New house build. Overwhelmed with options…

jlppilot

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I live in a rural area and there aren’t any really high quality businesses that focus on low voltage stuff so I feel like if I’m going to do it right, I’m going to have to do it myself. Looking to you guys for advice as I feel there’s a lot of good knowledge here.

For now I really want to focus on the things that will be harder to do after drywall is up so I’m not looking to pick the perfect router or switch or server rack or POE cameras or other internet connected devices.

What I really want to do is:

1. Make sure the cable I put in the walls is good quality

2. Make sure I put enough wire in the right places

So far I’m looking at wire that most people would consider to be overkill. It’s plenum rated CAT 6A from vertical cable (buying from cable and connections). Many will say plenum is overkill and many will say CAT 6A is overkill. I don’t care about that so much. It’s well within my budget so I’m probably just going to go with at least that high of quality. But what I’m worried about is that it’s not shielded.

I think in most situations shielding probably would not matter (especially if you’re not routing close to power wires, etc) but I have wondered about someday adding a system that allows audio and video over IP. Maybe having one input routed to TV’s in different rooms simultaneously or who knows what. I guess I’ve heard AV over IP might work better with shielded cable?

Moving along to where I should put wires…

I guess I feel like I’m going to have everything originate in a central room where networking hardware will be. I’ll run:

1. several runs to every bedroom

2. Do I need any runs in the kitchen? Maybe for smart appliances?

3. Do I need any runs in the mudroom/laundry room? Smart appliances again?

4. Do I need a run to whatever I use for heat and air conditioning? Could maybe control it with some sort of a smart device rather than a thermostat?

5. How many do I need in the TV area? I think somewhere I read I should also run some fiber to the TV area? Not really sure why? Pretty sure that same person (AV guy on YouTube) said bring 3 or 4 CAT 6 and 1 fiber to the TV. I just don’t get why I need that many there…

6. Will run one to anywhere I think I might need a WAP or a switch of course

7. Will run one to anywhere that I can imagine having a camera.

8. What about making it easy to network my house to other buildings I build nearby in the future? Run some conduit underground in several directions and document where it ends underground so that I can dig down to it in the future and pull wire from the house?

9. have thought about a separate small building to house batteries for solar power. Probably need to plan to make a run there I imagine.

10. would really like security cameras in some perimeter locations around the property. Maybe lay conduit for that too?

12. Doorbell camera? Do some smart home devices like light switches and blind controls and temp sensors and garage door openers and security sensors on and on allow for wired hookup or are they mostly wireless? Would really like to give Home Assistant a shot at some point…

Any thoughts much appreciated.

Thanks
 

mat200

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If you can afford to, I would run at least one cat5e/6 to each location you plan to have a stationary IP device ..

I prefer the N+1+ rule .. ( do check out the cliff notes, we probably have some good info there on this topic and probably could use some more .. there are a number of threads which many have posted some info on cabling .. mostly for security cameras )

recommend this video ..

looks like he may have a new one here ..
 
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staind204

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Feel free to fact check me but I'm not sure there's any real benefit to 6a over 6 unless you are running the wire over about 150 ft. Regular cat 6 can still hit 10Gbps up to that distance.

I recently started a project running ethernet to several of my rooms. Initially I was going to do 6A but given my runs were 150ft or less and cat6a is more difficult to work with I opted for cat6.
 
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