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 🙂
F
fromthisplace12 May 2023 14:40Dear community,
except for the NAS, which will be added at a later stage, the network cabinet is complete and I put it into operation today.
I’m very glad that I followed your advice and also chose the switch from Ubiquiti.
The setup was very easy and took less than an hour. I really enjoy the clear and user-friendly controller. I had to configure very little myself. The access points connected automatically, and the devices switch to the closer one without any extra configuration.
Here is the setup. I was inspired by @MBPassion. Many thanks again for this and all your help.
except for the NAS, which will be added at a later stage, the network cabinet is complete and I put it into operation today.
I’m very glad that I followed your advice and also chose the switch from Ubiquiti.
The setup was very easy and took less than an hour. I really enjoy the clear and user-friendly controller. I had to configure very little myself. The access points connected automatically, and the devices switch to the closer one without any extra configuration.
Here is the setup. I was inspired by @MBPassion. Many thanks again for this and all your help.
fromthisplace schrieb:
I was inspired by @MBPassion for this.Could you please link the post that inspired you? It’s usually hard to find otherwise. It definitely looks great. Thanks for sharing.F
fromthisplace12 May 2023 15:29Yes, of course! This is post #68 from page 12: (Note, no full quote)
As a complete beginner, this entire thread has been very helpful for me regarding the hardware and the selection/placement of the sockets/access points. I have definitely read it through at least five times from post #1 to the end.
Our cabinet could have been smaller, but we still want to include a NAS. We have the space, and I’m not sure what the future will bring. Without the brush strips, it would also look much less tidy.
MBPassion schrieb:
As a complete beginner, this entire thread has been very helpful for me regarding the hardware and the selection/placement of the sockets/access points. I have definitely read it through at least five times from post #1 to the end.
Our cabinet could have been smaller, but we still want to include a NAS. We have the space, and I’m not sure what the future will bring. Without the brush strips, it would also look much less tidy.
i_b_n_a_n schrieb:
There is now a new (unfortunately expensive) rack NAS only 30cm (12 inches) deep... Maybe this could be an option? Until now, all rack NAS were too deep for the usual wall-mounted distribution cabinets... Synology has had those for a long time; the small RS models with 2 or 4 drives are only about 30-32 cm (12-13 inches) deep.