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 🙂
P
Pumpernickel116 Jan 2022 20:28I will bring up the solution with the access point again. We have 3 rooms plus a storage closet on the top floor. The storage closet is centrally located relative to all the rooms. That is probably why the electrician said a repeater would be sufficient. But of course, it is not comparable to an access point.
Is the range in the utility room enough to provide Wi-Fi coverage to the adjacent living area, or should an access point also be installed on the ground floor (hallway)?
Is the range in the utility room enough to provide Wi-Fi coverage to the adjacent living area, or should an access point also be installed on the ground floor (hallway)?
Pumpernickel1 schrieb:
Is the range in the utility room sufficient to provide Wi-Fi coverage to the adjacent living area?Pure speculation; it depends on many factors. Based on experience, in a typical two-story model home, the answer is usually yes. Pumpernickel1 schrieb:
Or should an access point also be installed on the ground floor (hallway)?Definitely. However, the location depends on the floor plan and cannot be generally considered "optimal," much like the interesting concept of the storage closet.F
fromthisplace21 Mar 2022 20:17Topic: Landline Connection
Dear community,
I am planning a small network cabinet in the utility room in the basement. The FritzBox will also be installed there. The landline is connected to it, right? Of course, I don’t need the landline phone in the utility room but upstairs in the kitchen/open-plan living area.
How is the signal routed there, and is a single power outlet sufficient?
How have you solved this issue or how would you approach it? Where might I be missing something?
Thank you all. 🙂
Dear community,
I am planning a small network cabinet in the utility room in the basement. The FritzBox will also be installed there. The landline is connected to it, right? Of course, I don’t need the landline phone in the utility room but upstairs in the kitchen/open-plan living area.
How is the signal routed there, and is a single power outlet sufficient?
How have you solved this issue or how would you approach it? Where might I be missing something?
Thank you all. 🙂
R
RotorMotor21 Mar 2022 20:24Future-proof → No landline phone (in our case)
The first question is whether the Fritzbox is really best placed in the basement. It has Wi-Fi and DECT built-in, so ideally it should be located centrally in the house?!
The first question is whether the Fritzbox is really best placed in the basement. It has Wi-Fi and DECT built-in, so ideally it should be located centrally in the house?!
F
fromthisplace21 Mar 2022 20:33I want to model my network cabinet after MBPassion’s great setup. He/she also has the Fritzbox inside the server cabinet (with Wi-Fi disabled for technical reasons. See quote
I think I have found the answer: the Fritzbox DECT signal for the phone covers 1–2 floors, so having a handset with a network connection on the upper floor is sufficient, right, @MBPassion?
MBPassion schrieb:
A total of 23 installation cables run to a patch panel in a small storage room in the basement. There is also a 19-inch (19") network cabinet where I consolidate the rest of the infrastructure:
- 24-port PoE switch (Unifi USW-Pro-24-POE)
- A Fritzbox (Wi-Fi disabled)
- A NAS
- A Doorbird I/O controller
- (sometimes a Raspberry Pi or Jetson Nano) 🙂
We now have a Unifi Access Point nanoHD on each floor and are very satisfied with it. We no longer need the Fritzbox Wi-Fi and have disabled it.
The DECT signal from the Fritzbox for the phone actually covers from the basement server cabinet up to the attic. Of course, you could also use a DECT base station in a central location, like the Gigaset Pro N670 IP DECT for about 100 euros. (Other alternatives would have been to extend the DSL signal over an installation cable and then reconnect it to the network via a second cable; have the electrician place the TAE socket directly on the ground floor; use a DECT repeater; or install a second Fritzbox.)
I think I have found the answer: the Fritzbox DECT signal for the phone covers 1–2 floors, so having a handset with a network connection on the upper floor is sufficient, right, @MBPassion?
B
Benutzer20021 Mar 2022 21:00fromthisplace schrieb:
Of course, I don’t need the landline phone in the utility room, but rather upstairs in the kitchen/open-plan living area.Then you just let the signal run through the network. You can also connect the landline phone to the network outlet. It just needs to have the signal present at that outlet. Completely normal.P.S. Landline nowadays? Why would anyone still need it?
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