wires to wherever, fishing it through the attic/basement, whatever you are doing, and connect the wires on each end to the faceplates. It's not like you are actually dealing with electricity. You'll have to cut holes in the walls and all that for the plates.

Or you could just bypass the plates and stick the wire up through the carpet near the wall and use a coupler.

When I moved we have a crawlspace so I ran wire under there (secured to the joists obviously) and ran it up through the cold air returns. Quick and dirty.

 

[Ecrofirt]

If the house is already built though and you already have a wireless capable router I don't see what the point is in going through the hassel of trying to do it after the fact though. It's much easier to do before the walls are put up.

I've read many reports of signal strength going downhill once you start going throuh walls and stuff. It's going to have to go through the floor and at least one other wall (and if I'm looking at the blueprints correctly, it's going to have to go through concrete foundation wall.)

Then there's also my Xbox, which is going to get shafted if we have to go wireless.

oh, and it's an 802.11b router, which is slow. It gets worse and worse.

 

[tedtropy]

Terminating and setting up the cables and jacks really isn't that hard, and it can be a useful skill to learn. Physically running the cable itself down the walls and through the house, now THAT'S the real pain in the ass. Honestly I just use my .G router for most stuff - they're so cheap now and good enough for broadband Internet and most large file transfers, but yeah, nothing beats good 'ole hardline 100MB, or now days 1GB and some situations aren't all that accomidating for wireless, though you may be surprised. I'm actually typing this outside on my laptop via my .G connection with full strength on a WAP inside a brick home (great day outside). You CAN get most of the stuff needed at places like Home Depot, but them charge WAY too much for it and you may be better off bumming the equipment off a buddy or finding it online. A good set of crimpers alone (and yes, there are some amazingly crappy ones available) will run you 50 bucks. Borrow as much as you can when doing stuff like that. All in all, it's possible, but you'd definately want to research alternatives first...

 

[Gart]

Here's a guide I came across a while back. swhowto.com

Hope this helps.

 

[Hitokage]

Retrofitting a house for wired ethernet is NOT fun... especially if you want to take it upstairs. Powerline bridges and wireless access points require far less effort.

 

[Phoenix]

For parts, find a place like Microcenter. If you are going to lay wire, do nothing less than Cat6. If you're also going behind drywall, get yourself a wire snake - will make the job suck a whole lot less.

In any event, its definitely something you want to do when constructing. Actually increases resale.

 

[NohWun]

Will the rooms have phone jacks?

Phones need only 2 wires, but often times Cat 5 is used for phone lines, meaning there's 6 unused lines. Ethernet needs 4. So you may be able to replace the wall plate for one that has a phone jack and an ethernet, and hook the wires up yourself. You can get the parts at Home Depot. Of course, you need to know how the phone is wired up. Usually all the wires go to a central location, where you can tie them together appropriately.