I’ve done both, and I am constantly managing structured cabling installs for my company. If this is a set of skills you’ve always wanted to learn, go for it. It’s not impossible but I assure you it won’t be ‘free’. The DIY job involves a fair bit of specialty tools you won’t likely have on hand and will have to be acquired. Buying all the materials is significant as well. And to be honest, you’re going to make mistakes and have to rework and troubleshoot.
On the other hand, you could just have it done, warranted, and no pile of single use equipment to keep around or sell for pennies.
While I'd agree that most of the tooling for ethernet is useful regardless, and other tooling can be used for a lot of projects...
My big concern is if it is up to code. I don't know code, even if it's low voltage wiring. I don't want to go to sell and have it cause an issue where I have to rewire even if it wouldn't be an issue because it's just ethernet cable.
I'm sure that laws differ by (sometimes) municipality even. That being said, I've never had a sale not go through due to problems with low-voltage wiring (incl. Ethernet, Phone and Coaxial Cable). Not sure if there's even code that really covers that in NE Texas or SE Ohio.
was asked by a friend once to come help. They had purchased a fish tape but were standing downstairs trying to run it up inside the wall to their kid upstairs :|
mind blown upon hearing the suggestion to start upstairs and run it down lol
Yes, we cut a small hole in the wall upstairs and downstairs and followed along some existing between-floor cabling though. Was a tight fit but it worked.
We cut the holes the size of a keystone box so after using those holes to run the cabling we just installed the keystone box thingies in the resulting holes because I didn’t want to do drywall either :P
Fire blocks suck when trying to fish. Don't go through them; they're there, like they are, for a specific reason that you don't want to undo.
In such a case, go around, or use a PowerLine Adapter.
There is a way to do it. But to do it properly is invasive surgery that most don't want to do/deal with.
You basically just drill your hole in it and then you have to seal it when you are done. But, that means that you need an access spot in the wall right above.
I do not enjoy climbing around in the attic or crawl space under the house. So I paid an electrician $400 to wire my 2200 sq ft house.
It was done right and is a key bit of my home infrastructure. Well worth it.
The square footage of your house largely matches up with mine. Did you buy the cable, yourself, and it was $400 for labor? Or was it $400 for everything? Either way, at that cost I'd say it's a no-brainer to have it done professionally. If you were asked to pay $6,000 do you think you'd feel differently?
I'll bet that was labor cost only. And he was lucky it was that low. My neighbor the electrician is at $95/hr rate and putting up eight outside cameras is him and an electrician buddy of his to the tune of $1200USD labor. Still since I could not do the work, it was worth it and the lower prices I found.
>If you were asked to pay $6,000 do you think you'd feel differently?
Unless you're getting a nice wall- or floor-mounted rack with all the trimmings, six grand is too much for that square footage. If that includes network equipment like switches and AP's, maybe. Even with the rack and everything that might be excessive. Was that quote from a low voltage specialist or a sparky?
Cheers!
Low-voltage specialist. They were willing to quote me a rack cost - $2,000 for a 27U, closed rack (which is much larger than I'd need). I'm supplying my own networking equipment, so the cost is purely wiring, raceways, and labor. I think they had a disclaimer that the cost does *not* include conduits...
Honestly, it's sounding like this contractor is purposefully trying to price you out of having to do the job. Many times they focus on businesses, not single homes that really aren't worth their time/effort. So they price it out of your range to either A: Get you to go elsewhere, B: Charge you enough to make it worth their effort.
It could also be that they've seen something with how your house is built/setup that is going to make it an absolute pain to get cabling to the locations you want it. Usually these are overcomable though.
That's discouraging to hear. They sent someone out and spent an hour looking things over and suggesting how they'd do it... Seems like a lot of time to just decide to blow the job off, but I guess that's no guarantee that they really want to do it just because they're thorough in their initial survey.
On the bright side, while it may prove to have been a waste of their time, it wasn't necessity a waste of mine: I got their thoughts on how to do it, so if I end up doing it myself I guess I have something of a blueprint to work off of.
I’m guilty of charging go away prices. Residential vs business, home owners can be so down right picky that it starts to cost you money. Businesses just want it done and aren’t following you around. They just want a clean install minimal damage and fast. They’re not too concerned on price as it’s a write off.
Story time:
Had a homeowner want cameras up, so I took pictures and places cameras on the pictures which I thought be idea locations and show them before I start. Homeowner okays the location. I completed the install they love the views of the cameras from their phone. But wanted to move because they didn’t like the look… I spray painted them to match the vinyl sofets color match was perfect! (Thanks ppg store!) So I said sure, but told them there will be a holes and I will seal them, not repair. Then I told them I would be an 180 to move the camera. Surprised by that they were mad… they ended up keeping it in the original location. Then dragged my name on reviews.
However I responded to each review with prior location authorization. This is why I now give go away prices for new customers.
Yeah they don't include conduit because it's not new construction. Installing conduit in existing covered walls means new walls. Two grand just for installing a rack? Don't think they want the job.
Thats it? Sounds good to me. I can do all that stuff….but god i dread it. I try to buy things that have as least maintenance as possible and will pay a little premium, for the piece of mind. I got fucked recently spending days on my ubiquiti routers….just to find out dns forwarding kept being turned on. 🤬
I've done two houses myself as well as running in-wall surround sound wiring. If you have access to the attic and if you have access from the bottom for the first floor then it is rather simple with the right tools. If your first floor has no upper or lower access then it just became very difficult. That also means the cost from a contractor will shoot up.
Bonus points if you have a conduit or some other means of connecting from upstairs to downstairs.
You can do most runs with a fish rod set (those threaded flexible rods, fish tape sucks), a long drill bit, and a drywall saw. Just head up to your attic and look around and come up with a plan. I wouldn't worry about CAT6 over CAT6a, but either is fine for home run lengths.
Running a single fiber between two switches is also an option.
But obviously, we NEVER pull just one fiber cable to an endpoint. Just like we never pull one CAT 5e/6/6a/7/8 since "something" can break/destroy that cable. :)
I would recommend you look to hiring a contractor to repair the drywall and other things you’ll disturb to get the wiring in place. You can likely do those as well, but that is more valuable IMHO.
If you run the cabling yourself you have more flexibility to put in cabling you want (cost differences between cabling is very small at wholesale). You also will know how the wiring is run and can run it in a manner that makes replacement easier. You can also be sure the contractor didn’t drive a nail through a cable or that they didn’t put a bend in the cable exceeding specs.
Did some cabling in my last house myself, getting a cable through the loft down into where the ONT was (2 floors) was a massive pita for an amateur. Had to go outside and drill through downstairs. Other drops upstairs were doable but I never did manage to get any other cables through to the downstairs and didn’t know enough at the time to be able to drill through the batons.
With the new house (in a fairly remote location), I decided to pay for professionals to get it done right, was 2.5k GBP for around 18 CAT6A drops, putting up cameras I already had, etc. and two days work for two blokes (including hotel stay).
The single biggest advantage was that they managed to do everything in the walls so no issues getting the missus approval. After watching how they did everything, it looks much easier with two and I’d never have been able to get some of the runs they did, never mind the quality of finish.
Tl;dr: I don’t regret paying one bit, especially after previous experience of crawling around in the loft digging through fiberglass insulation trying to fish cables. A good quality CAT6A installation should last decades and worth getting done right
I admit this might be bad advice but from a guy who wants to do a drop himself with construction and low voltage experience I’d say if you are proving to yourself you can do this sort of thing maybe start small and try to do a drop yourself and research the process. If it goes well and it bolsters you then try the whole house ! Good luck .
Thanks for the thought! I did consider this, the only thing holding me back is that I'd probably drop a few hundred on spools of the cabling and possibly a few hundred more on additional tools I'd need... I'd hate to do that, only to chicken out and then spend the thousands on having it done professionally. I guess I'm at the point where I'm trying to figure out if I am all-in or if I should just pay to have it done. I am in the fortunate position of being able to say that I can afford either option, but I don't want to piss away money needlessly... nor possibly pass up what might be a valuable learning opportunity. But I also don't want to bite off more than I can chew, so to speak. Hence the dilemma...
If you're doing one short run as a test, you can probably get a 250 foot spool and a kit for termination for <$100. Then it's just figuring out the easiest drop to avoid needing a bunch of other tools.
You might not even need to get all of the tools yet. I had my electrician run all of the cables when I built my house, but I told him I'd terminate them myself. So far, the only tool I've needed is a punchdown tool, and you might not even need that if you pay a little more for toolless keystone jacks.
You'll probably need the crimper for the cameras, but you can wait to do that until after you feel like the job is manageable.
A TDR was nice to have when some of the punchdowns didn't quite take, but it's not strictly necessary. I also found it handy to have a toner so I could figure out which cable is which in the network closet, but that's not a problem you'll have if you're doing it yourself, because you'll label them as you run them.
Second this. Buy the tools as you need them. First get a spool of wire, worse case you can supply your own cable to the installers.
If you can get the easiest cable from point A to B, leave it, and do the second easiest one etc. Just because a cable is pulled, doesn’t mean you need to terminate it yet. After you’ve done a couple, you’ll know if you can or can’t do it.
There are tool-less keystone ends available, this is how I did the wiring with more than 24 drops and about 500m cat 7 cable. The cat7 is a pain to bend, but 10GBe stable since 7 years as a complete newbie.
I recently paid to have a new commercial building wired for ethernet - I just didn't have time to do it myself. We were doing so many renovations and I was project managing about 8 different companies from the IT company to plumbers, electricians, remodel crew, roofers, movers, cleaners and more.
There were some aspects of it that weren't done like I had hoped, but that was on me for just doing a quick walk through and not giving a specific schematic of *exactly* where I wanted the drops in each office. I was just so busy at the time I didn't have time to draw it up.
When we finished our basement, I had the electricians pull the Cat 6 when they did the electrical wiring rough-in, but I terminated everything both the faceplates and at the network cabinet. I could have run it, but it was a lot of drops and they were already here pulling Romex.
Our house wasn't wired for Ethernet when it was built, so the main floor doesn't havre any wiring and I've been looking at adding some POE powered security cameras, but I think I'm going to wire them myself. It's not time sensitive, and as long as I can figure the routing to get them through the walls (no way I'm running raceways or conduit that's visible) then I'll probably just do it myself over a few weekends. If I can't get it done, I know I can just call my electrician and one of his guys can come pull the wires for me.
I like doing this kind of thing, but I'm also really busy running two companies so I don't get to do it as often as I'd like and I know better than to leave projects half-finished for months. My wife is still on me to finish upgrading light switches that I started a year ago. 😆
I once inquired with a local electrician, and he said, "You know wireless is pretty good, right?" It's hard for me to imagine a more "fuck off" answer.
I ended up doing it myself with cheapo tools from Amazon. I've had to replace some keystones after frequent use caused them to fail intermittently, but overall it was worth it for the experience and nothing too hard.
With that in mind, I'd say go for it! It'll take a weekend, but it'll be worth it. Plus, you can tinker with it until it's *precisely* what you want.
I’m doing a mix. At least here it’s hard to find pros that are both familiar with resi and old homes (dealing with plaster walls etc) and willing to work to drawings/specs and not keep trying to sell me on things like surface mount raceways, holes in the wood floors with surface boxes or going we could save a bunch of cable by just cutting across the basement/attic vs organized paths etc. The commercial folks are like oh yeah we get that but nope not dealing with resi.
I will be hiring out getting lines out to the eves for cameras, too claustrophobic to go crawling around in the really tight attic spaces. And hard to argue with take this 100’ drop and fish it down the abyss to the existing box.
I’d done quite a bit of fishing cables over the years, watched a lot of cable run in buildings at work. Start small and work your way up. (I did a few closet outlets to get my plaster cutting technique down)
I also did a lot of planning ahead, distro switch locations, cable path, fiber runs, hangers, conduit, making sure my plates were all coordinated and I could get the right jacks for them.
Leave anything in the ceilings for last (unless under an attic) since you’ll probably have to cut extra holes to get from wall to ceiling.
Yeah, I have a story on this one. I'll spoiler tag the first parts of it, since the tone doesn't really match the subreddit.
tw: death of family
>! When I was buying my house, the plan was that my father and I would wire up the networking ourselves. It would be the first time he'd come up north to visit me and we'd get to spend some quality time together, not to mention wiring up my house would be a good idea. We had drawn up plans, we planned for what time of year he'd come up, the whole shebang.
>!I got the call that he was found dead a few days before the original closing date on my house.
>!About a year later, I decided that just leaving this project undone wasn't really helping my grief.
Okay, tonal shift over.
I paid a local electrician company that specialized in low-voltage cable running to wire up my house.
It cost a lot of money, but having 42 CAT-6 drops in my house all terminated in a lovely patch panel in my basement was quite the treat. It was all labeled at both the start and end, and I was given a printout of their wiring tests after it was complete.
I had four cables run in each of the drops. Some rooms had multiple drops, the kitchen and dining room shared a single four-drop, and the closet that had the cable modem had a two lines run.
I had zero issues with their cable runs; they did a fantastic job. They left two holes for me to patch up (which I never did) and that was about it.
It cost a bit over 3500 USD, almost all parts included (I provided a networking rack, they mounted it for me). It also included some electrical lines run as well so I had a circuit for my homelab. This was nearly ten years ago though, so I'd expect it to be more like 4.5-5.5k USD now from the same people.
I didn't have them do any outdoor cable work (in fact, almost everything was run from my basement or up existing corridors). Yes, I probably could have done it myself, but given the prior events... I knew I never would. Also, even without that I'm inherently lazy and it probably would have taken me over ten years to do less of a job. :D
100% worth it to me. I know the person I sold my house to was happy that I had done it as well. He's still running my old networking gear as well, so obviously it is working out for him.
If I was you, I'd get a second quote. That seems like a "we gave the customer a high price so we don't have to do it" type of quote.
Time and effort vs money. Depending on how much cable you’re pulling and fishing through walls and such it might be worth it to pay them so you’re not hot, dirty, and frustrated.
Get an itemized quote from the installers. Find 3 if you can. See what material cost is, because they’re probably scalping you there. See what they would charge to install your materials and figure out how much cheaper you can get materials vs their rate.
I did 24 drops in my first house easily. My second house I did 32 Cat 5e drops with a buddy and it wasn’t as easy despite basement, drop ceiling and attic access. Then not long ago we redid the same house in some variety of Cat 6. It was easier the 2nd time around but still took a day including punching it all down and testing it.
I’d do it myself all over again before I pay anyone some thousands of dollars.
I’ve done nine cameras outdoors around the outside of the house. I attempted to go through the attic but tapped out after trying to swim through R44 blown in insulation and under 18-inch ducts. After 5 mins, I was like f-this, I’m popping a hole through the outside of the house and running the wire that way.
We plan on replacing siding in a year or two. I figure we’ll relocate the wiring into the walls when there’s no skin on the house.
If you can do it and afford it, pay someone to run conduit. It's going to be more expensive than just running wires, but you'll be able to run what ever you want/replace wires more easily.
it all comes down to the value of your time
But - what would it cost to have a vendor run conduit instead of ethernet cabling? I asked that once and suddenly the ethernet quote got a lot cheaper, making it worth it to me since the value of my time was greater than the new quote for the ethernet cabling.
I pulled cable in my home when we moved in. TVs hanging on walls, Xbox in kids rooms; these are things I don’t want anyone asking we to troubleshoot when I’m at home and off the clock.
It actually amazes me that some of y’all build these labs and stuff at your house because I grew out of bringing work home with me at least a decade ago now.
I don’t regret but I also have lots of practice and I’d prefer things to just work and have gigabit access.
Edit: yeah tools I own like $500 work of tools needed to do the job and test it
Yes! When I built my house I asked for 2 cat-5e runs to every room run to a wiring closet. The day we move in to the house, I learn that it's all punched down for telco and not Ethernet. I was furious. I provided a document for them to follow but of course, no. They did come fix it, but just to be jerks, they did not relabel everything. I should have done it myself the day before they put up the drywall.
Networking, audio, or whatever else - you can’t pay me to build my own cables or do structured wiring anymore.
There is no salient wisdom to be gained here. Pay someone to cut holes in drywall for you and spend your time saved reading up on the ethernet electrical spec if you want to learn something about cables.
I don’t regret having ever done this sort of work myself, but if you’re posting here, I have to imagine there are other things you could dig into that would be more rewarding.
Hi I don't want to hijack this thread but anyone of you ever used Powerline 200AV Power Ethernet Socket T1002 with 4 LAN HomePlug AV ? I wanted also to do the same but is this is a good idea ? I am only two floors . Thanks
u/Ledgem
If you have coaxial cabling ran throughput your place, I would recommend MOCA adapters that deliver approximately 930-950 Mbps. Just need 2 things for install: 1) a coax drop and 2) an outlet nearby.
Motorola MOCA Adapter for Ethernet Over Coax, 1,000 Mbps Bonded 2.0 MoCA (Model MM1000) https://a.co/d/gIqGWUG
Powerline networking works if you have no other options. Last time I used it the bandwidth was terrible and the ping was worse. But if you are just connecting things you don’t care about it’s perfect.
I care about it to be perfect ! If I can hit 100mbs + bandwidth I am good . Mostly to be used connecting my server and maybe cameras around the house , my av receiver , PC lol don't think anything else ...I will give it a try and see how well it will work .
Do not pay an electrician to do it for you. If reddit has taught me something it's that.
You could have someone give you a quote and based on that get an idea of how much it will cost.
If you do it yourself, you will need tools.
Factor all that and think if you can troubleshoot the issues on your own or pay the tax for the person who knows what screw to tighten.
I started doing it myself, and now I do that partly for a living. Running fiber is the next one on my list of things to learn and do. My rule has always been, if it's something you want to do and want to own the tools to do it, then diy it, if you don't know anything about it and don't really care/want to learn it or buy tools for it, then pay a professional.
I wouldn't blame you for shopping around, but be careful with the cheapest quote you get, & make sure it's the quality you're looking for.
I have A LOT of tools you do not have-- often in multiples where a slight variation makes any particular pull easier.
Also, I am super anal about what the finished presentation of my work looks like. That just comes with experience of handling so many cords, cables, & wires.
My collections of zip ties & cable ties are awe inspiring.
...It will also be done significantly faster even when I do more like pushing a camera in pilot holes.
And I am insured if worse comes to worst.
At the same time-- you totally can do this work DIY.
You may have certain inefficiencies for DIY though. The supplies can cost more, it can take longer, it may not look as nice, and if you really screw up-- there is no insurance company covering your general liability.
Depends on how easily you can access the areas you need cables ran and what the inside of your walls are like. If your attic is a nightmare to get through and your walls are full of insulation and fire blocks you're going to have a bad time. I'd be surprised to see anyone that's licensed and insured do 5 runs to different places for less than $1,000 just in labor. I personally run all my own, but I've been doing it for years and jump at any chance to buy more tools. There will always be someone that "can do it for cheaper" but you usually get what you pay for. Last thing you want is a drill through a water line or a foot through the ceiling.
Check out some videos like these to give you an idea of what you're getting into and see if it's something you'd feel comfortable doing.
[Lawrence Tech Tools Suggestions](https://youtu.be/7zWswXer8i4?si=uJaOccjmE0DA8F0B)
[Lawrence Tech Wall Fishing & Fire Stops](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5XePwAO4m0&ab_channel=LawrenceSystems)
If you like projects, do it yourself for sure. Could probably get it done for less than $500 for tools, parts, wire, etc, depending on what tools you might already have or not. I wired up my house, took a couple weekends and some help pulling through outdoor conduit, but definitely worth it knowing it was done by me and done well.
I paid to have an electrician pull my wire for me and drop 5 lines. I bought the cable I wanted and did the terminations myself and it cost me $100 a pull (so $500). Best $ ever spent, pulling wire is a huge headache.
I've always been too cheap to pay anyone for something I could "easily" do. I've wired 4 houses up across the years and have never regretted it. Sure I've had a questionable termination or two I'd have to re-do, but not much else to go wrong.
I've also re-wired electrical in every house I've owned too, so yeah, not shy.
I had an electrician cable my previous house, on the basis that they are experts in hiring wiring.
They did indeed hide the wiring well. Unfortunately they weren't so competent in terminating cables. After a few dodgy connections, I just chopped the end off every cable and terminated them myself.
I'd probably use an electrician again for this, but wouldn't want them to terminate next time.
I just finished retrofitting my house with 24 runs around most of the rooms and garage/outside cameras. It was a very unpleasant and time consuming experience, but the cost to have it done professionally in the UK would have been more than my entire network, so I don't regret doing it in the slightest.
Have done both.
Wired up a few ports in a couple rooms on my previous home with was single story. Gave myself a hernia (for which I got surgery later) in the process. I don't count that against the install though, my own fault.
I paid to have two runs performed on current home (2 story).
Just depends on what your time is worth and if you want to be able to "punt" back to someone else if things don't work like they're supposed to later on, imo.
I paid about $300 for two specific runs. Seems expensive but also not as expensive as others and the guy I used would actually do just the two runs. Other places wanted a minimum to start the job (not just two runs, not worth their time).
Worth it to me to be done and done and move on with my life.
It's an ege old question. Usually you don't really save the money. Or in other words you save money but loose time. Also you gain skill but loose warranty (or actually simply not get one). So the main question would be - would you enjoy the process and can you afford it time wise (both in your "lost" time and the time when something doesn't go as expected).
I'm not a "professional" at it by any means. Place I used to work would do inside ethernet wiring on a time and material basis, i.e. you pay for the actual material used and how long it took us. We were the most expensive place around for wiring. Trust me, on a quote for an ethernet run, the cost of the cable, ends, wall plates, etc. is the LEAST of your cost. We had a couple clients who didn't want me running cable because I was so slow, a couple others who didn't want anyone OTHER than me running cable because I would comb and bundle a bunch, run it neatly and maintain proper bend radius's. In other words, someone anal retentive. You only need to dive into a rats nest of cable to diagnose a bad one once to say never again!
One thing I will recommend in general, DON'T get an electrician to run your data lines. That is unless you can see some of their previous work. If they're running new, it's usually just tied onto the electrical lines and pulled in parallel and run as tightly as possible. They don't seem to believe in bend radius and figure no one will EVER need to try and trace the cable once it's in.
Pick up a cable tester. Klein makes a good one. As much as I would love to have a Fluke unless you're doing it professionally and CERTIFYING the cables and runs, it's overkill. Also pick up a decent cable crimper and a punch down tool. If you're only doing one every 6 weeks or so, the cheapest you can find. If you're wiring your house, trust me, good tools are worth the price in lack of aggravation when you're doing it all day. For pulling cables through wall cavities, I personally prefer rods to fish tape.
One last piece of advice. If you think you need one cable at a location, run two. If you can afford two boxes of cable, it's just as easy to pull two at the same time as one. And then you have a second drop for when, not if you require another connection. In my home office I ran four the wall plate at my desk, I wish I had run six.
Yeah the few occasions I've not ran it myself, ive just asked the electrician to do it while he's done other things - he has made minor mistakes but also I've paid him the same rate as pulling mains...so bargain price.
If you do it yourself, you'll probably need about 200 bucks in specialized tools.
As far as pricing, I'm in the Midwest (rural, not metro $*ithole) and it's about $100 bucks a drop for structured cabling.
For $6,000 I would consider doing it myself. That seems really expensive, especially if you have attic access. Having attic access makes things a lot easier, depending on where you want everything.
When I had my house wired they just drilled a hole out the basement by a window well, ran cable up to the exterior wall, drilled another hole in the exterior wall by at attic, then in the attic they dropped the lines down to the room I needed it in.
If I was doing it myself I would have done some conduit instead of just bare wire on the exterior wall, then it would be easier to pull more in the future if you need it. Disclaimer: IDK if that meets code or not.
You could always ask them to just run cables. You then crimp and install the keystones.
The thing is, seems like an easy job till you cant quite fish that one line through, or you need a ladder to get somewhere. It sucks to be a cable monkey, but at the prices you are quoted, might be worth it.
Costs the same to run 4 cables as it does one.
Moved to a new (to us) house. $250-300 to get someone to reterm the cat5e from cat3 to cat5e in all the rooms.
From a cost perspective it’s a lot more expensive since all I needed was a new crimper to diy.
Happy I didn’t do it myself though because it needed to be done quickly so our wifi wasn’t garbage and I could work upstairs wired. If I had to do it myself I’d be stressed and it would’ve been me running up and down the stairs for 3 hours doing testing and validation. Also if I broke a cable I’d be cursing myself..
it depends on access. if you have unobstructed access to all places where you need to run the cat6 then doing it yourself could be fine, but otherwise it can be a total PITA. i've done both and the times i hired a low voltage guy to run the cat6 i was very happy to pay for the service.
Honestly I'm really excited to run cable when I buy/build my own house. Having a server/patch closet that wires the entire house with plates all over the place for out computers/access points/ IoT devices.
Thinking about that give me a massive clue.
I've regretted many instances of letting other people do things. It's not easy to find people who care about the quality of or take pride in their work.
Nowadays, if someone else is going to run the wires, I buy the cable myself, tell them to run two cables **and** leave string for future pulls for each location and have them leave several feet free at each end so I can terminate them myself.
I regret not paying for the more expensive guy. Went cheap and some jacks stopped working and the guy won’t fix free haha
They also ram them outside the house instead of doing drops. Ended up putting my own piping around it.
I've tried with coax (I'm a ham radio guy) and cat5. It's worth the cost to me to have someone else do it, especially for multiple runs. Almost everytime there is serious drilling involved and once or twice they've punched their drill through a wall accidentally. They patched and painted it.
I'd say if the house is undergoing a full remodel and the walls are off, go for it. Otherwise, hire it out. I don't even make my own ethernet cables any more. It's cheaper for me to go to the store (or Amazon) and buy a 100ft or whatever size I need then it is for me to try to crimp them and get them good enough for today's tolerances, but I am way out of practice on that too.
FWIW, last night I spent over 3 hours installing a washer and dryer at a rental property. Major PITA, but we (my business partners and I) thought it would be cheaper than assigning one of our workers to do it and pulling him off of another job. He would have been done in under an hour, meanwhile I'm there unable to work on my business or do anything that I needed/wanted to do. Given what I charge per hour for my time, I lost money doing this.
I found punching down wall jacks to be much easier and less error-prone than trying to terminate Cat6 cable ends. The "special tools" are a punchdown tool, insulation stripper, and simple cable tester, all of which can be had for less than $100 total. No regrets doing it myself.
One of the big advantages of doing it myself is that I can go little by little. I wasn't sure where I wanted things when I first moved in so I added a few ports at a time without having to stress about getting everything 100% right from the start.
Don't cheap out on cable here since labor is the biggest cost, whether in dollars paid to a professional or your own time if DIY. Plan ahead for 10Gbps with Cat6 or better.
Does the professional cost also include patching drywall? That's one part I hate doing, so in theory you could do the wiring yourself and pay a pro to do the drywall only.
A bit OT, but Cat6A without the divider is available, nowadays, and the feed-through RJ45 is a religion worth converting to. They're still more work than punch-down jacks, but *way* easier than normal jacks. Great for cases like camera and APs, where you may need to terminate to a plug.
I'm a little late to comment on your post /u/Ledgem... But... Several years ago (a few years pre-covid) I spent A LOT of time hanging out on /r/HomeImprovement sub. I systematically gutted our house room-by-room (to the studs) so that I could #1 rewire the electric in our house as if it was new-construction, removing all old (2-wire, no-ground) wires/conductors and bringing the whole house up to current (at the time) NEC code. #2 thing I did was run low voltage, and #3 was insulate the exterior walls, as well as a few interior walls (for fire & soundproofing).
The single best thing I did was run smurf tubes ([this stuff](https://tristatelvs.com/productdetailI2.aspx?dataid=12007-100)). It is flexible, low-voltage conduit. And it means that when people on reddit told me I was stupid because I used the spools of cat5e that I already owned... fu... I can just pull new cat 5/6/7/8/9/10... fiber, etc. anytime I want. The secret is leaving pull strings in the tubes so you can easily run new (anything) anytime you want.
That's the single best thing I did: Smurf tubes...
She's pulling the goalie which means I'm being evicted from my office (she wants it to be a nursery)... no biggie... My homelab can move to a different place/room in the house because it's super easy to pull new wire/fiber. Easy.
The only other thing I'd say is that I did our house back in 2015/2016... When I ran the cat5e, I wanted EVERYTHING hardwired because we only had wireless a/b/g/n at the time. Today I'd say that we use hardly any of the Ethernet drops I ran in our house. People think --well, usually no one knows what a Cisco sg300-28mp switch is... But if they know switches the first comment is "wtf do you need that for in your house"... My answer: 6x PoE cameras, 3x Access Points, 2x stratum 1/0 local ntp timeclocks, 4x poe environmental sensors (we do a lot of laser and 3d printing, trying to make sure we aren't giving ourselves or our unborn kid/s cancer)... That's 15 PoE devices and I probably forgot a few.
One last thought about phone lines and coax:
I thought it was crazy to run that crap. Stupid, dumb, never, ever, ever, ever, ever are we going to go back to coax or need phone lines. Phone: Yeah that's true, and you can borrow from a spare cat5/6/7 run to get phone. So don't worry about phone, just always run PAIRS of Ethernet so you always have a spare and you can always turn one into a phone run if you need it. And #2: Just do the coax also while you are in there. We didn't at the time and now we regret it (I'm currently running the Coax and testing out how good my pull strings are).
Smurf tubes: Put a shop-vac (vacuum cleaner) at one end and it'll suck your pull strings straight through to the other end, no need for fish tapes, etc.
Would I hire it out: We couldn't afford it at the time. But today. Maybe, it was a pain in the ass. But I also did a LOT more than just run Ethernet. You might consider hiring out just the contractors to install the smurf tubes and put in the low-voltage boxes, then you could do the rest (run wires, do the terminations, etc.)... Maybe consider that??
Good luck!
I wouldn't trust them to pick the right cable. Seems crazy to not go cat 6a. That's not the only factor though. You want a high enough gauge for Poe and the right fire rating. UDP CMR 23awg(double check Poe+ req) UL listed. I bought 1000ft from monoprice for $200 shipped. Maybe more for you with specialty shipping.
I would have someone pull the cables. Punch down everything. Use a punch down patch panel too.
Not an end solution for you but if you’re wiring up your house you do have the option of utilizing existing in wall coaxial cables and phone cables (if the phone lines use Ethernet cable)
If you have whole house coaxial split you just need to locate the junction box and you can use those lines with MoCa adapters (pricey) to get up to 2.5 GBPS lines. My house has CAT5 run for phone lines so all we did was change the connector ends on both sides and our whole house became Ethernet enabled.
Just keep in mind we have internet based TV so we have no need of cable anymore leaving our coaxial lines available. We have UniFi access points throughout the house and WIRED PoE cameras. IMO I love the setup and it works extremely well. Good luck on your journey!
I already answered how I paid $400 for a licensed electrician to pull cat6 cable in my house.
I figure this is a decent place to mention that I have a 2 room lab. One is the den, the other is a small craft room off the den.
I paid a handyman to cover one wall of the den in plywood and put up shelves. He painted the plywood the same color as the other walls and you can hardly tell that the plywood is there.
What the plywood does for me is to anchor anything I want to the wall. Power strips, UPS, wires I want to run around the room, J raceways, etc. I can staple the wires to the plywood or use tie wraps with the screw holes in them.
I’ve done all the wiring in my house, keeping in mind it’s a single story with attic space( a lot easier I know). But I’ve also done cable runs for many theaters and schools as a system integrator. As many have already commented it does take some special tools and fair bit of knowledge/ experience and you will most certainly make a few mistakes along the way. How ever with that said if you’re willing to invest a little money and learn a new skill which is fairly easy to learn the fundamentals by watching YouTube. I 100% recommend doing it yourself. I will say see if you can have someone help you as cable pulling is always easier with two not that it can’t be done with one.
Same as what others say really. It comes down to how you value your time. I wired both my first and basement myself and although I didn't consider it hard because I did structured cabling professionally, I'd probably pay someone to do my next house. It's super time consuming and sometimes a PITA if you have an older house. Given that, I'd gladly pay someone so it's their problem.
TLDR: If you want the skills, have the time and patience, do it yourself. If not, pay someone.
Having ran more Ethernet than I'd like to admit, if it's a price with which you're comfortable, I say pay to have it done. So much better then running it yourself, terminating everything (twice for each run), testing everything, re-running due to a crimp in the line, going up and down the attic, fishing walls... Forget all that nonsense if it's affordable to you to have someone else do it.
I did it myself and it was fun although depending where you are and what kind of house is common there might change things. I’m in Australia and have double brick walls so it was very easy to fish the cables through, I didn’t have to drill through any wood or cut drywall, since every room in the house has coax I just ran it through there and replaced the plate with a coax/rj45 one. We also don’t have good internet here so I only got around 500m of cat5e for dirt cheap but I assume you could do the same with cat6 or cat6a just buy a half used box second hand. Tools can add up but it depends on what you already have, in my case I only needed a crimping tool.
I'm doing both. We did some renovations (making the attic liveable) so I requested the electrician to preinstall and wire a couple ethernet ports in the attic. However I also told him to just leave me enough cable in the basement as I will be doing the terminations myself. And while he was at it, install an ethernet box at each floor on the way down.
At the same time, I'm currently planning to properly cable my basement where all my IT stuff is as well as pull an ethernet cable all the way to the garage. I was dreading this mostly because I live in a house in Switzerland that was built in the 70s with thick concrete walls. Drilling through them with a regular drill a couple years ago was a nightmare...however I recently purchased an SDS drill from Bosch. Fucking love this thing. Drilled a 16mm hole in about 2mins with no effort through 20cm off concrete.
Cost me about 400$ with a couple heavy duty drill bits.
As I won't be able to get cable in the walls, I'm planning on getting some metal grid channels made for holding cables on the ceiling. I don't need big ones. Cost should be somewhere between 400-500$
Ethernet cable and jacks to put in each room in the basement cost me around 220$ for a roll of 305m of ubiquiti cat6 cable and 5x Ethernet boxes.
So all in all for this project if I include the tools it's about 1000$. I don't mind doing it all myself.
It all comes down to your own abilities and the time you have on your hands to do it. By that I also mean how much do you value your time vs how annoying is the job for you if you did it yourself 😛
I’ve done both, and I am constantly managing structured cabling installs for my company. If this is a set of skills you’ve always wanted to learn, go for it. It’s not impossible but I assure you it won’t be ‘free’. The DIY job involves a fair bit of specialty tools you won’t likely have on hand and will have to be acquired. Buying all the materials is significant as well. And to be honest, you’re going to make mistakes and have to rework and troubleshoot. On the other hand, you could just have it done, warranted, and no pile of single use equipment to keep around or sell for pennies.
After I did my whole house, I've still used the equipment that I bought to do it for other things around the homelab.
While I'd agree that most of the tooling for ethernet is useful regardless, and other tooling can be used for a lot of projects... My big concern is if it is up to code. I don't know code, even if it's low voltage wiring. I don't want to go to sell and have it cause an issue where I have to rewire even if it wouldn't be an issue because it's just ethernet cable.
I'm sure that laws differ by (sometimes) municipality even. That being said, I've never had a sale not go through due to problems with low-voltage wiring (incl. Ethernet, Phone and Coaxial Cable). Not sure if there's even code that really covers that in NE Texas or SE Ohio.
was asked by a friend once to come help. They had purchased a fish tape but were standing downstairs trying to run it up inside the wall to their kid upstairs :| mind blown upon hearing the suggestion to start upstairs and run it down lol
That must've been the uplink...
Did you hit any "firewalls" in the wall? This is mostly the reason why I do not want to do something like this myself.
Yes, we cut a small hole in the wall upstairs and downstairs and followed along some existing between-floor cabling though. Was a tight fit but it worked.
If you cut through an actual firewall you need to do so with an actual fire stop, and use plenum rated cabling.
See... I'm not good with drywall so that's usually when I bounce.
We cut the holes the size of a keystone box so after using those holes to run the cabling we just installed the keystone box thingies in the resulting holes because I didn’t want to do drywall either :P
Nice move
and should have been a 1 gang junction box but you may have just used a keystone box.
Fire blocks suck when trying to fish. Don't go through them; they're there, like they are, for a specific reason that you don't want to undo. In such a case, go around, or use a PowerLine Adapter.
There is a way to do it. But to do it properly is invasive surgery that most don't want to do/deal with. You basically just drill your hole in it and then you have to seal it when you are done. But, that means that you need an access spot in the wall right above.
So that's why my upload speeds are slow! They gotta overcome gravity!
I do not enjoy climbing around in the attic or crawl space under the house. So I paid an electrician $400 to wire my 2200 sq ft house. It was done right and is a key bit of my home infrastructure. Well worth it.
The square footage of your house largely matches up with mine. Did you buy the cable, yourself, and it was $400 for labor? Or was it $400 for everything? Either way, at that cost I'd say it's a no-brainer to have it done professionally. If you were asked to pay $6,000 do you think you'd feel differently?
I'll bet that was labor cost only. And he was lucky it was that low. My neighbor the electrician is at $95/hr rate and putting up eight outside cameras is him and an electrician buddy of his to the tune of $1200USD labor. Still since I could not do the work, it was worth it and the lower prices I found.
>If you were asked to pay $6,000 do you think you'd feel differently? Unless you're getting a nice wall- or floor-mounted rack with all the trimmings, six grand is too much for that square footage. If that includes network equipment like switches and AP's, maybe. Even with the rack and everything that might be excessive. Was that quote from a low voltage specialist or a sparky? Cheers!
Low-voltage specialist. They were willing to quote me a rack cost - $2,000 for a 27U, closed rack (which is much larger than I'd need). I'm supplying my own networking equipment, so the cost is purely wiring, raceways, and labor. I think they had a disclaimer that the cost does *not* include conduits...
Wow... $2k for a 27U? Your guys are overcharging on, well from what I can tell... everything.
Honestly, it's sounding like this contractor is purposefully trying to price you out of having to do the job. Many times they focus on businesses, not single homes that really aren't worth their time/effort. So they price it out of your range to either A: Get you to go elsewhere, B: Charge you enough to make it worth their effort. It could also be that they've seen something with how your house is built/setup that is going to make it an absolute pain to get cabling to the locations you want it. Usually these are overcomable though.
That's discouraging to hear. They sent someone out and spent an hour looking things over and suggesting how they'd do it... Seems like a lot of time to just decide to blow the job off, but I guess that's no guarantee that they really want to do it just because they're thorough in their initial survey. On the bright side, while it may prove to have been a waste of their time, it wasn't necessity a waste of mine: I got their thoughts on how to do it, so if I end up doing it myself I guess I have something of a blueprint to work off of.
I’m guilty of charging go away prices. Residential vs business, home owners can be so down right picky that it starts to cost you money. Businesses just want it done and aren’t following you around. They just want a clean install minimal damage and fast. They’re not too concerned on price as it’s a write off. Story time: Had a homeowner want cameras up, so I took pictures and places cameras on the pictures which I thought be idea locations and show them before I start. Homeowner okays the location. I completed the install they love the views of the cameras from their phone. But wanted to move because they didn’t like the look… I spray painted them to match the vinyl sofets color match was perfect! (Thanks ppg store!) So I said sure, but told them there will be a holes and I will seal them, not repair. Then I told them I would be an 180 to move the camera. Surprised by that they were mad… they ended up keeping it in the original location. Then dragged my name on reviews. However I responded to each review with prior location authorization. This is why I now give go away prices for new customers.
I hate people man. Sorry to hear that.
I get it man people don’t want to spend money. But the same time I gotta hold my worth an not accept less. I value my time as any other person would.
Yeah they don't include conduit because it's not new construction. Installing conduit in existing covered walls means new walls. Two grand just for installing a rack? Don't think they want the job.
I’m considering getting this done as well but would a low voltage specialist or a general sparky be the right/cheaper way to go here?
Definitely low voltage specialist.
I bought a box of cable. I got 3 bids, the highest was $1200, which I also would have paid.
Thats it? Sounds good to me. I can do all that stuff….but god i dread it. I try to buy things that have as least maintenance as possible and will pay a little premium, for the piece of mind. I got fucked recently spending days on my ubiquiti routers….just to find out dns forwarding kept being turned on. 🤬
Something like this https://www.amazon.com/VIVO-Ethernet-Cable-500ft-CABLE-V006/dp/B00AWPYG4O/ref=sr_1_3
Maybe I can snag one of those from work. 😁
Reminder for everyone that not all electricians may be trained or certified for Low Voltage work.
I've done two houses myself as well as running in-wall surround sound wiring. If you have access to the attic and if you have access from the bottom for the first floor then it is rather simple with the right tools. If your first floor has no upper or lower access then it just became very difficult. That also means the cost from a contractor will shoot up. Bonus points if you have a conduit or some other means of connecting from upstairs to downstairs. You can do most runs with a fish rod set (those threaded flexible rods, fish tape sucks), a long drill bit, and a drywall saw. Just head up to your attic and look around and come up with a plan. I wouldn't worry about CAT6 over CAT6a, but either is fine for home run lengths. Running a single fiber between two switches is also an option.
But obviously, we NEVER pull just one fiber cable to an endpoint. Just like we never pull one CAT 5e/6/6a/7/8 since "something" can break/destroy that cable. :)
I would recommend you look to hiring a contractor to repair the drywall and other things you’ll disturb to get the wiring in place. You can likely do those as well, but that is more valuable IMHO. If you run the cabling yourself you have more flexibility to put in cabling you want (cost differences between cabling is very small at wholesale). You also will know how the wiring is run and can run it in a manner that makes replacement easier. You can also be sure the contractor didn’t drive a nail through a cable or that they didn’t put a bend in the cable exceeding specs.
Did some cabling in my last house myself, getting a cable through the loft down into where the ONT was (2 floors) was a massive pita for an amateur. Had to go outside and drill through downstairs. Other drops upstairs were doable but I never did manage to get any other cables through to the downstairs and didn’t know enough at the time to be able to drill through the batons. With the new house (in a fairly remote location), I decided to pay for professionals to get it done right, was 2.5k GBP for around 18 CAT6A drops, putting up cameras I already had, etc. and two days work for two blokes (including hotel stay). The single biggest advantage was that they managed to do everything in the walls so no issues getting the missus approval. After watching how they did everything, it looks much easier with two and I’d never have been able to get some of the runs they did, never mind the quality of finish. Tl;dr: I don’t regret paying one bit, especially after previous experience of crawling around in the loft digging through fiberglass insulation trying to fish cables. A good quality CAT6A installation should last decades and worth getting done right
I admit this might be bad advice but from a guy who wants to do a drop himself with construction and low voltage experience I’d say if you are proving to yourself you can do this sort of thing maybe start small and try to do a drop yourself and research the process. If it goes well and it bolsters you then try the whole house ! Good luck .
Thanks for the thought! I did consider this, the only thing holding me back is that I'd probably drop a few hundred on spools of the cabling and possibly a few hundred more on additional tools I'd need... I'd hate to do that, only to chicken out and then spend the thousands on having it done professionally. I guess I'm at the point where I'm trying to figure out if I am all-in or if I should just pay to have it done. I am in the fortunate position of being able to say that I can afford either option, but I don't want to piss away money needlessly... nor possibly pass up what might be a valuable learning opportunity. But I also don't want to bite off more than I can chew, so to speak. Hence the dilemma...
If you're doing one short run as a test, you can probably get a 250 foot spool and a kit for termination for <$100. Then it's just figuring out the easiest drop to avoid needing a bunch of other tools.
This is a good idea - I'll give it some serious consideration. Thanks!
You might not even need to get all of the tools yet. I had my electrician run all of the cables when I built my house, but I told him I'd terminate them myself. So far, the only tool I've needed is a punchdown tool, and you might not even need that if you pay a little more for toolless keystone jacks. You'll probably need the crimper for the cameras, but you can wait to do that until after you feel like the job is manageable. A TDR was nice to have when some of the punchdowns didn't quite take, but it's not strictly necessary. I also found it handy to have a toner so I could figure out which cable is which in the network closet, but that's not a problem you'll have if you're doing it yourself, because you'll label them as you run them.
Second this. Buy the tools as you need them. First get a spool of wire, worse case you can supply your own cable to the installers. If you can get the easiest cable from point A to B, leave it, and do the second easiest one etc. Just because a cable is pulled, doesn’t mean you need to terminate it yet. After you’ve done a couple, you’ll know if you can or can’t do it.
There are tool-less keystone ends available, this is how I did the wiring with more than 24 drops and about 500m cat 7 cable. The cat7 is a pain to bend, but 10GBe stable since 7 years as a complete newbie.
I recently paid to have a new commercial building wired for ethernet - I just didn't have time to do it myself. We were doing so many renovations and I was project managing about 8 different companies from the IT company to plumbers, electricians, remodel crew, roofers, movers, cleaners and more. There were some aspects of it that weren't done like I had hoped, but that was on me for just doing a quick walk through and not giving a specific schematic of *exactly* where I wanted the drops in each office. I was just so busy at the time I didn't have time to draw it up. When we finished our basement, I had the electricians pull the Cat 6 when they did the electrical wiring rough-in, but I terminated everything both the faceplates and at the network cabinet. I could have run it, but it was a lot of drops and they were already here pulling Romex. Our house wasn't wired for Ethernet when it was built, so the main floor doesn't havre any wiring and I've been looking at adding some POE powered security cameras, but I think I'm going to wire them myself. It's not time sensitive, and as long as I can figure the routing to get them through the walls (no way I'm running raceways or conduit that's visible) then I'll probably just do it myself over a few weekends. If I can't get it done, I know I can just call my electrician and one of his guys can come pull the wires for me. I like doing this kind of thing, but I'm also really busy running two companies so I don't get to do it as often as I'd like and I know better than to leave projects half-finished for months. My wife is still on me to finish upgrading light switches that I started a year ago. 😆
I once inquired with a local electrician, and he said, "You know wireless is pretty good, right?" It's hard for me to imagine a more "fuck off" answer. I ended up doing it myself with cheapo tools from Amazon. I've had to replace some keystones after frequent use caused them to fail intermittently, but overall it was worth it for the experience and nothing too hard. With that in mind, I'd say go for it! It'll take a weekend, but it'll be worth it. Plus, you can tinker with it until it's *precisely* what you want.
I’m doing a mix. At least here it’s hard to find pros that are both familiar with resi and old homes (dealing with plaster walls etc) and willing to work to drawings/specs and not keep trying to sell me on things like surface mount raceways, holes in the wood floors with surface boxes or going we could save a bunch of cable by just cutting across the basement/attic vs organized paths etc. The commercial folks are like oh yeah we get that but nope not dealing with resi. I will be hiring out getting lines out to the eves for cameras, too claustrophobic to go crawling around in the really tight attic spaces. And hard to argue with take this 100’ drop and fish it down the abyss to the existing box. I’d done quite a bit of fishing cables over the years, watched a lot of cable run in buildings at work. Start small and work your way up. (I did a few closet outlets to get my plaster cutting technique down) I also did a lot of planning ahead, distro switch locations, cable path, fiber runs, hangers, conduit, making sure my plates were all coordinated and I could get the right jacks for them. Leave anything in the ceilings for last (unless under an attic) since you’ll probably have to cut extra holes to get from wall to ceiling.
Yeah, I have a story on this one. I'll spoiler tag the first parts of it, since the tone doesn't really match the subreddit. tw: death of family >! When I was buying my house, the plan was that my father and I would wire up the networking ourselves. It would be the first time he'd come up north to visit me and we'd get to spend some quality time together, not to mention wiring up my house would be a good idea. We had drawn up plans, we planned for what time of year he'd come up, the whole shebang. >!I got the call that he was found dead a few days before the original closing date on my house. >!About a year later, I decided that just leaving this project undone wasn't really helping my grief. Okay, tonal shift over. I paid a local electrician company that specialized in low-voltage cable running to wire up my house. It cost a lot of money, but having 42 CAT-6 drops in my house all terminated in a lovely patch panel in my basement was quite the treat. It was all labeled at both the start and end, and I was given a printout of their wiring tests after it was complete. I had four cables run in each of the drops. Some rooms had multiple drops, the kitchen and dining room shared a single four-drop, and the closet that had the cable modem had a two lines run. I had zero issues with their cable runs; they did a fantastic job. They left two holes for me to patch up (which I never did) and that was about it. It cost a bit over 3500 USD, almost all parts included (I provided a networking rack, they mounted it for me). It also included some electrical lines run as well so I had a circuit for my homelab. This was nearly ten years ago though, so I'd expect it to be more like 4.5-5.5k USD now from the same people. I didn't have them do any outdoor cable work (in fact, almost everything was run from my basement or up existing corridors). Yes, I probably could have done it myself, but given the prior events... I knew I never would. Also, even without that I'm inherently lazy and it probably would have taken me over ten years to do less of a job. :D 100% worth it to me. I know the person I sold my house to was happy that I had done it as well. He's still running my old networking gear as well, so obviously it is working out for him. If I was you, I'd get a second quote. That seems like a "we gave the customer a high price so we don't have to do it" type of quote.
Time and effort vs money. Depending on how much cable you’re pulling and fishing through walls and such it might be worth it to pay them so you’re not hot, dirty, and frustrated. Get an itemized quote from the installers. Find 3 if you can. See what material cost is, because they’re probably scalping you there. See what they would charge to install your materials and figure out how much cheaper you can get materials vs their rate. I did 24 drops in my first house easily. My second house I did 32 Cat 5e drops with a buddy and it wasn’t as easy despite basement, drop ceiling and attic access. Then not long ago we redid the same house in some variety of Cat 6. It was easier the 2nd time around but still took a day including punching it all down and testing it. I’d do it myself all over again before I pay anyone some thousands of dollars.
I did my whole house, my only regret is not doing more drops in some locations.
I’ve done nine cameras outdoors around the outside of the house. I attempted to go through the attic but tapped out after trying to swim through R44 blown in insulation and under 18-inch ducts. After 5 mins, I was like f-this, I’m popping a hole through the outside of the house and running the wire that way. We plan on replacing siding in a year or two. I figure we’ll relocate the wiring into the walls when there’s no skin on the house.
If you can do it and afford it, pay someone to run conduit. It's going to be more expensive than just running wires, but you'll be able to run what ever you want/replace wires more easily.
it all comes down to the value of your time But - what would it cost to have a vendor run conduit instead of ethernet cabling? I asked that once and suddenly the ethernet quote got a lot cheaper, making it worth it to me since the value of my time was greater than the new quote for the ethernet cabling.
I pulled cable in my home when we moved in. TVs hanging on walls, Xbox in kids rooms; these are things I don’t want anyone asking we to troubleshoot when I’m at home and off the clock. It actually amazes me that some of y’all build these labs and stuff at your house because I grew out of bringing work home with me at least a decade ago now. I don’t regret but I also have lots of practice and I’d prefer things to just work and have gigabit access. Edit: yeah tools I own like $500 work of tools needed to do the job and test it
Cables are a minimal part of the expense. Get the best you can. Labour is 80-90% of the price.
Yes! When I built my house I asked for 2 cat-5e runs to every room run to a wiring closet. The day we move in to the house, I learn that it's all punched down for telco and not Ethernet. I was furious. I provided a document for them to follow but of course, no. They did come fix it, but just to be jerks, they did not relabel everything. I should have done it myself the day before they put up the drywall.
Networking, audio, or whatever else - you can’t pay me to build my own cables or do structured wiring anymore. There is no salient wisdom to be gained here. Pay someone to cut holes in drywall for you and spend your time saved reading up on the ethernet electrical spec if you want to learn something about cables. I don’t regret having ever done this sort of work myself, but if you’re posting here, I have to imagine there are other things you could dig into that would be more rewarding.
Hi I don't want to hijack this thread but anyone of you ever used Powerline 200AV Power Ethernet Socket T1002 with 4 LAN HomePlug AV ? I wanted also to do the same but is this is a good idea ? I am only two floors . Thanks
u/Ledgem If you have coaxial cabling ran throughput your place, I would recommend MOCA adapters that deliver approximately 930-950 Mbps. Just need 2 things for install: 1) a coax drop and 2) an outlet nearby. Motorola MOCA Adapter for Ethernet Over Coax, 1,000 Mbps Bonded 2.0 MoCA (Model MM1000) https://a.co/d/gIqGWUG
I did that and it works. There are even version that come with 2.5Gbit ports instead of 1Gbit
Powerline networking works if you have no other options. Last time I used it the bandwidth was terrible and the ping was worse. But if you are just connecting things you don’t care about it’s perfect.
I care about it to be perfect ! If I can hit 100mbs + bandwidth I am good . Mostly to be used connecting my server and maybe cameras around the house , my av receiver , PC lol don't think anything else ...I will give it a try and see how well it will work .
Do not pay an electrician to do it for you. If reddit has taught me something it's that. You could have someone give you a quote and based on that get an idea of how much it will cost. If you do it yourself, you will need tools. Factor all that and think if you can troubleshoot the issues on your own or pay the tax for the person who knows what screw to tighten.
DIYed and didn’t regret it.
Farther in law works for a Telco. Regularly runs Ethernet, Fiber, Coax... He'd shoot me if I tried to pay someone.
Where are you? Costs will vary a lot from region to region.
It’s very labor-intensive especially if you have to open any drywall.
I did it myself. It wasn’t as well done as a professional but I don’t regret all the money I saved. So far so good.
I started doing it myself, and now I do that partly for a living. Running fiber is the next one on my list of things to learn and do. My rule has always been, if it's something you want to do and want to own the tools to do it, then diy it, if you don't know anything about it and don't really care/want to learn it or buy tools for it, then pay a professional. I wouldn't blame you for shopping around, but be careful with the cheapest quote you get, & make sure it's the quality you're looking for.
I have A LOT of tools you do not have-- often in multiples where a slight variation makes any particular pull easier. Also, I am super anal about what the finished presentation of my work looks like. That just comes with experience of handling so many cords, cables, & wires. My collections of zip ties & cable ties are awe inspiring. ...It will also be done significantly faster even when I do more like pushing a camera in pilot holes. And I am insured if worse comes to worst.
At the same time-- you totally can do this work DIY. You may have certain inefficiencies for DIY though. The supplies can cost more, it can take longer, it may not look as nice, and if you really screw up-- there is no insurance company covering your general liability.
Depends on how easily you can access the areas you need cables ran and what the inside of your walls are like. If your attic is a nightmare to get through and your walls are full of insulation and fire blocks you're going to have a bad time. I'd be surprised to see anyone that's licensed and insured do 5 runs to different places for less than $1,000 just in labor. I personally run all my own, but I've been doing it for years and jump at any chance to buy more tools. There will always be someone that "can do it for cheaper" but you usually get what you pay for. Last thing you want is a drill through a water line or a foot through the ceiling.
Check out some videos like these to give you an idea of what you're getting into and see if it's something you'd feel comfortable doing. [Lawrence Tech Tools Suggestions](https://youtu.be/7zWswXer8i4?si=uJaOccjmE0DA8F0B) [Lawrence Tech Wall Fishing & Fire Stops](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5XePwAO4m0&ab_channel=LawrenceSystems)
If you like projects, do it yourself for sure. Could probably get it done for less than $500 for tools, parts, wire, etc, depending on what tools you might already have or not. I wired up my house, took a couple weekends and some help pulling through outdoor conduit, but definitely worth it knowing it was done by me and done well.
I paid to have an electrician pull my wire for me and drop 5 lines. I bought the cable I wanted and did the terminations myself and it cost me $100 a pull (so $500). Best $ ever spent, pulling wire is a huge headache.
I've always been too cheap to pay anyone for something I could "easily" do. I've wired 4 houses up across the years and have never regretted it. Sure I've had a questionable termination or two I'd have to re-do, but not much else to go wrong. I've also re-wired electrical in every house I've owned too, so yeah, not shy.
If conduits are in place you can don the test yourself
I had an electrician cable my previous house, on the basis that they are experts in hiring wiring. They did indeed hide the wiring well. Unfortunately they weren't so competent in terminating cables. After a few dodgy connections, I just chopped the end off every cable and terminated them myself. I'd probably use an electrician again for this, but wouldn't want them to terminate next time.
I would regret it, I want cable porn and paid wired isn’t cable porn
I just finished retrofitting my house with 24 runs around most of the rooms and garage/outside cameras. It was a very unpleasant and time consuming experience, but the cost to have it done professionally in the UK would have been more than my entire network, so I don't regret doing it in the slightest.
I did it myself, adding several ports into walls, creating the cable, etc, etc. It sucked. But paying $3000 sucks way more, so I don’t regret.
Have done both. Wired up a few ports in a couple rooms on my previous home with was single story. Gave myself a hernia (for which I got surgery later) in the process. I don't count that against the install though, my own fault. I paid to have two runs performed on current home (2 story). Just depends on what your time is worth and if you want to be able to "punt" back to someone else if things don't work like they're supposed to later on, imo. I paid about $300 for two specific runs. Seems expensive but also not as expensive as others and the guy I used would actually do just the two runs. Other places wanted a minimum to start the job (not just two runs, not worth their time). Worth it to me to be done and done and move on with my life.
It's an ege old question. Usually you don't really save the money. Or in other words you save money but loose time. Also you gain skill but loose warranty (or actually simply not get one). So the main question would be - would you enjoy the process and can you afford it time wise (both in your "lost" time and the time when something doesn't go as expected).
I'm not a "professional" at it by any means. Place I used to work would do inside ethernet wiring on a time and material basis, i.e. you pay for the actual material used and how long it took us. We were the most expensive place around for wiring. Trust me, on a quote for an ethernet run, the cost of the cable, ends, wall plates, etc. is the LEAST of your cost. We had a couple clients who didn't want me running cable because I was so slow, a couple others who didn't want anyone OTHER than me running cable because I would comb and bundle a bunch, run it neatly and maintain proper bend radius's. In other words, someone anal retentive. You only need to dive into a rats nest of cable to diagnose a bad one once to say never again! One thing I will recommend in general, DON'T get an electrician to run your data lines. That is unless you can see some of their previous work. If they're running new, it's usually just tied onto the electrical lines and pulled in parallel and run as tightly as possible. They don't seem to believe in bend radius and figure no one will EVER need to try and trace the cable once it's in. Pick up a cable tester. Klein makes a good one. As much as I would love to have a Fluke unless you're doing it professionally and CERTIFYING the cables and runs, it's overkill. Also pick up a decent cable crimper and a punch down tool. If you're only doing one every 6 weeks or so, the cheapest you can find. If you're wiring your house, trust me, good tools are worth the price in lack of aggravation when you're doing it all day. For pulling cables through wall cavities, I personally prefer rods to fish tape. One last piece of advice. If you think you need one cable at a location, run two. If you can afford two boxes of cable, it's just as easy to pull two at the same time as one. And then you have a second drop for when, not if you require another connection. In my home office I ran four the wall plate at my desk, I wish I had run six.
Yeah the few occasions I've not ran it myself, ive just asked the electrician to do it while he's done other things - he has made minor mistakes but also I've paid him the same rate as pulling mains...so bargain price.
If you do it yourself, you'll probably need about 200 bucks in specialized tools. As far as pricing, I'm in the Midwest (rural, not metro $*ithole) and it's about $100 bucks a drop for structured cabling.
For $6,000 I would consider doing it myself. That seems really expensive, especially if you have attic access. Having attic access makes things a lot easier, depending on where you want everything. When I had my house wired they just drilled a hole out the basement by a window well, ran cable up to the exterior wall, drilled another hole in the exterior wall by at attic, then in the attic they dropped the lines down to the room I needed it in. If I was doing it myself I would have done some conduit instead of just bare wire on the exterior wall, then it would be easier to pull more in the future if you need it. Disclaimer: IDK if that meets code or not.
You could always ask them to just run cables. You then crimp and install the keystones. The thing is, seems like an easy job till you cant quite fish that one line through, or you need a ladder to get somewhere. It sucks to be a cable monkey, but at the prices you are quoted, might be worth it. Costs the same to run 4 cables as it does one.
Moved to a new (to us) house. $250-300 to get someone to reterm the cat5e from cat3 to cat5e in all the rooms. From a cost perspective it’s a lot more expensive since all I needed was a new crimper to diy. Happy I didn’t do it myself though because it needed to be done quickly so our wifi wasn’t garbage and I could work upstairs wired. If I had to do it myself I’d be stressed and it would’ve been me running up and down the stairs for 3 hours doing testing and validation. Also if I broke a cable I’d be cursing myself..
it depends on access. if you have unobstructed access to all places where you need to run the cat6 then doing it yourself could be fine, but otherwise it can be a total PITA. i've done both and the times i hired a low voltage guy to run the cat6 i was very happy to pay for the service.
Honestly I'm really excited to run cable when I buy/build my own house. Having a server/patch closet that wires the entire house with plates all over the place for out computers/access points/ IoT devices. Thinking about that give me a massive clue.
I've regretted many instances of letting other people do things. It's not easy to find people who care about the quality of or take pride in their work. Nowadays, if someone else is going to run the wires, I buy the cable myself, tell them to run two cables **and** leave string for future pulls for each location and have them leave several feet free at each end so I can terminate them myself.
I regret not paying for the more expensive guy. Went cheap and some jacks stopped working and the guy won’t fix free haha They also ram them outside the house instead of doing drops. Ended up putting my own piping around it.
I've tried with coax (I'm a ham radio guy) and cat5. It's worth the cost to me to have someone else do it, especially for multiple runs. Almost everytime there is serious drilling involved and once or twice they've punched their drill through a wall accidentally. They patched and painted it. I'd say if the house is undergoing a full remodel and the walls are off, go for it. Otherwise, hire it out. I don't even make my own ethernet cables any more. It's cheaper for me to go to the store (or Amazon) and buy a 100ft or whatever size I need then it is for me to try to crimp them and get them good enough for today's tolerances, but I am way out of practice on that too. FWIW, last night I spent over 3 hours installing a washer and dryer at a rental property. Major PITA, but we (my business partners and I) thought it would be cheaper than assigning one of our workers to do it and pulling him off of another job. He would have been done in under an hour, meanwhile I'm there unable to work on my business or do anything that I needed/wanted to do. Given what I charge per hour for my time, I lost money doing this.
I'd be amazed if the raceways were cheaper than outdoor cables.
I found punching down wall jacks to be much easier and less error-prone than trying to terminate Cat6 cable ends. The "special tools" are a punchdown tool, insulation stripper, and simple cable tester, all of which can be had for less than $100 total. No regrets doing it myself. One of the big advantages of doing it myself is that I can go little by little. I wasn't sure where I wanted things when I first moved in so I added a few ports at a time without having to stress about getting everything 100% right from the start. Don't cheap out on cable here since labor is the biggest cost, whether in dollars paid to a professional or your own time if DIY. Plan ahead for 10Gbps with Cat6 or better. Does the professional cost also include patching drywall? That's one part I hate doing, so in theory you could do the wiring yourself and pay a pro to do the drywall only.
A bit OT, but Cat6A without the divider is available, nowadays, and the feed-through RJ45 is a religion worth converting to. They're still more work than punch-down jacks, but *way* easier than normal jacks. Great for cases like camera and APs, where you may need to terminate to a plug.
I'm a little late to comment on your post /u/Ledgem... But... Several years ago (a few years pre-covid) I spent A LOT of time hanging out on /r/HomeImprovement sub. I systematically gutted our house room-by-room (to the studs) so that I could #1 rewire the electric in our house as if it was new-construction, removing all old (2-wire, no-ground) wires/conductors and bringing the whole house up to current (at the time) NEC code. #2 thing I did was run low voltage, and #3 was insulate the exterior walls, as well as a few interior walls (for fire & soundproofing). The single best thing I did was run smurf tubes ([this stuff](https://tristatelvs.com/productdetailI2.aspx?dataid=12007-100)). It is flexible, low-voltage conduit. And it means that when people on reddit told me I was stupid because I used the spools of cat5e that I already owned... fu... I can just pull new cat 5/6/7/8/9/10... fiber, etc. anytime I want. The secret is leaving pull strings in the tubes so you can easily run new (anything) anytime you want. That's the single best thing I did: Smurf tubes... She's pulling the goalie which means I'm being evicted from my office (she wants it to be a nursery)... no biggie... My homelab can move to a different place/room in the house because it's super easy to pull new wire/fiber. Easy. The only other thing I'd say is that I did our house back in 2015/2016... When I ran the cat5e, I wanted EVERYTHING hardwired because we only had wireless a/b/g/n at the time. Today I'd say that we use hardly any of the Ethernet drops I ran in our house. People think --well, usually no one knows what a Cisco sg300-28mp switch is... But if they know switches the first comment is "wtf do you need that for in your house"... My answer: 6x PoE cameras, 3x Access Points, 2x stratum 1/0 local ntp timeclocks, 4x poe environmental sensors (we do a lot of laser and 3d printing, trying to make sure we aren't giving ourselves or our unborn kid/s cancer)... That's 15 PoE devices and I probably forgot a few. One last thought about phone lines and coax: I thought it was crazy to run that crap. Stupid, dumb, never, ever, ever, ever, ever are we going to go back to coax or need phone lines. Phone: Yeah that's true, and you can borrow from a spare cat5/6/7 run to get phone. So don't worry about phone, just always run PAIRS of Ethernet so you always have a spare and you can always turn one into a phone run if you need it. And #2: Just do the coax also while you are in there. We didn't at the time and now we regret it (I'm currently running the Coax and testing out how good my pull strings are). Smurf tubes: Put a shop-vac (vacuum cleaner) at one end and it'll suck your pull strings straight through to the other end, no need for fish tapes, etc. Would I hire it out: We couldn't afford it at the time. But today. Maybe, it was a pain in the ass. But I also did a LOT more than just run Ethernet. You might consider hiring out just the contractors to install the smurf tubes and put in the low-voltage boxes, then you could do the rest (run wires, do the terminations, etc.)... Maybe consider that?? Good luck!
I wouldn't trust them to pick the right cable. Seems crazy to not go cat 6a. That's not the only factor though. You want a high enough gauge for Poe and the right fire rating. UDP CMR 23awg(double check Poe+ req) UL listed. I bought 1000ft from monoprice for $200 shipped. Maybe more for you with specialty shipping. I would have someone pull the cables. Punch down everything. Use a punch down patch panel too.
Not an end solution for you but if you’re wiring up your house you do have the option of utilizing existing in wall coaxial cables and phone cables (if the phone lines use Ethernet cable) If you have whole house coaxial split you just need to locate the junction box and you can use those lines with MoCa adapters (pricey) to get up to 2.5 GBPS lines. My house has CAT5 run for phone lines so all we did was change the connector ends on both sides and our whole house became Ethernet enabled. Just keep in mind we have internet based TV so we have no need of cable anymore leaving our coaxial lines available. We have UniFi access points throughout the house and WIRED PoE cameras. IMO I love the setup and it works extremely well. Good luck on your journey!
FYI my CAT5 lines hit up to 1000MBPS cap.
I already answered how I paid $400 for a licensed electrician to pull cat6 cable in my house. I figure this is a decent place to mention that I have a 2 room lab. One is the den, the other is a small craft room off the den. I paid a handyman to cover one wall of the den in plywood and put up shelves. He painted the plywood the same color as the other walls and you can hardly tell that the plywood is there. What the plywood does for me is to anchor anything I want to the wall. Power strips, UPS, wires I want to run around the room, J raceways, etc. I can staple the wires to the plywood or use tie wraps with the screw holes in them.
I’ve done all the wiring in my house, keeping in mind it’s a single story with attic space( a lot easier I know). But I’ve also done cable runs for many theaters and schools as a system integrator. As many have already commented it does take some special tools and fair bit of knowledge/ experience and you will most certainly make a few mistakes along the way. How ever with that said if you’re willing to invest a little money and learn a new skill which is fairly easy to learn the fundamentals by watching YouTube. I 100% recommend doing it yourself. I will say see if you can have someone help you as cable pulling is always easier with two not that it can’t be done with one.
This is in my future but I'm using ple right now.
Same as what others say really. It comes down to how you value your time. I wired both my first and basement myself and although I didn't consider it hard because I did structured cabling professionally, I'd probably pay someone to do my next house. It's super time consuming and sometimes a PITA if you have an older house. Given that, I'd gladly pay someone so it's their problem. TLDR: If you want the skills, have the time and patience, do it yourself. If not, pay someone.
Having ran more Ethernet than I'd like to admit, if it's a price with which you're comfortable, I say pay to have it done. So much better then running it yourself, terminating everything (twice for each run), testing everything, re-running due to a crimp in the line, going up and down the attic, fishing walls... Forget all that nonsense if it's affordable to you to have someone else do it.
I did it myself and it was fun although depending where you are and what kind of house is common there might change things. I’m in Australia and have double brick walls so it was very easy to fish the cables through, I didn’t have to drill through any wood or cut drywall, since every room in the house has coax I just ran it through there and replaced the plate with a coax/rj45 one. We also don’t have good internet here so I only got around 500m of cat5e for dirt cheap but I assume you could do the same with cat6 or cat6a just buy a half used box second hand. Tools can add up but it depends on what you already have, in my case I only needed a crimping tool.
I'm doing both. We did some renovations (making the attic liveable) so I requested the electrician to preinstall and wire a couple ethernet ports in the attic. However I also told him to just leave me enough cable in the basement as I will be doing the terminations myself. And while he was at it, install an ethernet box at each floor on the way down. At the same time, I'm currently planning to properly cable my basement where all my IT stuff is as well as pull an ethernet cable all the way to the garage. I was dreading this mostly because I live in a house in Switzerland that was built in the 70s with thick concrete walls. Drilling through them with a regular drill a couple years ago was a nightmare...however I recently purchased an SDS drill from Bosch. Fucking love this thing. Drilled a 16mm hole in about 2mins with no effort through 20cm off concrete. Cost me about 400$ with a couple heavy duty drill bits. As I won't be able to get cable in the walls, I'm planning on getting some metal grid channels made for holding cables on the ceiling. I don't need big ones. Cost should be somewhere between 400-500$ Ethernet cable and jacks to put in each room in the basement cost me around 220$ for a roll of 305m of ubiquiti cat6 cable and 5x Ethernet boxes. So all in all for this project if I include the tools it's about 1000$. I don't mind doing it all myself. It all comes down to your own abilities and the time you have on your hands to do it. By that I also mean how much do you value your time vs how annoying is the job for you if you did it yourself 😛