Am electrician and live in a double-wide so I haven’t tinkered with it beyond swapping some devices. Feels good to be able to just do stuff like this, as simple as it is. I was not raised to be very handy so learning all this has been a deliberate process.
Uh, this doesn’t count as a legal, professional consultation and you should always seek a licensed professional when it comes to electricity in your home.
Can you help me to learn? I need to do this for my place. I want to go straight up from my basement which has an unfinished/exposed area I can probably head upwards with to an attic I can access fully, and then preferably down into my office which is directly above the basement starting area.
Any tips or guides?
I can give you a couple tips!
· Get some fish sticks if you don’t have some. The stiff, fiberglass rods, not the processed seafood. You can get singles, or multiples that screw together. You use them by taping the cable to the end, and then pushing the fish stick from the back, to run cable through small spaces.
· Run a pullstring with your cables! Taped alongside your Ethernet cable you should also always include a pullstring, so that if you ever need to pull another cable that same way, you can just tape it on and pull. This can be actual pullstring, which is usually just a thin nylon cord, or another length of Ethernet cable.
· You can pull on it harder than you think, but not as hard as you hope. This is something that really you have to learn over time, but it helps to know beforehand. Ethernet cable is pretty strong. It’s coiled in boxes because you’re expected to pull it long distances, and sometimes it snags. When this happens, you don’t immediately have to run and fix the snag. You can add some force, and give it a yank. But if it feels like it’s really stuck, always make the walk. There’s nothing worse than running an entire length of cable, only to find out it broke somewhere in the middle. On the upside though, it does become a free pullstring
That pullstring tip is so huge.
Even if your run doesn’t end there, just having that much done and ready is a lifesaver
The other feller’s advice is as good as you’ll be able to get off-site.
My process is always (once I’ve adequately mapped the place out) to find the most feasible path I can take with the fewest holes possible. Walls have top plates and bottom plates, if you come into a wall between the studs that’s great but you still gotta get up or down.
And that, my friend, is where the tricks of my trade begin ;)
pardon the phrasing but this helps me to this day!
“dick down, orange to brown”
for an rj45 ethernet cable:
with the pins facing up it is
for B which is usually what we see out in the field
edit:
can’t figure out how to keep it in list format on the phone
Measure carefully and drill up through the floor or down through the attic to get into/out of the walls
You can get push poles or fishtape from a hardware store to help. I like the Klein braided fiberglass tape, it’s done a great job for me.
There are also drill bits that are long and flexible, you can use those in a pinch if you have to drill through a top/bottom plate but can’t get there easily. Pricey though. Edit to add, the bit shaft usually needs such a long radius of bend that they’re not really practical IMO. Right angle attachments for an impact driver with a spade bit can do a lot tho
However you do it, plan ahead for the future. If that means adding a switch or pull string now to make future projects way easier, it’s worth it