Adding Ethernet Part 1 of ?
When I moved into this house, one of my planned projects was to run ethernet throughout the house. Wireless just wouldn’t cut it in my home. Additionally some of the guys downstairs have some wireless issues b/c it is pretty far from the router. The plan was to run ethernet to all 5 of the bed rooms, 1 to the family room, and 2 to the theater room during winter break.
I follow the model of measure twice, cut once. However I usually go a step further and measure four times and cut twice b/c the the first cut is usually too conservative. I don’t like messing up. Usually this makes me procrastinate my projects but not this time (well at least I stopped putting it off and now I’ve begun!)
The first step was to plan all the routes. I needed to know exactly where I wanted everything before I started drilling holes all over the place. My house has two floors which makes things a little tricky. There’s attic space above the three upstairs bedrooms. I’ll use this to drop the wires down into the walls to be wired to a jack. Personally I like to make as few holes as possible so I’ll try leveraging pre-existing holes used for electrical runs. However, it appears there are studs on both sides of the outlets I plan on running it with. I guess I’ll have to drill new holes that hopefully don’t come out into the ceiling.
The downstairs has a drop ceiling for a portion but not in the bedrooms. We have a storage room downstairs where I plan on terminating all the wires into a switch. I’ll also host any servers and printers in this room as well. I found a cable run into one bedroom which I’ll follow and change the plate into a two or maybe 4 port plate. The other room presents another challenge. I found some molding at the hardware store today that I can use to run the wire outside in the room but tuck it away in a corner.
The real challenge is going to be getting the runs from downstairs to upstairs. I found a preexisting hole that went through the floorboards into the walls upstairs. I hoped this would work. However, after trying a ‘electrical cord finder’ it proved inconclusive. I then ran fish tape wire up the hole and started banging around to try and hear it. The hole wasn’t where I wanted it to go and didn’t look like it went into the attic.
However we do have a closet in the hallway. I figured I could drill a hole in the corner of the closet which will lead downstairs. Then run the cables up the back corner through another hole into the attic.
Closet floor where I plan on drilling a hole
I planned on running the cable through the back corner. First I would have to remove the baseboard.
Using the prybar to remove the baseboard.
There were a couple of nails which held the baseboard to the wall. I got one corner out easily. However the lower center nail proved a worthy opponent to my prybar.
The stubborn nail who didn't want to come out.
Lots of sites suggested using a piece of wood or something strong so the prybar wouldn’t push directly against the drywall. It could damage the wall from the force. I seemed to work out ok without anything.
The force exerted on the wall from the prybar left an indentation.
At least this is at the bottom on the side with the door hinge. Hopefully it won’t be visible when I put everything back together. I planned on running the cables in the back corner. However, I figured I would first see where the front corner goes downstairs. I put a nail through the front corner through the floor. I had my roommate tap the nail while I looked through the drop ceiling to find the nail.
The nail poking through the floor.
I actually drove the nail much deeper but started removing it before I took the picture.
The spot is actually not that easy to get to.
It turns out that this front corner of the closet is not directly over my drop ceiling. It’s up and to the right. This means drilling a hole in the back corner would put the hole out of sight; at least I could see this hole. I practice dropping a cable through which worked. I could also insert my fish tape wire from where I could reach through the hole. This would allow me to pull the line from top to bottom so this hole could work. I need to run three cable through this. There’s enough space in the corner to run the cables and put the baseboard back in place. Looks like I’ll be running the cable through the front corner, then along the edge, then up the back corner into some pvc piping and up through the top back corner into the attic.
I drilled two holes to run the cables.
Unfortunately the space wasn’t big enough for one large hole to fit all three cables through. I drilled two 5/16′s holes side by side which should give me enough space to fit three cables through side by side.
The final damage to the closet.
There are the drill marks on the left side. The prybar damage in the center. I also scraped up the corner of the back baseboard while removing this portion. Hopefully once all this will disappear once I put the baseboard back in place.
That’s all the work I did today. Tomorrow I plan on running the three lines from the storage room to their final destinations.