Best practice for running Cat6 cable

Joined
Jan 29, 2020
Messages
6
Reaction score
0
Location
USA
I am currently in the planning stages of my CCTV system, which I am doing at the same time as multiple renovations to my home. The nice thing about that is at this time, I have most of the walls opened up so running cabling is not too difficult. I am running Cat6 cabling for general data usage throughout the house right now so I figured I should choose placement for cameras and get POE cabling run now as well. Running them inside the house is not a problem, I just pick where I want a camera and run cabling to that spot. The trouble I am having is with running the cabling for the outside cameras.

It seems to me that the most secure way of installing the cameras would be to run the cabling through the outside walls of my home, through the siding directly to where the cameras will be placed. In this way, I could have all of the cabling completely concealed, either inside the walls or inside the cameras casing/mounting. This seems pretty straight forward to me. Run the cable, drill a hole, pull it through, silicone the hole. The difficulty comes in to play as I am not 100% certain on some changes that I will be doing outside the house. I will be building a garage, but placement and size are yet to be determined. I will be adding a deck, but again size is not set in stone yet. I will be tearing off a small entryway on the side and rebuilding it, as well as the front porch and converting it to an enclosed porch.

As the dimensions, and really the actual possible structures themselves, are still up in the air it puts the idea of pinpointing camera placement up in the air. So the ability to just drill a hole where I want it is kind of on hold. The other idea is to run lengths of cabling to the attic (2 story house) or basement, leaving a lot of extra on them to be rerouted later when the placement becomes finalized. But this then leaves me with a need to run the majority of the cabling actually outdoors, either under the vinyl siding, or possibly underground in several areas. I am not a big fan of this, mostly for security reasons but also due to weather. I live in an area of the country that gets massive amounts of snow, and has long, harsh, frigid winters.

Is there a different approach I should be looking at? I just really hate to miss this opportunity while I have such unrestricted access to the insides of the walls.
 

IAmATeaf

Known around here
Joined
Jan 13, 2019
Messages
3,315
Reaction score
3,304
Location
United Kingdom
Rather than think about only running one cable run multiple to where you think you might possible site a cam and maybe leave it with slack behind the fascia. Make sure you then have a mark of where the cable is sited, then a 3/4” hole and hook the cable out?
 
Joined
Dec 6, 2014
Messages
3,694
Reaction score
15,293
Location
South Dakota
Rather than think about only running one cable run multiple to where you think you might possible site a cam and maybe leave it with slack behind the fascia. Make sure you then have a mark of where the cable is sited, then a 3/4” hole and hook the cable out?
yes Yes YES.

I am trying to run 2 or 3 ethernet lines to multiple locations in my house after the fact. At least one of those may be impossible to get to without ripping ceiling apart--- not what I want to do at all. The OP should run 2 or 3 lines to every spot in the house he wants some cable-- as you said. If he pulled MANY cables into the attic AND that attic will have access to the garage addition in the future-- that would take care of that as he could finish pulling them in from the attic later. Otherwise, an exterior-grade electrical junction box outside his house where the garage will eventually be attached would be good to get cabling to. Perhaps the bulk of the cable could be sitting inside the wall or floor-joist area of the house until he pulls the rest of it into the garage during construction.

We have some real pros at this here on the forum--- curious to see what they would add or how they would address the possibility of future expansion.
 

Bryan

Getting comfortable
Joined
Nov 25, 2016
Messages
267
Reaction score
274
You might want to think about running low voltage power cables for 12VDC for having IR lights at locations away from the cameras. Using the camera's own IR has a lot of false alarms from moths and swinging spiders on their webs. Also I used the corner vertical vinyl siding pieces to run Cat6 cable in. There's a post.
 

looney2ns

IPCT Contributor
Joined
Sep 25, 2016
Messages
15,683
Reaction score
22,975
Location
Evansville, In. USA
I am currently in the planning stages of my CCTV system, which I am doing at the same time as multiple renovations to my home. The nice thing about that is at this time, I have most of the walls opened up so running cabling is not too difficult. I am running Cat6 cabling for general data usage throughout the house right now so I figured I should choose placement for cameras and get POE cabling run now as well. Running them inside the house is not a problem, I just pick where I want a camera and run cabling to that spot. The trouble I am having is with running the cabling for the outside cameras.

It seems to me that the most secure way of installing the cameras would be to run the cabling through the outside walls of my home, through the siding directly to where the cameras will be placed. In this way, I could have all of the cabling completely concealed, either inside the walls or inside the cameras casing/mounting. This seems pretty straight forward to me. Run the cable, drill a hole, pull it through, silicone the hole. The difficulty comes in to play as I am not 100% certain on some changes that I will be doing outside the house. I will be building a garage, but placement and size are yet to be determined. I will be adding a deck, but again size is not set in stone yet. I will be tearing off a small entryway on the side and rebuilding it, as well as the front porch and converting it to an enclosed porch.

As the dimensions, and really the actual possible structures themselves, are still up in the air it puts the idea of pinpointing camera placement up in the air. So the ability to just drill a hole where I want it is kind of on hold. The other idea is to run lengths of cabling to the attic (2 story house) or basement, leaving a lot of extra on them to be rerouted later when the placement becomes finalized. But this then leaves me with a need to run the majority of the cabling actually outdoors, either under the vinyl siding, or possibly underground in several areas. I am not a big fan of this, mostly for security reasons but also due to weather. I live in an area of the country that gets massive amounts of snow, and has long, harsh, frigid winters.

Is there a different approach I should be looking at? I just really hate to miss this opportunity while I have such unrestricted access to the insides of the walls.
On a real computer, study this: Cliff Notes
 
Joined
Dec 6, 2014
Messages
3,694
Reaction score
15,293
Location
South Dakota
If you have most of the walls opened up---- TAKE LOTS OF VIDEO. I built my house 21 years ago-- and the best thing I did was shoot video as I built it. I didn't know then how much I would appreciate the video I took on my old Sony camcorder. Shots like THIS ---- so valuable..... TAKE VIDEO AND TONS OF PICS!

1591406129441.png
 
Top