Hello everyone,
In about three weeks, we are supposed to finalize our electrical planning on site. Unfortunately, our electrician is somewhat old-fashioned, which makes it difficult for me to collaboratively plan a future-proof electrical setup with him. Therefore, I am currently educating myself to ensure that the networking in our single-family home is fundamentally future-proof.
Basically, it’s about the LAN network... LAN wall outlets are relatively expensive, so proper planning is even more important.
About us:
- Mid to late 20s – couple without children. Planning for 2 children in the near future.
- Single-family house with a usable basement, 2 full floors, and fully equipped with concrete ceilings
- Utility room in the basement with air-to-water heat pump, ventilation system, photovoltaic system
- The router is planned to be located in the office on the ground floor
- The upper floor includes bathroom / bedroom / 2 children’s rooms
- No satellite dish or cable TV — we will use Internet TV exclusively!
Now, I am struggling to network our single-family home sensibly but as cost-effectively as possible.
I have the following questions:
1. Slightly off-topic: In the living room, I would like to have an in-wall conduit installed on the TV wall (the TV will be wall-mounted) so that no cables are visible. Is this sensible and affordable? I will get exact prices from my electrician if this makes sense at all. Would it also make sense to install power outlets at TV height? How do you plan the connections on your media wall reasonably? What should be considered?
Since we plan to use a Magenta TV box and thus IP-TV, a total of four LAN ports in the living room area would presumably be useful, right?
2. How many LAN outlets and especially where should LAN outlets be installed? Mainly: which cable? Is CAT6 sufficient?
→ Such a double LAN outlet certainly costs close to €200, so planning must be really sensible.
Is it really necessary to install 2 double LAN outlets in each children’s room? I always wonder: what is actually going to be plugged in there?
One port for the TV and one port for a multimedia device should be enough, right? So four connections would probably be overkill, correct?
The fact is: It will certainly take years or decades before our children actually use these outlets... Who knows what changes might happen by then? Therefore, could we not cost-effectively use empty conduits (empty pipes) instead?
Is it also possible to “branch off” from an existing double outlet afterward to add more ports for the room? What should be considered here? Or should we consider having an empty conduit prepared in another spot in the room so that a socket can be installed later?
3. How do you solve the “router problem”? Should the one router be placed in the office (ground floor) with LAN outlets in the existing bedrooms upstairs to ensure a stable LAN connection? Or is a router upstairs absolutely necessary?
4. How important are LAN outlets in the utility room? Should the router possibly even be located in the utility room? Because of the concrete ceiling between basement and ground floor, a second router would almost certainly be needed. How should this situation be handled with a basement?
5. What do you think about installing empty conduits for CAT cables in the kitchen / hallway etc. to enable later retrofitting? Is this relatively affordable in new builds?
I would appreciate any feedback so we can make the best possible plans 🙂
In about three weeks, we are supposed to finalize our electrical planning on site. Unfortunately, our electrician is somewhat old-fashioned, which makes it difficult for me to collaboratively plan a future-proof electrical setup with him. Therefore, I am currently educating myself to ensure that the networking in our single-family home is fundamentally future-proof.
Basically, it’s about the LAN network... LAN wall outlets are relatively expensive, so proper planning is even more important.
About us:
- Mid to late 20s – couple without children. Planning for 2 children in the near future.
- Single-family house with a usable basement, 2 full floors, and fully equipped with concrete ceilings
- Utility room in the basement with air-to-water heat pump, ventilation system, photovoltaic system
- The router is planned to be located in the office on the ground floor
- The upper floor includes bathroom / bedroom / 2 children’s rooms
- No satellite dish or cable TV — we will use Internet TV exclusively!
Now, I am struggling to network our single-family home sensibly but as cost-effectively as possible.
I have the following questions:
1. Slightly off-topic: In the living room, I would like to have an in-wall conduit installed on the TV wall (the TV will be wall-mounted) so that no cables are visible. Is this sensible and affordable? I will get exact prices from my electrician if this makes sense at all. Would it also make sense to install power outlets at TV height? How do you plan the connections on your media wall reasonably? What should be considered?
Since we plan to use a Magenta TV box and thus IP-TV, a total of four LAN ports in the living room area would presumably be useful, right?
2. How many LAN outlets and especially where should LAN outlets be installed? Mainly: which cable? Is CAT6 sufficient?
→ Such a double LAN outlet certainly costs close to €200, so planning must be really sensible.
Is it really necessary to install 2 double LAN outlets in each children’s room? I always wonder: what is actually going to be plugged in there?
One port for the TV and one port for a multimedia device should be enough, right? So four connections would probably be overkill, correct?
The fact is: It will certainly take years or decades before our children actually use these outlets... Who knows what changes might happen by then? Therefore, could we not cost-effectively use empty conduits (empty pipes) instead?
Is it also possible to “branch off” from an existing double outlet afterward to add more ports for the room? What should be considered here? Or should we consider having an empty conduit prepared in another spot in the room so that a socket can be installed later?
3. How do you solve the “router problem”? Should the one router be placed in the office (ground floor) with LAN outlets in the existing bedrooms upstairs to ensure a stable LAN connection? Or is a router upstairs absolutely necessary?
4. How important are LAN outlets in the utility room? Should the router possibly even be located in the utility room? Because of the concrete ceiling between basement and ground floor, a second router would almost certainly be needed. How should this situation be handled with a basement?
5. What do you think about installing empty conduits for CAT cables in the kitchen / hallway etc. to enable later retrofitting? Is this relatively affordable in new builds?
I would appreciate any feedback so we can make the best possible plans 🙂
majuhenema schrieb:
What equipment do you have connected in your technical room? Heat pump, photovoltaic system, ventilation, three electrical distribution boards, a UPS for the electrical distribution, and the actual server rack isn’t included there yet, although it is located elsewhere. In the technical room, you can also do fixed wiring, meaning sufficiently long patch cables can be run directly to the devices.
majuhenema schrieb:
Should a larger patch panel be chosen, and if so, are there any drawbacks and approximately how much more does it cost? It usually ends at 24 ports anyway. So take a 48-port switch and attach a 24-port patch panel at the top and bottom, connected with very short patch cables. When budget is tight, the router is often forgotten as well. Make sure to use patch panels with keystone jacks. The extra cost is about 30 euros for the patch panel plus keystones, plus the hassle factor for your general contractor or electrician.
M
majuhenema4 Jan 2022 12:28Oh dear, this is slowly getting out of hand. 😀
@MBPassion, as an expert, has occupied 23 ports. We are now already (significantly) over that, so one patch panel is not enough, and the switch needs to be twice as large.
I come to 24 if I reduce from 2 to 1 in the master bedroom, but...
...with the equipment in the technical room, I’m already well over again, or do those only need to connect to the 48-port switch and not to a 24-port patch panel?
@MBPassion, as an expert, has occupied 23 ports. We are now already (significantly) over that, so one patch panel is not enough, and the switch needs to be twice as large.
Mycraft schrieb:
4. 24 will be sufficient for your plan.
I come to 24 if I reduce from 2 to 1 in the master bedroom, but...
Mycraft schrieb:
For example, in my house’s network cabinet (HAR), I have:
...with the equipment in the technical room, I’m already well over again, or do those only need to connect to the 48-port switch and not to a 24-port patch panel?
D
DamDumDob4 Jan 2022 12:39We are currently dealing with the same issues and challenges in our floor plan and have ultimately decided to generally install double-gang boxes almost everywhere, opting for one extra rather than fewer, since it hardly increases the cost and cannot be changed later.
Although we expect to have 28 cables in total, we will only use a 24-port patch panel and a 24-port switch. Only 16 cables are fixedly assigned, which is sufficient for now. The spare cables will remain neatly coiled behind the patch panel. If the switch becomes insufficient in five years, it can be easily replaced—unlike the cables—and the used equipment can be sold on eBay.
Although we expect to have 28 cables in total, we will only use a 24-port patch panel and a 24-port switch. Only 16 cables are fixedly assigned, which is sufficient for now. The spare cables will remain neatly coiled behind the patch panel. If the switch becomes insufficient in five years, it can be easily replaced—unlike the cables—and the used equipment can be sold on eBay.
majuhenema schrieb:
..with the equipment in the utility room, I’m already well over the limit, or do they only need to connect to the 48-port switch and not to a 24-port patch panel? Araknis schrieb:
In the utility room, you can also do fixed cabling, meaning you run sufficiently long patch cables directly to the devices. That was the statement. Of course, you can also connect directly to the switch.
If more than 24 cables are coming into the network cabinet, you simply install two rows of "keystone holders." It's basically just a metal plate where the modules snap in. The rest remains empty. I don’t like leaving the cables behind it unused, because when you need them and start fiddling around, it gets messy.
If you have more than 24 ports, it doesn’t have to be a 48-port switch right away. You just patch only the outlets you actually need.
If you have more than 24 ports, it doesn’t have to be a 48-port switch right away. You just patch only the outlets you actually need.
majuhenema schrieb:
In practice, a double box simply means using a duplex cable for the electrician. Electricians are usually mostly interested only in lighting circuits, often having trained back in the Windows 3.11 era, and consider themselves tech-savvy as soon as they wire a TAE socket system. They tend to see double boxes like power strips and therefore prefer units with only one data cable entry for both outlets. Knowledge of network technology is considered "something for younger people."
DamDumDob schrieb:
Although we are likely to have 28 lines, we will only use a 24-port patch panel and a 24-port switch. That’s actually one of the purposes of patch panels—to leave unused outlets unplugged ;-). The scenario of moving a home office to another floor due to a third child is so rare that it doesn’t justify making connections easily reconfigurable. Those who have everything 100% and statically connected might as well hardwire everything.
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