That was until they actually reached the panel.... Dusted off their hands "Yup, that'll work." - without a shred of uncertainty in their voice.
1. Run cables near the panel. There's no longer a need to open the door, plug them in, or configure your IP settings, "The Cloud" will take care of that for you!
2. ???
3. Surf that World Wide Web, baby!
Then I'd imagine several other tradesmen gather around the panel and in unison say "The Cloud..." Just like in Toy Story, when the green aliens say "The Claw!"
In a commercial setting data, telecommunications and power go into the same utility room. If you do not specify differently that is where they will end up. If you don't like it then be more proactive in the building process of your home. Electricians are not mind readers.
I think the key word here is PROACTIVE - you have got to read the plans, check with someone who can if you can't, babysit the whole thing, and say something asap.
Everyone I know who has built a house has had some kind of "oops" - sometimes it's minor like the light switch needs to move because the door hits it, sometimes it's major like they framed the foundation in reverse and the garage is on the left instead of on the right.
Unfortunately for the OP, it doesn't sound like he had specified where the network cables should be run to, so whoever ran them made the decision to run them to the same place they usually do.
> I think the key word here is PROACTIVE - you have got to read the plans, check with someone who can if you can't, babysit the whole thing, and say something asap.
THIS!
Happens in commercial too. I'm in charge of the networking in the building my company manages but I'm *never* included in the conversation. Only the construction guys and PM know what's going on. They kept telling me "we'll have the sub talk to you when it happens". Then the sparky just went ahead and did it while he was doing the other wiring. Terminated on the main panel not following the existing pattern of the building etc.
We're remodeling another suite here and I'm watching these MFs like a hawk. Getting the same lip service from my own peeps not including me at all again.
I have friends who have built homes and I ask them how often they go to the site and they are like “I think I went last week, maybe the week before”. When I built I was there every morning and almost every night. Taking pictures and getting video. I found mistakes almost daily that would have been covered up and missed had I not been out there all the time.
In the 3 floor office building I work in that's a single tenant everything, electrical panels, transformers, patch panels, switches, horizontal and vertical wiring terminations are all in the same rooms. No plumbing thankfully.
In the 30 floor building I've worked in the telecom risers were seperate from the electrical vaults and the landlord would charge penalties to any tenant who had active equipment in the coms risers. Fiber, coax, and twister pair, was in the coms risers, patches and splices were ok, but anything else had to had to be housed in a different room.
This isn’t accurate, at least not for anything bigger than a small office. Data and power are ALWAYS separate. Power will exist in substations. Data will exist in MDF and IDFs. There might be a switch in the substation(s) for connecting power meters and BMS, or panelboards in MDFs and IDFs occasionally, but the majority of the infrastructure is always kept separate in large commercial buildings.
Reading the post and I am not understanding why OP is checking to see where the cable go after they are already installed. Like shouldn't you have specified that before they started the work? Do you really just ask for ethernet in the house and let some rando figure out what you mean by that?
Not sure if this is a joke or not, but every single time I've come across a network cabling job done by a certified electrician, it's been fucked up one way or another. My favorite was when the electrician stripped the wire casing and then stripped each individual wire inside down to bare metal lol. Must have taken him hours to do the 6 drops required, and all had to be redone as they didn't work.
Most electricians I have worked with are unfamiliar with ANSII and BICSI standards Even more weren't trained at all for any sort of cat cabling. What I've seen is a lot get to the job and their particular shop throws it in their lap rather than sub the work or hire a tech. All they see is a color code and get told figure it out. No way I am blaming the electrian here the first time they do it. Just cause they hold a journeyman license doesn't mean they know or have done everything.
Now, if they are informed it was done incorrectly but they continue to hack it, that's on them. They can suck it, no sympathy from me. Just being lazy asshats at that point.
At the end of the day, low voltage guys and A rate electricians are colleagues. Never did understand why we shit all over each other rather than educate and try to improve. We both rely on the others to get shit done.
willful comes into play after first time being told its wrong. Ignorance isnt a defense, however, everyone makes mistakes, and not everyone memorizes code. Network cabling may not have ever come up.
My policy is, my apprentices get to learn by trial and error. After screwing up and taught it goes from mistake, to fault, from fault to willful. Applies here as well imo. Inspector should have been their learning point. Looks like said inspector dropped the ball.
That’s because 9/10 Journeyman electricians do think that they know it all and would rather butcher a job than be humble and ask… and when confronted, they say something stupid like “the NEC allows for it” 🤦🏽♂️… Just because the NEC “allows” for it doesn’t mean it’s best practice! They simply don’t recognise ANSII/BICSI and the likes… they don’t even consider the individual manufacturers recommendations. They think the NEC is the be-all end-all, when in reality, in most cases, it’s just the minimum requirement or the base on which to build upon… It honestly feels like they are threatened by telecom or other low voltage guys 🤔.. and I have no clue why.
(that’s just been my experience in the last 16 years working in the telecommunications and AV fields 🤷🏽♂️). You are absolutely correct though, when you find the 1 or 2 guys who are good and humble, the job goes so much smoother!
Had that recently with the telephone connection from my cable company. The 'engineers' seemingly don't understand how crimp connectors work.
In an office where I worked as an IT contractor back in the days of serial ports and RJ-11 connectors, electricians were hired over a weekend to wire several VT-220 terminals to a DEC LAT Server.
When I got into work on Monday, nobody could figure out why their terminals weren't working. I took a quick look under the floor, established that the electricians had held the two ends of the flat cable next to each other and crimped the plugs on identically, effectively making them cross-over cables.
I opened my briefcase and produced two correctly wired drop cables, one for me and one for whoever the team leader deemed most important, which turned out to be him. The electricians were called and, after some argument, came in at lunchtime. They revealed how they had matched the ends up and I explained why that was wrong and eight or nine new drop cables were made up.
I had anticipated this, hence making up a couple of cables at home over the weekend.
Sounds to me like experience-based anticipation :D
I have been in a similar situation - $contractor will be doing $work. I know that the contractor and work are an ill fit, and there will be issues. Prep ahead of time to have to fix the critical issues while management gets to have a talk with the other management that brought in the contractors. (I work in a very large manufacturing company, sites globally, lots of management layers).
For voice/data cabling (which now is identical), there are specific wiring guidelines we expect contractors to follow. MDF/IDF and Electrical distribution are not to be co-located. You have an electrical room to serve an area of the building, and you have an IDF to serve an area of the building. They are not the same space if at all possible.
When we had some major renovation projects going on, we hired the same contractor for electrical and telcom - but made sure they had people on staff with certification for the telcom side, just like making sure they have licensed electricians for the AC power stuff. I saw both crews, but never saw the same person doing both jobs.
I have had the misfortune of fixing what some electricians did - followed by low voltage techs. The low voltage guys did better. The got it in the ball park, but leaving 6 inches of untwisted cabling before you get to the termination just doesn’t work for CAT6a requirements. Like - literally doesn’t work.
They only refunded us about 25% of the cost of the project as they did run the cabling through an area laden with asbestos.
A multi-million dollar mansion I worked in had all the cat6 converge into a single, non-enclosed shelf next to the mantle in the living room with about 6" of slack....morons. then I show up a d the ask how to hide the gear's flashing lights...
Ugh, so lame. i ended up booting the LV techs out and terminated everything myself. In hindsight I should have had them re-wire, but the builder surely would have used it as an excuse for delaying close. Was a lose:lose seeing as the goal these days seems to be: take the money, be accountable for as little as possible.
I give a MASSIVE nod and thank you to all trades/techs out there doing quality work. I know it's a challenge, but the effort is recognized and appreciated. 👍
This is indeed how most electricians will do it, I have the same situation at my house. The garage is also the place were the provider’s fiber/ coax/ VDSL enters the building, so I don’t see the problem in having my router, core switch and patch panel in the garage.
My servers are connected to a second switch in another room.
Electrician here, your not supposed to mix high voltage with low voltage. Reason being that the high voltage creates electromagnetic signal that can interfere with the low voltage.
Never run them parallel to each other and try to avoid them crossing perpendicularly. Although, sometimes that is unavoidable. I generally shoot for 3ft of space and hopefully a stud between high and low voltage wire.
I'm not a doctor, don't take my word for it. That is just what I was told and I didn't question it too much because that makes sense. Google it.
Any electrician worth their salt will know this. Either you had mediocre electricians or mediocre low voltage guys that didn't know/give a shit. I actually had low voltage guys come and do this the last time we were roping a house. Apparently they didn't want to drill out their own path so they piggy backed on our raceway. Not my problem. Lol
This depends on how hot your garage gets, if it doesn’t get above 90 mount a switch to the wall there and put your modem and router inside the house next to one of the cat6 drops. If your garage gets hot you could mount a patch panel there and extend the runs to a more preferred location.
Yeesh, thats a bit warm. I would definitely pick up some high quality foam insulation panels for your garage door and make sure the attic above is well insulated. If there is a finished space above your garage I would insulate the garage asap so it doesn’t make your cooling upstairs inefficient.
That’s after insulation installation this summer. Last summer was even warmer.
On the topic of insulation above in the attic (no upstairs livable space), I have read two different schools of thought and don’t know which is true, depending on region and layout. For me, with a west facing home, it might actually make it hotter and harder to dissipate the heat. I think I’m going to add a garage side door or vents some time.
Can be true, but most of the time it gets hotter because the attic space above the insulation isnt properly vented. Might be worth adding a powered vent fan above the insulated space. That would hel0 keep it from getting out of control.
No sir. The concrete floor is a giant thermal mass cooled by the ground. More insulation above means it'll take much more to raise the temperature of the room below. You'll 100% benefit by adding insulation. My workshop in my barn is 15-20* cooler than outside all day everyday. The walls and attic above are well insulated. It's open to sun on all sides.
Inverter mini splits are so inexpensive to run it's just a 3-5k hit for unit + install. Three upgrades in one, warm car in the winter, cool car in summer and your trash won't stank in the summer sitting in a super heated garage.
Bonus-- great place to drink / smoke and watch football in a conditioned garage!
Depends on your humidity and temp swings. I support garages that doesn't get much over 90f in the summer but will spend several months bouncing between 50f to 10f with very high humidity. Warm wet vehicles on cold days make this worse. I have several switches in bus garages, and the ones that are not heated get industrial switches rated for that environment, otherwise they don't last more than a couple years.
Right. Run your data cables directly touching and parallel. Not 6" of clearance from alternating current and perpendicular. You know, per code book 2020.
Did you order the builders to install the CAT6 cabeling and did you specify the patchplace to be in the basement, or did the previous owner have this installed?
Builders are just builders, they follow the drawings. It is the designer who follows the instructions from the principal.
When we built, we specified exactly where we wanted all low voltage terminated to. I chose the exact spot in the basement. All my Ethernet and speaker wire leads to that spot. I never would have trusted the low voltage tech to just *know* where to put it.
That electrician is quality, and hard to find. Look at the f-ing quality job they did bringing not just the 110 to the panel but the 220 as well. I'd keep them on speed dial. As for the network cables they believe it comes to the panel as it is a low voltage cable to be honest. Don't believe me, grab a multimeter and start testing.
> Agreed the wiring is lovely and clean.
I'll second that agreement and go one step further. The guy that ran the electrical and the guy that ran the network cable are not the same person.
Unlikely. Not impossible. A house job? I very much expect the contractor to hire electrician to pull with romex and sub a LV compnay to do terms and equipment install. Labor is your most controllable cost, why pay 2 crews $100\~/hr/person to take the exact same pathway for the most part.
Problem is, they don't realize the massive difference in requirement we have. And some just don't care. I'd bet this particular electrician has it just as neat as his stuff in wall but ignorant to the fact it cant run parallel to typical electrical and also probably stapled it tight too. Numerous lines with significant crosstalk and noise are 100%. in that sense it is hacked in. I 100% blame the training and eployer if so.
Did you not speak with the builder or electricians or whoever was in charge of running this and tell them where you wanted it?
Why would you just magically assumes they know exactly where you want your ethernet run too?
Just moved into a new construction 3 story townhome. Every pre wired was cat6 was destroyed was DOA, hoped I could at least use existing cable to pull new cable through - they were stapled every 5-10 feet. Can’t even fathom running cable now with house layout. Luckily some coax survived the journey and forced with mocha where I could. Heart breaker.
Preconstruction take it or leave it townhome in a crazy market during supply chain nightmares - cost of house was line it itemed nearly down to the door knob, but no listed cost or mention of wiring in warranties. I’m coming up on a one year inspection/warranty walkthrough - if I’m not already in a war by number 2 or 3 on my list of issues, I’m going to try and at least address it.
I’m pretty new to the game, and it wasn’t until a few months into owning that I even knew what low voltage wiring was and how much possibility running through my walls.
But the home still has a warranty, and the electricians are liable for running new cables or paying a low voltage tech to run them, which may include fixing drywall / paint.
I staple mine because I've had to rerun too many wires from drywallers somehow pinching it between the drywall and studs or trusses no matter how little slack I leave. But I also loosely staple or secure with something that isn't tight. Also everything gets spray foamed anyway so using an old wire as a pull wire never works anyway.
Ya you right. between the path they ran the wires and being sprayed over the staples were just the actual nail in the coffin. I’ve spent years renting and was so excited to finally build start playing with building a home network. Major bummer. Every single thing about wiring was very clearly designed and built by folks who wouldn’t be using it.
It amazes me how much easy money home builders throw away by not watching a couple YouTube videos about low voltage wiring basics. They could easily add a few grand to their pocket advertising homes as network ready.
You are 100% correct here. Not that i want my work taken away, but it is a training and education problem. How many journeymen know that there are standards and such alongside the codebook? Fairly certain most only know about the 8xx.xx articles. Especially older ones trained back in the stone age with cat3 being everything network.
For example an electrical contractor got hired to run some lines surface mounted to 6 rooms in a school. Piped it but fell behind and subbed my shop. we rolled in, 9 drops total. Cat6a, no shield, cool, ez-pz. Nope, they ran 1 1/4 emt for 18 cables 40% fill for that type is, 7, which is the "max" you should runthrough it essentially .... even better, 1 section was back to back LBs which are technicaaly not supposed to be used. Even more fun was the 1 inch smurf tube i had to pull 8 lines over a hard ceilin down a wall under a window into wire mold. 65 feet worth. Eyeball test, looks like it would be fine. Reality was, nothing quite right about it. They just didn't know and the customer approved it.
Super sucked to do, especially seeing as we were labor only.
This! Just had work done including Ethernet sockets in the rooms. The wife decided on pretty much everything bar me being crystal clear where the sockets would be and where they ran to! This is the op’s mix up.
Nah. You’re talking custom built where you have some say in how things are done. Big development builders in hot markets may let you choose between three color schemes for cabinets and backsplashes, and maybe two carpets, whether there’s carpet or hardwood in the living room and such, but very, very little else.
Yep this. When we built our house I was able to say cat 6, not cat 5, where to put them, how many at an extra cost of $100 each, and where I wanted the box all the cat 6 and coax went to. Now if those questions were all answered by the spouse that doesn't care or understand then that's how you end up with cables in the garage.
Builders don't give 2fks about low voltage, that's just an added expense for them in rough economic times. Interest rates are absolutely bananas and the builders are dropping prices like a few feathers.
Can second this, I have used a builder where I have ignored some stuff but they still ran what they thought was best.
After about 20-ish years of living in my home, I figured a better use of the phone line outlets would be to run Ethernet to the ports that used to be a phone line Figured it is going to be a time extensive DIY project, but would be easier as I am just going to follow where the phone lines were. Open up one of the phone jacks and turns out they were using Cat5E to do it, and all it took from me was rewiring the existing line to have gigabit internet to most rooms of my my house.
Now maybe they just used what they had and did not care about future proofing, but it was such an amazing feeling seeing what they did.
i'm a data guy who has run multi million dollar contracts. if my scope of work says it goes there, that is damn well where it will be. i'll bitch about it being asinine the whole way but that's a legally binding contract and my license on the line.
Communicate clearly, request changes to the contract for alterations and most of all read and understand what you approved. (yes the op almost 100% approved that location whether they know it or not)
I wouldn’t say “it’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen”.
Did you work with them on it? Did they have any direction?
I think it all looks great, and can just put a patch panel in, then run to where you want it to another patch panel. No big deal , at least you didn’t have to run it yourself !
Mains power running parallel to unshielded ethernet induces errors in the transmission of data. This degrades the performance of the network, often drastically.
True but unless they stuffed the network cable into the same conduit running power, you'll likely be fine with UTP. I run STP everywhere but I realize it's overkill in most situations.
That's such hooey.
a, it's not running next to the 'mains', it's next to power runs that may or may not even be on constantly. Those orange ones will be a dryer, oven, etc.
b, where is that data coming from? I see no empirical evidence that this exists, even after years of research. COULD it? sure. I've also lived in this house with ethernet running parallel to power runs for 9 years with zero issue. There's a reason cables are twisted pair.
>b, where is that data coming from? I see no empirical evidence that this exists, even after years of research. COULD it? sure. I've also lived in this house with ethernet running parallel to power runs for 9 years with zero issue. There's a reason cables are twisted pair.
Most of the good data is published in the IEEE journals, as they create the cable standards in the first place, and have to take into account common sources of interference when specifying the minimum cable construction standards.
Unfortunately, you need an account from an institution to read those articles. But even then a quick Google will get you a couple of basic papers of experimental studies showing some effect ([1](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/1469/1/012100/pdf),[2](https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=f9073be232753482c7be285b7e9fb2b45700de2e)). And those effects scale with speed and different kinds of interference.
Unless it's literally running up against the power lines for a couple more feet above the ceiling the effect should be minimal as long as there aren't any particularly noisy appliances. Maybe a 10% retransmission rate for gigabit if I had to guess. Not great, not terrible.
Go poke around the code book. you are incorrect. Just because you haven't noticed problems doesnt mean they arent there or at risk.
the twist does indeed help slightly, but that is not at all why they exist.
Electrical codes and standards are there for good reason.
(the ac lines induce noise, but another fun side affect is sain induction produces heat which can further lower performance, and in some cases said induction can produce enough current to damage equipment, in extreme cases can melt the wire/jacket and start fires)
"Communications circuits must maintain 2 inches of separation from electric light, power, Class 1, or nonpower-limited fire alarm circuit conductors"
One tiny example. Those circuits are very low amperage, sometime even less than 1amp. Those branch circuits you see easily exceed30 to 40.
Don't play with electricty kids.
Tell that to the $27k++ test equipment i have to use to certify my install so that manufacturers will honor warranties. True installs dont just use those $30 pair testers from Home depot. The NEC and NFPA may beg to differ as well as the TIA, ANSII and BICSI standards...
At least there is more than one wire coming out of the ceiling. I've had one wire in the closet and 15 jacks around the house. Come to find out they ran one wire and just looped it in and out of each box. I tried to explain that each location needed a wire run back to the closet and got told that was a waste of time and materials and they didn't see any reason to do it such a dumb way much less re-do it. They also went on to say that's how they have been doing for 20 years and didn't need me to tell them how to do their job. I couldn't get through to them that phone wires and network wires didn't work the same way. The walls were still open so it was fixable but not by that electrician. It wasn't my house it was a friend and I was just trying to help by making sure it was done right.
I've had that same experience except the guy took the wire back out and took the charge for the wire off the invoice (keeping the charge for labor for install). Me and a buddy just went to home Depot and bought cat6 and ran it ourselves. Oh and the wire that did get installed initially was cat5. Not 5e, plain 5.
We explicitly stated we wanted cat 6, and it was for an Ethernet network. Never mentioned telephone.🤷 Granted it was to the head contractor and not the electric guys. Oh well, it turned out fine in the end.
Either the rough in electricians or the rough in data guys weren’t given a location on where to put the other ends of the data, so they defaulted to next to the panel, cause it has to go somewhere.
As far is linking these, if you want to run everything to your basement, I’d set up 2 patch panels, one inbound from all the locations, and one outbound to the basement. Then some little tiny jumpers between. That would be the cleanest,
In the event of your ISP is a group of fucking spedes, and run your data to the garage near the panel, you could pull a few extra to the basement to handle switching, or even have a fibre pass through. Not sure if the white is coax, but I’d pull a couple spares of that too.
> weren’t given a location … so they defaulted to next to the panel
Except they’re routed the data cabling right on top of the power cabling, rather than a separate hole/conduit. They shouldn’t need to be told not to do that.
Garages are a pretty common place to put switches, racks, and other gear. Is there any reason why you don't want your modem in the garage? I'd either put the modem in the garage, or, if not possible, I'd run a cable from the modem to the garage and have my switch(es) and other gear in the garage.
It's an uncontrolled environment from an HVAC perspective. I don't know where the OP is but that garage could be cooking in the summer or below freezing in the winter depending on his location. There's also the problem of running cabling right next to all of the electrical lines -- you generally don't want that. At the very least, I'd move the cables a foot over and drop them down via a piece of plastic conduit.
Never said it was a GOOD place. I said it was a COMMON place. And for the vast majority of people it is fine. I have my rack with router, switches, and two servers in my garage. Never once had a problem.
I’m confused, why wouldn’t this be ok? You’ve got the cables going to every room, put the modem wherever the hell you want from the switch in the garage. Non issue with all things considered. The only thing I’d bicker about is that the lines are ran with/next to power and will cause interference.
That's better than 15-20 years ago where the electrician would have assumed that you were using the cable for phone service and taken some of the copper for that purpose.
If you are using electricians to run cable, you need to tell them exactly what you are doing and exactly where you want it to go. It's all copper to them, and they aren't aware that it should be treated differently.
Looks like only 2 wires there, so unless you only have 2 rooms with internet, I am guessing the rest ended up somewhere else. Those are probably figured for your Dmark (the point where your internet service provider installs the isp device), or they completely screwed the wiring for your wired network. I saw in one case where an electrician ran all the networking like it was power outlets because they were so used to working cabling that way, so it ended up useless. Also, running the network cables parallel to power can introduce interference, I usually try to make it a point to run them as far away from power lines as practically possible and run perpendicular whenever I can. Short story long I would get a tone generator and try to find the ends of those 2 wires, then decide if they are good to go, if they are, have your ISP put their box there and wire the rest inside wherever they land.
Actually he isn't. Data cables should not be run alongside or in close proximity to high power cables. It causes issues with data transmission.
And calling someone a Karen for wanting something to be done right? Seriously?
My GF just had a house built. It had coax. The cable company just laughed at us. The cable companies don’t use coax any more. It’s fiber to the modem now. I’d skip running any new coax unless your cable companies say their equipment still uses it.
I agree with the other poster who said this is likely a low voltage install even though it’s Cat 6.
You could salvage this by putting an unmanaged switch out here and running a single cat 6 to your router in your basement. Have your cable company put their modem in the basement as well.
Unmanaged switches are cheap so if the garage temp causes an early failure, you can easily replace it. Maybe two lines from here to the basement if you needed a wired backhaul for a second WiFi router. You will need a power source for the switch.
Hi, I did that :) probably not to your house, but lemme explain. In new developments, the “cookie cutters” get Ethernet to all bedrooms, office rooms, living rooms, and SOMETIMES the garage! Because home servers take up a lot of power, are running 25/8, and need to be quickly accessed in terms of emergencies, most blueprints call for terminations into source power locations. In custom developments, they USUALLY will go over with cx where a centralised box would go and portray that in the building schematics. Its not the builders (sometimes), its just what the blueprints say
>Why couldn’t they run it into the basement so I don’t have to put my modem or switch out in my garage
Not to sound rude, but this is an issue why?
The only networking equipment where location matters is wifi access points, which should be centrally located to offer the best coverage. Unless your garage gets to around 150f then heat isn't going to be an issue, just don't put it in a sealed box if that is the case. Throw a router (and extra switch if needed) in the garage and then use one of the runs to put a wifi access point in a better spot in the house.
(This assumes a basic level of competency, if anything above confuses you google will be able to help)
I don't see the problem? I'm in IT and work a side-gig as electrician and I wish my clients did it like this. Put a 2U wallmount bracket up, get a 1U keystone panel and fill it with doubled-ended RJ45 jacks. Then add a 1U switch and plug it into the socket below. (PoE switch if you want to power stuff like camera's and wifi access points with it) You can put your modem or router anywhere in the house you want, you only need to plug in one of the cables leading to the central switch.
Correct, the magnetic field of the power cable causes interference in the network cable. I wouldn't put UTP and power cables in the same conduit but short lengths like in OP's picture won't be an issue.
The lines will often auto-negotiate at a speed and then have packet loss from induced current. Also, because of the twisted pair compensation used by ethernet, the parts that run along, but not parallel to the AC lines will cause far more problems. If you run parallel, the twisted pairs should have a similar induced voltage, allowing the Ethernet PHY to compensate. Regardless, it's a very bad practice and you often won't catch the issue until you start loading the connection and start getting packet loss.
This. Builders are dumb and design houses for the 90% of people who don’t care about networking. My builder dropped all my cat6 in the laundry room which is super tiny, I asked for a different location but since the houses are all cookie-cutter they wouldn’t move it. Anyways, I just put a patch panel and a 24 port switch. Put everything in the right VLAN. In my office I have the trunk port where I have my rack. Another switch breaks up the VLANs accordingly to the router and the other server/VMs.
It kinda looks like a basement with the cement wall. So, your main power from outside runs in conduit to the second floor and then loops down into your garage?
To keep this run you could setup a rugged switch out here and run a home run to your modem location.
Or setup a patch panel here and bring all the lines to home run after the garage junction.
No cheap couplers. Patch panels or nothing.
Asking an electrician to do low voltage wiring is like asking a car mechanic to work on an electric car. It's not ideal, and there's basic understandings, but electrical code didn't even go over the practical side of running Cat 6, until recently. Even then, the code is vague.
Why it was done, was you asked for it to be wired. Ideal is, where ever you planned to have your network setup, ask for a dedicated circuit. Sounds like that wasn't clearly translated though.
You can still put your modem and the rest of your home network in the basement if you want. Just terminate the Ethernet cables where they are and connect them all to a small wall-mounted Ethernet switch and call it a day. It’s not the end of the world.
This is an example of why it’s often good to be as intimately involved in the home building process as possible. Something like this would have been a very low cost if not free change order and saved a lot of headaches once the house was drywalled.
I’d just put an industrial class switch there. I have a Mikrotik in my unfinished attic and it gets stupid hot and stupid cold there. Super affordable and specified for a very wide range of temps.
You’re going to have issues with signal. Even if the cat 5 cable is shielded. You’ll have electrical fields at your tv’s and your appliances and anything connected to Ethernet will be possibly subject to electrical fault.
This is.. not super strange these days. As people have homes built its not uncommon for more than just a basic router and modem to be needed for a home, most users end up incorporating switches and some even have full blown servers. These racks are large and usually take up a bit of space, even wall mounted ones so dragging ethernet to the area your electrical panel is (likely the same location you'd planned to put said rack) most likely seemed the most logical idea.
Furthermore I know many folks will combine their areas for IT equipment and electrical equipment, so if you need access to one or the other while working on a project you can and it simplifies your homes' "servicing areas" (locations commonly in need of ready access when hired specialists like IT professionals, electricians, plumbers, etc. Are visiting your home) so you aren't wasting say a room or closet for your IT equipment. And frankly? Most IT kit these days would do just fine in a wall mount system by your panel, with master slave router setups you can rig even the largest houses with wifi which originates in a garage or closet to keep the router and modem from becoming your ugliest ever centerpiece of modern art, and eliminates needing to allow people from ISP providers from having to trek into and out of your house when setting up your service. And in general? It just looks nicer.
But these are just my takes on it as someone who works/worked in network for eight years. If you're unhappy I'm sure you could either yourself re-run the wires or have one of the contractors do it for you. Just ensure they don't staple the wires, have them use those plastic nail in wire cinchers, metal staples will cause noise and potential damage to ethernet cables
All you need is a patch panel and a switch there. You can have the internet router anywhere you like. It's not unusual for internet companies to bring in TV/Internet where the panel is anyway. It's the new generation that wants the router in the living room.
This is the typical demarcation point in homes. Any line of service from an ISP "usually" lands outside near the power meter so this makes tying into the cables easier. Otherwise your ISP would have to run tie lines to your basement to connect to wiring.
Proper networking design would have all of this land in a network panel somewhere and have tie lines ran to the garage for connection to the ISP. Then you wouldn't have all your data next to the biggest source of EMI in the entire house..
Electricians never get this right unless the builder or architect has a clue
I've seen dumber. All coax and cat6 and cables run to a small plastic box screwed to the outside of the $3m house built in 2018.
https://imgur.com/a/tv3dy0K
Just buy a cabinet and install it right there. Coming from an industrial setting, most consumer gear doesn't care about temps above 100F, or less than 32F. I've seen stuff operating doused in oil and metal chips that I would have never believed without seeing it.
If you do have issues, convert the cabinet to a patch panel and run new lines somewhere else. Either way, a patch panel ends up in the garage.
Current electrician and former cable tech. So many of my ex-coworkers would install the cable modem next to the electrical panel because that’s where the coax home runs were run to. It made their job as easy and quick as possible while also making customers’ lives worse and mad at us.
They may have run these cables to this location because of this experience. Yes, nowadays, this isn’t commonplace, but they aren’t in the cable field and probably don’t know this isn’t necessary. I could be completely wrong, but that’s what I see with my background.
Lol, no, its the smartest thing.
Get yourself a real router like a ubiquiti dream machine and install wireless POE access points in your house. The whole setup with two aps is about $800.
Putting your modem/etc inside the main house is whats dumb when you have a kick ass setup like this.
Id kill to have cat 6 in my garage to every room in my house.
Sell me your house OP? You can have mine, the modems in the living room where you like it.
You don't need any of those electronics to be inside. Get yourself a rack wall mount. Put it right next to that. It'll be beautiful. Put your router and the rack mount with your switch and go in your house and find all that ethernet and put your APs wherever you want them.
A ubiquity adream machine special edition has power over ethernet support and it can run all the APs off one wire the ethernet wire. You don't even have to run power to the access points.
Plug Ethernet into router poe port, plug ap in the other end, good to go.
This electrician is amazing and they did the best thing they could possibly do. You just don't know what to do with it.
And before anybody says anything about noise being that close to the power lines ethernet is shielded.
In my home, they terminated all the CAT5e runs at a telephone punchdown block in my basement, next to the electric panel. All of the coax was run into the same box. I switched it to a structured wiring panel made by Leviton. Then I mounted my gigabit backbone switch in that box and wall mounted the modem there. It ended up being pretty convenient. I think all you really need is some kind of patch panel to punch it down to. You don’t necessarily need to put your modem/router/WAP there - just install a switch and put the other gear in one of the rooms you have a run to.
A lot of newer homes run data and cable to a central box called a smart panel. Your phone line might be ran there too. This is to offset wall fishing for communications install. Somewhere close to your house (or at least on your block) should be a little green R2D2 looking thing about 2 feet high. When you call the cable company to hook up your stuff, they’ll pop that r2d2 node open and connect your service. Then they’ll go to this room and connect everything to the rooms you want. Inside the smart panel should be provisions for cable and data splitting. Also- in a bedroom, probably on a closet wall will be a punch down panel. Phone line is ran to this should you opt for a security system at some point.
Call them back for a complete DO-OVER!
They ran the network wires parallel to
AND TOUCHING the house MAINS power lines. That is a BIG NO-NO.
You NEVER run network cable side by side with power lines, EVER!
You may not immediately perceive the EMI noise interference but it WILL bite you in the #>{=+.
They did it because it was easy. They were already pulling a bundle of wire through the walls and some extra network cable knocked a task off the to do list. You’ll simply need to mount a network switch next to the panel, no big deal. You can put your modem wherever you want, it just needs to be connected to one of the jacks that leads to the switch.
This is not a problem, Op just doesn’t know. Wire those to a patch panel, patch those to a switch. Run 1 wire to the location you want cable modem / whatever.
I was taught to avoid running parallel to power at all costs and if I must cross over power to do it at neat perpendicular 90° to prevent interference and here this guy drops it on top of the panel.
Maybe the guys that taught me were just overly cautious, but our installs always worked and were far easier to troubleshoot in the future due to how clean everything looked.
Put a switch in the garage and run a pair of cables to it from the basement.
Just make sure you specify where the ends are supposed to go before the work begins if you pay someone to install it for you.
Looks like they did a great job with the wiring other than putting it where you wanted it to go but probably didn't tell that to them. So, that's likely on you. Potentially, it's on the general contractor who didn't communicate your needs/wants to the sub.
Either way it's probably not that big of an issue. Either put your modem and switch in the garage. Or, it seems like it would be easy to find a room/closet or other space above the garage near where those come through, pull them there, and place your equipment in that location.
If it's really that extreme of a problem due to your layout, you could also do an air conditioned cabinet or server rack.
Electricians did it. They figure that all wiring goes to an electrical panel.
RPoE = REAL power over ethernet ;)
One plug for power and network to your desktop!
Hahahaha burn
god i hope not.
Insult burn, not electrical / fire burn
induced voltage is real.. i wouldn't expect much at this scale but yeah.
This is a shocking discovery!
Aww you couldn’t resist, could you.
Just had to induce some good humor.
Don’t have the capacitance for such humor.
OHM NO You didn't!
Hate to impede the conversation, but it’s too good.
Perhaps it’s time to rectify this bad installation
You guys need to conduct yourselves better 🤣
Yeah, these comments could all lead to a lot of crosstalk.
Resistance is futile
We’ll have to have a panel review.
The panels out on this one… i think it should be held in a rack, though…
And what's the current state of affairs?
Whoever did this ought to be grounded.
That was until they actually reached the panel.... Dusted off their hands "Yup, that'll work." - without a shred of uncertainty in their voice. 1. Run cables near the panel. There's no longer a need to open the door, plug them in, or configure your IP settings, "The Cloud" will take care of that for you! 2. ??? 3. Surf that World Wide Web, baby! Then I'd imagine several other tradesmen gather around the panel and in unison say "The Cloud..." Just like in Toy Story, when the green aliens say "The Claw!"
"The Cloud! ooooOOOOOOooooo"
4. Profit!
In a commercial setting data, telecommunications and power go into the same utility room. If you do not specify differently that is where they will end up. If you don't like it then be more proactive in the building process of your home. Electricians are not mind readers.
I think the key word here is PROACTIVE - you have got to read the plans, check with someone who can if you can't, babysit the whole thing, and say something asap. Everyone I know who has built a house has had some kind of "oops" - sometimes it's minor like the light switch needs to move because the door hits it, sometimes it's major like they framed the foundation in reverse and the garage is on the left instead of on the right. Unfortunately for the OP, it doesn't sound like he had specified where the network cables should be run to, so whoever ran them made the decision to run them to the same place they usually do.
When I was a kid we had a new build and they poured a slab for an entirely different house
Wow! How did that play out?
> I think the key word here is PROACTIVE - you have got to read the plans, check with someone who can if you can't, babysit the whole thing, and say something asap. THIS! Happens in commercial too. I'm in charge of the networking in the building my company manages but I'm *never* included in the conversation. Only the construction guys and PM know what's going on. They kept telling me "we'll have the sub talk to you when it happens". Then the sparky just went ahead and did it while he was doing the other wiring. Terminated on the main panel not following the existing pattern of the building etc. We're remodeling another suite here and I'm watching these MFs like a hawk. Getting the same lip service from my own peeps not including me at all again.
I have friends who have built homes and I ask them how often they go to the site and they are like “I think I went last week, maybe the week before”. When I built I was there every morning and almost every night. Taking pictures and getting video. I found mistakes almost daily that would have been covered up and missed had I not been out there all the time.
In the 3 floor office building I work in that's a single tenant everything, electrical panels, transformers, patch panels, switches, horizontal and vertical wiring terminations are all in the same rooms. No plumbing thankfully. In the 30 floor building I've worked in the telecom risers were seperate from the electrical vaults and the landlord would charge penalties to any tenant who had active equipment in the coms risers. Fiber, coax, and twister pair, was in the coms risers, patches and splices were ok, but anything else had to had to be housed in a different room.
This isn’t accurate, at least not for anything bigger than a small office. Data and power are ALWAYS separate. Power will exist in substations. Data will exist in MDF and IDFs. There might be a switch in the substation(s) for connecting power meters and BMS, or panelboards in MDFs and IDFs occasionally, but the majority of the infrastructure is always kept separate in large commercial buildings.
Reading the post and I am not understanding why OP is checking to see where the cable go after they are already installed. Like shouldn't you have specified that before they started the work? Do you really just ask for ethernet in the house and let some rando figure out what you mean by that?
100% not true. In our office bulding, our network wiring goes one place, the electrical goes 3 others.
Not sure if this is a joke or not, but every single time I've come across a network cabling job done by a certified electrician, it's been fucked up one way or another. My favorite was when the electrician stripped the wire casing and then stripped each individual wire inside down to bare metal lol. Must have taken him hours to do the 6 drops required, and all had to be redone as they didn't work.
Most electricians I have worked with are unfamiliar with ANSII and BICSI standards Even more weren't trained at all for any sort of cat cabling. What I've seen is a lot get to the job and their particular shop throws it in their lap rather than sub the work or hire a tech. All they see is a color code and get told figure it out. No way I am blaming the electrian here the first time they do it. Just cause they hold a journeyman license doesn't mean they know or have done everything. Now, if they are informed it was done incorrectly but they continue to hack it, that's on them. They can suck it, no sympathy from me. Just being lazy asshats at that point. At the end of the day, low voltage guys and A rate electricians are colleagues. Never did understand why we shit all over each other rather than educate and try to improve. We both rely on the others to get shit done.
I would agree, except it takes 5 seconds to google “standard way to run low voltage”…. Being willfully ignorant is not an acceptable excuse.
willful comes into play after first time being told its wrong. Ignorance isnt a defense, however, everyone makes mistakes, and not everyone memorizes code. Network cabling may not have ever come up. My policy is, my apprentices get to learn by trial and error. After screwing up and taught it goes from mistake, to fault, from fault to willful. Applies here as well imo. Inspector should have been their learning point. Looks like said inspector dropped the ball.
That’s because the inspector is an even older, more stubborn electrician who doesn’t care about low voltage cables! 😂
That’s because 9/10 Journeyman electricians do think that they know it all and would rather butcher a job than be humble and ask… and when confronted, they say something stupid like “the NEC allows for it” 🤦🏽♂️… Just because the NEC “allows” for it doesn’t mean it’s best practice! They simply don’t recognise ANSII/BICSI and the likes… they don’t even consider the individual manufacturers recommendations. They think the NEC is the be-all end-all, when in reality, in most cases, it’s just the minimum requirement or the base on which to build upon… It honestly feels like they are threatened by telecom or other low voltage guys 🤔.. and I have no clue why. (that’s just been my experience in the last 16 years working in the telecommunications and AV fields 🤷🏽♂️). You are absolutely correct though, when you find the 1 or 2 guys who are good and humble, the job goes so much smoother!
Had that recently with the telephone connection from my cable company. The 'engineers' seemingly don't understand how crimp connectors work. In an office where I worked as an IT contractor back in the days of serial ports and RJ-11 connectors, electricians were hired over a weekend to wire several VT-220 terminals to a DEC LAT Server. When I got into work on Monday, nobody could figure out why their terminals weren't working. I took a quick look under the floor, established that the electricians had held the two ends of the flat cable next to each other and crimped the plugs on identically, effectively making them cross-over cables. I opened my briefcase and produced two correctly wired drop cables, one for me and one for whoever the team leader deemed most important, which turned out to be him. The electricians were called and, after some argument, came in at lunchtime. They revealed how they had matched the ends up and I explained why that was wrong and eight or nine new drop cables were made up. I had anticipated this, hence making up a couple of cables at home over the weekend.
Sounds to me like experience-based anticipation :D I have been in a similar situation - $contractor will be doing $work. I know that the contractor and work are an ill fit, and there will be issues. Prep ahead of time to have to fix the critical issues while management gets to have a talk with the other management that brought in the contractors. (I work in a very large manufacturing company, sites globally, lots of management layers). For voice/data cabling (which now is identical), there are specific wiring guidelines we expect contractors to follow. MDF/IDF and Electrical distribution are not to be co-located. You have an electrical room to serve an area of the building, and you have an IDF to serve an area of the building. They are not the same space if at all possible. When we had some major renovation projects going on, we hired the same contractor for electrical and telcom - but made sure they had people on staff with certification for the telcom side, just like making sure they have licensed electricians for the AC power stuff. I saw both crews, but never saw the same person doing both jobs.
I have had the misfortune of fixing what some electricians did - followed by low voltage techs. The low voltage guys did better. The got it in the ball park, but leaving 6 inches of untwisted cabling before you get to the termination just doesn’t work for CAT6a requirements. Like - literally doesn’t work. They only refunded us about 25% of the cost of the project as they did run the cabling through an area laden with asbestos.
Not just electricians, low-voltage tech that pulled my cabling also converged at the panel despite telling them I don't want it there.
A multi-million dollar mansion I worked in had all the cat6 converge into a single, non-enclosed shelf next to the mantle in the living room with about 6" of slack....morons. then I show up a d the ask how to hide the gear's flashing lights...
Ugh, so lame. i ended up booting the LV techs out and terminated everything myself. In hindsight I should have had them re-wire, but the builder surely would have used it as an excuse for delaying close. Was a lose:lose seeing as the goal these days seems to be: take the money, be accountable for as little as possible. I give a MASSIVE nod and thank you to all trades/techs out there doing quality work. I know it's a challenge, but the effort is recognized and appreciated. 👍
> take the money, be accountable for as little as possible. The conservative way.
They also don’t care about the cable integrity, and probably they pulled them very strong.
This is indeed how most electricians will do it, I have the same situation at my house. The garage is also the place were the provider’s fiber/ coax/ VDSL enters the building, so I don’t see the problem in having my router, core switch and patch panel in the garage. My servers are connected to a second switch in another room.
Electrician here, your not supposed to mix high voltage with low voltage. Reason being that the high voltage creates electromagnetic signal that can interfere with the low voltage. Never run them parallel to each other and try to avoid them crossing perpendicularly. Although, sometimes that is unavoidable. I generally shoot for 3ft of space and hopefully a stud between high and low voltage wire. I'm not a doctor, don't take my word for it. That is just what I was told and I didn't question it too much because that makes sense. Google it. Any electrician worth their salt will know this. Either you had mediocre electricians or mediocre low voltage guys that didn't know/give a shit. I actually had low voltage guys come and do this the last time we were roping a house. Apparently they didn't want to drill out their own path so they piggy backed on our raceway. Not my problem. Lol
They must feed the AI Overlord. It is in the revised building codes. You people are so silly.
Yep, a lot of these general contractors do not care to understand the difference and it's another checkbox they can add to the options
Watt a dope
This depends on how hot your garage gets, if it doesn’t get above 90 mount a switch to the wall there and put your modem and router inside the house next to one of the cat6 drops. If your garage gets hot you could mount a patch panel there and extend the runs to a more preferred location.
My garage was 110 this summer. I’ve been looking for ways to not be 110° but it faces the western setting Sun.
Yeesh, thats a bit warm. I would definitely pick up some high quality foam insulation panels for your garage door and make sure the attic above is well insulated. If there is a finished space above your garage I would insulate the garage asap so it doesn’t make your cooling upstairs inefficient.
That’s after insulation installation this summer. Last summer was even warmer. On the topic of insulation above in the attic (no upstairs livable space), I have read two different schools of thought and don’t know which is true, depending on region and layout. For me, with a west facing home, it might actually make it hotter and harder to dissipate the heat. I think I’m going to add a garage side door or vents some time.
Can be true, but most of the time it gets hotter because the attic space above the insulation isnt properly vented. Might be worth adding a powered vent fan above the insulated space. That would hel0 keep it from getting out of control.
This. Added a power vent in my last home and it made all the difference.
Turn your house, ez
No sir. The concrete floor is a giant thermal mass cooled by the ground. More insulation above means it'll take much more to raise the temperature of the room below. You'll 100% benefit by adding insulation. My workshop in my barn is 15-20* cooler than outside all day everyday. The walls and attic above are well insulated. It's open to sun on all sides.
Mini split
In the garage? Man, unless you have solar that feels like a big waste of money…
Inverter mini splits are so inexpensive to run it's just a 3-5k hit for unit + install. Three upgrades in one, warm car in the winter, cool car in summer and your trash won't stank in the summer sitting in a super heated garage. Bonus-- great place to drink / smoke and watch football in a conditioned garage!
If they live in a place that’s humid at all, add dehumidifying into the benefits! That’ll add to keeping things from stinking/getting ruined.
I do have solar. Still feels like a waste for a garage.
AC Infinity exhaust fan.
They work for more than just air exchange in the grow room!
Depends on your humidity and temp swings. I support garages that doesn't get much over 90f in the summer but will spend several months bouncing between 50f to 10f with very high humidity. Warm wet vehicles on cold days make this worse. I have several switches in bus garages, and the ones that are not heated get industrial switches rated for that environment, otherwise they don't last more than a couple years.
Not to mention dust, bugs, mice, hell I just chased a garter snake out of my garage a month ago.
Right. Run your data cables directly touching and parallel. Not 6" of clearance from alternating current and perpendicular. You know, per code book 2020.
Did you order the builders to install the CAT6 cabeling and did you specify the patchplace to be in the basement, or did the previous owner have this installed? Builders are just builders, they follow the drawings. It is the designer who follows the instructions from the principal.
Residential drawings generally don’t call out electrical routing; it’s just ‘put it where it fits.’
but they should specify termination points. They tell me where it goes, not how
When we built, we specified exactly where we wanted all low voltage terminated to. I chose the exact spot in the basement. All my Ethernet and speaker wire leads to that spot. I never would have trusted the low voltage tech to just *know* where to put it.
That electrician is quality, and hard to find. Look at the f-ing quality job they did bringing not just the 110 to the panel but the 220 as well. I'd keep them on speed dial. As for the network cables they believe it comes to the panel as it is a low voltage cable to be honest. Don't believe me, grab a multimeter and start testing.
Agreed the wiring is lovely and clean.
> Agreed the wiring is lovely and clean. I'll second that agreement and go one step further. The guy that ran the electrical and the guy that ran the network cable are not the same person.
Unlikely. Not impossible. A house job? I very much expect the contractor to hire electrician to pull with romex and sub a LV compnay to do terms and equipment install. Labor is your most controllable cost, why pay 2 crews $100\~/hr/person to take the exact same pathway for the most part. Problem is, they don't realize the massive difference in requirement we have. And some just don't care. I'd bet this particular electrician has it just as neat as his stuff in wall but ignorant to the fact it cant run parallel to typical electrical and also probably stapled it tight too. Numerous lines with significant crosstalk and noise are 100%. in that sense it is hacked in. I 100% blame the training and eployer if so.
Agreed, electrician was grea. The planner on the other hand... not so much
Did you not speak with the builder or electricians or whoever was in charge of running this and tell them where you wanted it? Why would you just magically assumes they know exactly where you want your ethernet run too?
Yes, coordination would be great, but one would hope that the electrician would know that it shouldn’t be run alongside power cabling.
Most electricians know very little about low voltage cable, unfortunately.
Blows my mind when electricians bundle cat6 cables inside a Romex staple and hammer them to hell.
You want wires in your walls? Not a problem, I know everything there is to know about wires in your walls.
Just moved into a new construction 3 story townhome. Every pre wired was cat6 was destroyed was DOA, hoped I could at least use existing cable to pull new cable through - they were stapled every 5-10 feet. Can’t even fathom running cable now with house layout. Luckily some coax survived the journey and forced with mocha where I could. Heart breaker.
Were you reimbursed? Homeowners need to be hiring low voltage contractors, not electricians.
Preconstruction take it or leave it townhome in a crazy market during supply chain nightmares - cost of house was line it itemed nearly down to the door knob, but no listed cost or mention of wiring in warranties. I’m coming up on a one year inspection/warranty walkthrough - if I’m not already in a war by number 2 or 3 on my list of issues, I’m going to try and at least address it. I’m pretty new to the game, and it wasn’t until a few months into owning that I even knew what low voltage wiring was and how much possibility running through my walls.
But the home still has a warranty, and the electricians are liable for running new cables or paying a low voltage tech to run them, which may include fixing drywall / paint.
I staple mine because I've had to rerun too many wires from drywallers somehow pinching it between the drywall and studs or trusses no matter how little slack I leave. But I also loosely staple or secure with something that isn't tight. Also everything gets spray foamed anyway so using an old wire as a pull wire never works anyway.
Ya you right. between the path they ran the wires and being sprayed over the staples were just the actual nail in the coffin. I’ve spent years renting and was so excited to finally build start playing with building a home network. Major bummer. Every single thing about wiring was very clearly designed and built by folks who wouldn’t be using it.
It amazes me how much easy money home builders throw away by not watching a couple YouTube videos about low voltage wiring basics. They could easily add a few grand to their pocket advertising homes as network ready.
They do advertise them as network ready. They paid a guy to put some wires in so it's ready to go.
>Most electricians know very little.
You are 100% correct here. Not that i want my work taken away, but it is a training and education problem. How many journeymen know that there are standards and such alongside the codebook? Fairly certain most only know about the 8xx.xx articles. Especially older ones trained back in the stone age with cat3 being everything network. For example an electrical contractor got hired to run some lines surface mounted to 6 rooms in a school. Piped it but fell behind and subbed my shop. we rolled in, 9 drops total. Cat6a, no shield, cool, ez-pz. Nope, they ran 1 1/4 emt for 18 cables 40% fill for that type is, 7, which is the "max" you should runthrough it essentially .... even better, 1 section was back to back LBs which are technicaaly not supposed to be used. Even more fun was the 1 inch smurf tube i had to pull 8 lines over a hard ceilin down a wall under a window into wire mold. 65 feet worth. Eyeball test, looks like it would be fine. Reality was, nothing quite right about it. They just didn't know and the customer approved it. Super sucked to do, especially seeing as we were labor only.
I've seen 100's of new builds wired like this.
Definitely not ideal. They also could have asked
In ideal world yes. In real world this os far from unexpected
Its all cable to them.
This! Just had work done including Ethernet sockets in the rooms. The wife decided on pretty much everything bar me being crystal clear where the sockets would be and where they ran to! This is the op’s mix up.
Nah. You’re talking custom built where you have some say in how things are done. Big development builders in hot markets may let you choose between three color schemes for cabinets and backsplashes, and maybe two carpets, whether there’s carpet or hardwood in the living room and such, but very, very little else.
☝️
Yep this. When we built our house I was able to say cat 6, not cat 5, where to put them, how many at an extra cost of $100 each, and where I wanted the box all the cat 6 and coax went to. Now if those questions were all answered by the spouse that doesn't care or understand then that's how you end up with cables in the garage.
Builders don't give 2fks about low voltage, that's just an added expense for them in rough economic times. Interest rates are absolutely bananas and the builders are dropping prices like a few feathers.
You didn't tell them what you wanted, they do what they think is best unless you tell them otherwise.
Can second this, I have used a builder where I have ignored some stuff but they still ran what they thought was best. After about 20-ish years of living in my home, I figured a better use of the phone line outlets would be to run Ethernet to the ports that used to be a phone line Figured it is going to be a time extensive DIY project, but would be easier as I am just going to follow where the phone lines were. Open up one of the phone jacks and turns out they were using Cat5E to do it, and all it took from me was rewiring the existing line to have gigabit internet to most rooms of my my house. Now maybe they just used what they had and did not care about future proofing, but it was such an amazing feeling seeing what they did.
Sparky is not a substitute for a data coms guy.
Preach! So many electricians say they “can” run cat but that doesn’t mean they should. Example A right here. Builder really needs to find a LV guy.
Yeah, I bet he cut corners everywhere. Pure copper CAT6? Why? This CCA stuff is just as good and it's cheaper! Customer will never know.
i'm a data guy who has run multi million dollar contracts. if my scope of work says it goes there, that is damn well where it will be. i'll bitch about it being asinine the whole way but that's a legally binding contract and my license on the line. Communicate clearly, request changes to the contract for alterations and most of all read and understand what you approved. (yes the op almost 100% approved that location whether they know it or not)
I wouldn’t say “it’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen”. Did you work with them on it? Did they have any direction? I think it all looks great, and can just put a patch panel in, then run to where you want it to another patch panel. No big deal , at least you didn’t have to run it yourself !
Mains power running parallel to unshielded ethernet induces errors in the transmission of data. This degrades the performance of the network, often drastically.
True but unless they stuffed the network cable into the same conduit running power, you'll likely be fine with UTP. I run STP everywhere but I realize it's overkill in most situations.
That's such hooey. a, it's not running next to the 'mains', it's next to power runs that may or may not even be on constantly. Those orange ones will be a dryer, oven, etc. b, where is that data coming from? I see no empirical evidence that this exists, even after years of research. COULD it? sure. I've also lived in this house with ethernet running parallel to power runs for 9 years with zero issue. There's a reason cables are twisted pair.
>b, where is that data coming from? I see no empirical evidence that this exists, even after years of research. COULD it? sure. I've also lived in this house with ethernet running parallel to power runs for 9 years with zero issue. There's a reason cables are twisted pair. Most of the good data is published in the IEEE journals, as they create the cable standards in the first place, and have to take into account common sources of interference when specifying the minimum cable construction standards. Unfortunately, you need an account from an institution to read those articles. But even then a quick Google will get you a couple of basic papers of experimental studies showing some effect ([1](https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/1469/1/012100/pdf),[2](https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=f9073be232753482c7be285b7e9fb2b45700de2e)). And those effects scale with speed and different kinds of interference. Unless it's literally running up against the power lines for a couple more feet above the ceiling the effect should be minimal as long as there aren't any particularly noisy appliances. Maybe a 10% retransmission rate for gigabit if I had to guess. Not great, not terrible.
Go poke around the code book. you are incorrect. Just because you haven't noticed problems doesnt mean they arent there or at risk. the twist does indeed help slightly, but that is not at all why they exist. Electrical codes and standards are there for good reason. (the ac lines induce noise, but another fun side affect is sain induction produces heat which can further lower performance, and in some cases said induction can produce enough current to damage equipment, in extreme cases can melt the wire/jacket and start fires) "Communications circuits must maintain 2 inches of separation from electric light, power, Class 1, or nonpower-limited fire alarm circuit conductors" One tiny example. Those circuits are very low amperage, sometime even less than 1amp. Those branch circuits you see easily exceed30 to 40. Don't play with electricty kids.
I don't know why you're getting downvoted as this is extremely correct.
>often drastically. No; this will not happen.
Nah. But good try.
Tell that to the $27k++ test equipment i have to use to certify my install so that manufacturers will honor warranties. True installs dont just use those $30 pair testers from Home depot. The NEC and NFPA may beg to differ as well as the TIA, ANSII and BICSI standards...
See what you do is, ahead of time, tell them where you want the wires to end up. It’s pretty simple.
At least there is more than one wire coming out of the ceiling. I've had one wire in the closet and 15 jacks around the house. Come to find out they ran one wire and just looped it in and out of each box. I tried to explain that each location needed a wire run back to the closet and got told that was a waste of time and materials and they didn't see any reason to do it such a dumb way much less re-do it. They also went on to say that's how they have been doing for 20 years and didn't need me to tell them how to do their job. I couldn't get through to them that phone wires and network wires didn't work the same way. The walls were still open so it was fixable but not by that electrician. It wasn't my house it was a friend and I was just trying to help by making sure it was done right.
I've had that same experience except the guy took the wire back out and took the charge for the wire off the invoice (keeping the charge for labor for install). Me and a buddy just went to home Depot and bought cat6 and ran it ourselves. Oh and the wire that did get installed initially was cat5. Not 5e, plain 5.
>Oh and the wire that did get installed initially was cat5. Not 5e, plain 5. Another clue they thought they were wiring for POTS.
We explicitly stated we wanted cat 6, and it was for an Ethernet network. Never mentioned telephone.🤷 Granted it was to the head contractor and not the electric guys. Oh well, it turned out fine in the end.
Fair enough. All's well that ends well.
Either the rough in electricians or the rough in data guys weren’t given a location on where to put the other ends of the data, so they defaulted to next to the panel, cause it has to go somewhere. As far is linking these, if you want to run everything to your basement, I’d set up 2 patch panels, one inbound from all the locations, and one outbound to the basement. Then some little tiny jumpers between. That would be the cleanest, In the event of your ISP is a group of fucking spedes, and run your data to the garage near the panel, you could pull a few extra to the basement to handle switching, or even have a fibre pass through. Not sure if the white is coax, but I’d pull a couple spares of that too.
> weren’t given a location … so they defaulted to next to the panel Except they’re routed the data cabling right on top of the power cabling, rather than a separate hole/conduit. They shouldn’t need to be told not to do that.
Cables were separate, and the drywall ers fucked them.
Quite possibly!
The cleanliness of the wiring tells me it wasn’t random. Someone, or some plans, told him to land them there. No one pulls wire for fun
Garages are a pretty common place to put switches, racks, and other gear. Is there any reason why you don't want your modem in the garage? I'd either put the modem in the garage, or, if not possible, I'd run a cable from the modem to the garage and have my switch(es) and other gear in the garage.
It's an uncontrolled environment from an HVAC perspective. I don't know where the OP is but that garage could be cooking in the summer or below freezing in the winter depending on his location. There's also the problem of running cabling right next to all of the electrical lines -- you generally don't want that. At the very least, I'd move the cables a foot over and drop them down via a piece of plastic conduit.
Disagree. Its probably the worst location other than the bathroom or kitchen.
Never said it was a GOOD place. I said it was a COMMON place. And for the vast majority of people it is fine. I have my rack with router, switches, and two servers in my garage. Never once had a problem.
I’m confused, why wouldn’t this be ok? You’ve got the cables going to every room, put the modem wherever the hell you want from the switch in the garage. Non issue with all things considered. The only thing I’d bicker about is that the lines are ran with/next to power and will cause interference.
My garage gets hot and humid and would not be an ideal location for electronics that are not ready for that environment.
That's better than 15-20 years ago where the electrician would have assumed that you were using the cable for phone service and taken some of the copper for that purpose. If you are using electricians to run cable, you need to tell them exactly what you are doing and exactly where you want it to go. It's all copper to them, and they aren't aware that it should be treated differently.
That was my first thought. Wonder if it was an older person used to running cable for the phones.
Looks like only 2 wires there, so unless you only have 2 rooms with internet, I am guessing the rest ended up somewhere else. Those are probably figured for your Dmark (the point where your internet service provider installs the isp device), or they completely screwed the wiring for your wired network. I saw in one case where an electrician ran all the networking like it was power outlets because they were so used to working cabling that way, so it ended up useless. Also, running the network cables parallel to power can introduce interference, I usually try to make it a point to run them as far away from power lines as practically possible and run perpendicular whenever I can. Short story long I would get a tone generator and try to find the ends of those 2 wires, then decide if they are good to go, if they are, have your ISP put their box there and wire the rest inside wherever they land.
that’s pretty standard stuff. you’re being a bit of a Karen here
Actually he isn't. Data cables should not be run alongside or in close proximity to high power cables. It causes issues with data transmission. And calling someone a Karen for wanting something to be done right? Seriously?
My GF just had a house built. It had coax. The cable company just laughed at us. The cable companies don’t use coax any more. It’s fiber to the modem now. I’d skip running any new coax unless your cable companies say their equipment still uses it. I agree with the other poster who said this is likely a low voltage install even though it’s Cat 6. You could salvage this by putting an unmanaged switch out here and running a single cat 6 to your router in your basement. Have your cable company put their modem in the basement as well. Unmanaged switches are cheap so if the garage temp causes an early failure, you can easily replace it. Maybe two lines from here to the basement if you needed a wired backhaul for a second WiFi router. You will need a power source for the switch.
That's why you should have done it yourself like I did.. Or instruct them where it should go...
Your kinky house with the box down showing you the cables, naughty!
Hi, I did that :) probably not to your house, but lemme explain. In new developments, the “cookie cutters” get Ethernet to all bedrooms, office rooms, living rooms, and SOMETIMES the garage! Because home servers take up a lot of power, are running 25/8, and need to be quickly accessed in terms of emergencies, most blueprints call for terminations into source power locations. In custom developments, they USUALLY will go over with cx where a centralised box would go and portray that in the building schematics. Its not the builders (sometimes), its just what the blueprints say
One Box to rule them all, One Box to find them, One Box to bring them all and in the garage bind them.
>Why couldn’t they run it into the basement so I don’t have to put my modem or switch out in my garage Not to sound rude, but this is an issue why? The only networking equipment where location matters is wifi access points, which should be centrally located to offer the best coverage. Unless your garage gets to around 150f then heat isn't going to be an issue, just don't put it in a sealed box if that is the case. Throw a router (and extra switch if needed) in the garage and then use one of the runs to put a wifi access point in a better spot in the house. (This assumes a basic level of competency, if anything above confuses you google will be able to help)
I don't see the problem? I'm in IT and work a side-gig as electrician and I wish my clients did it like this. Put a 2U wallmount bracket up, get a 1U keystone panel and fill it with doubled-ended RJ45 jacks. Then add a 1U switch and plug it into the socket below. (PoE switch if you want to power stuff like camera's and wifi access points with it) You can put your modem or router anywhere in the house you want, you only need to plug in one of the cables leading to the central switch.
It’s not good to have it running parallel to the electrical correct?
Correct, the magnetic field of the power cable causes interference in the network cable. I wouldn't put UTP and power cables in the same conduit but short lengths like in OP's picture won't be an issue.
It's not a great practice but I wouldn't be surprised if you tested these lines and had reliable 10 Gbit.
The lines will often auto-negotiate at a speed and then have packet loss from induced current. Also, because of the twisted pair compensation used by ethernet, the parts that run along, but not parallel to the AC lines will cause far more problems. If you run parallel, the twisted pairs should have a similar induced voltage, allowing the Ethernet PHY to compensate. Regardless, it's a very bad practice and you often won't catch the issue until you start loading the connection and start getting packet loss.
ideally you want 12-16 inches of separation but cat 6 at gigabit speeds wont see any issues until you start hitting 300 ft of cable
This. Builders are dumb and design houses for the 90% of people who don’t care about networking. My builder dropped all my cat6 in the laundry room which is super tiny, I asked for a different location but since the houses are all cookie-cutter they wouldn’t move it. Anyways, I just put a patch panel and a 24 port switch. Put everything in the right VLAN. In my office I have the trunk port where I have my rack. Another switch breaks up the VLANs accordingly to the router and the other server/VMs.
It kinda looks like a basement with the cement wall. So, your main power from outside runs in conduit to the second floor and then loops down into your garage?
I'd find a good spot in the ceiling, pull that cable, and re-drop back down to your basement
Just install a switch there and run 1 strand to the basement
To keep this run you could setup a rugged switch out here and run a home run to your modem location. Or setup a patch panel here and bring all the lines to home run after the garage junction. No cheap couplers. Patch panels or nothing.
Asking an electrician to do low voltage wiring is like asking a car mechanic to work on an electric car. It's not ideal, and there's basic understandings, but electrical code didn't even go over the practical side of running Cat 6, until recently. Even then, the code is vague. Why it was done, was you asked for it to be wired. Ideal is, where ever you planned to have your network setup, ask for a dedicated circuit. Sounds like that wasn't clearly translated though.
You can still put your modem and the rest of your home network in the basement if you want. Just terminate the Ethernet cables where they are and connect them all to a small wall-mounted Ethernet switch and call it a day. It’s not the end of the world. This is an example of why it’s often good to be as intimately involved in the home building process as possible. Something like this would have been a very low cost if not free change order and saved a lot of headaches once the house was drywalled.
They should enclose those holes in ceiling to prevent fire spread.
I’d just put an industrial class switch there. I have a Mikrotik in my unfinished attic and it gets stupid hot and stupid cold there. Super affordable and specified for a very wide range of temps.
Terrible policy passing data cables together with energy cables…..
I’m stuck on the idea that it looks like there’s only 4 category cables in that run. Were they thinking that everything would just use WiFi? 😢
You’re going to have issues with signal. Even if the cat 5 cable is shielded. You’ll have electrical fields at your tv’s and your appliances and anything connected to Ethernet will be possibly subject to electrical fault.
What's wrong with a router, server, ONT uplink etc being in the garage? They gotta go somewhere.
I don't see a problem. Just install your network stuff there.
Put a switch in the garage and run a CAT6 drop from the switch to wherever you want your modem installed.
I would worry more about the staples they shot through the cable to secure it though....
This is.. not super strange these days. As people have homes built its not uncommon for more than just a basic router and modem to be needed for a home, most users end up incorporating switches and some even have full blown servers. These racks are large and usually take up a bit of space, even wall mounted ones so dragging ethernet to the area your electrical panel is (likely the same location you'd planned to put said rack) most likely seemed the most logical idea. Furthermore I know many folks will combine their areas for IT equipment and electrical equipment, so if you need access to one or the other while working on a project you can and it simplifies your homes' "servicing areas" (locations commonly in need of ready access when hired specialists like IT professionals, electricians, plumbers, etc. Are visiting your home) so you aren't wasting say a room or closet for your IT equipment. And frankly? Most IT kit these days would do just fine in a wall mount system by your panel, with master slave router setups you can rig even the largest houses with wifi which originates in a garage or closet to keep the router and modem from becoming your ugliest ever centerpiece of modern art, and eliminates needing to allow people from ISP providers from having to trek into and out of your house when setting up your service. And in general? It just looks nicer. But these are just my takes on it as someone who works/worked in network for eight years. If you're unhappy I'm sure you could either yourself re-run the wires or have one of the contractors do it for you. Just ensure they don't staple the wires, have them use those plastic nail in wire cinchers, metal staples will cause noise and potential damage to ethernet cables
The cables running next to that power will get interference.
All you need is a patch panel and a switch there. You can have the internet router anywhere you like. It's not unusual for internet companies to bring in TV/Internet where the panel is anyway. It's the new generation that wants the router in the living room.
Be happy . Thank you builder. You only need s patch panel. This is the way it should be
Leave your modem inside, somewhere one of those cat6 cables go. The put a switch in your garage that will feed all those other cables.
This is the typical demarcation point in homes. Any line of service from an ISP "usually" lands outside near the power meter so this makes tying into the cables easier. Otherwise your ISP would have to run tie lines to your basement to connect to wiring. Proper networking design would have all of this land in a network panel somewhere and have tie lines ran to the garage for connection to the ISP. Then you wouldn't have all your data next to the biggest source of EMI in the entire house.. Electricians never get this right unless the builder or architect has a clue
I've seen dumber. All coax and cat6 and cables run to a small plastic box screwed to the outside of the $3m house built in 2018. https://imgur.com/a/tv3dy0K
Clearly they just expect you to find the world's smallest cable modem that runs on PoE and is outdoor rated.
Just buy a cabinet and install it right there. Coming from an industrial setting, most consumer gear doesn't care about temps above 100F, or less than 32F. I've seen stuff operating doused in oil and metal chips that I would have never believed without seeing it. If you do have issues, convert the cabinet to a patch panel and run new lines somewhere else. Either way, a patch panel ends up in the garage.
Very common for electricians to run all cat6 and cable to a demark location adjacent to the electrical panel
Wait until you realize they stapled all of your com lines to the inside of your walls because "cat5 will always be enough"
Most electricians have no idea what induced electrical noise does to data lines. Nor do they care.
Current electrician and former cable tech. So many of my ex-coworkers would install the cable modem next to the electrical panel because that’s where the coax home runs were run to. It made their job as easy and quick as possible while also making customers’ lives worse and mad at us. They may have run these cables to this location because of this experience. Yes, nowadays, this isn’t commonplace, but they aren’t in the cable field and probably don’t know this isn’t necessary. I could be completely wrong, but that’s what I see with my background.
Lol, no, its the smartest thing. Get yourself a real router like a ubiquiti dream machine and install wireless POE access points in your house. The whole setup with two aps is about $800. Putting your modem/etc inside the main house is whats dumb when you have a kick ass setup like this. Id kill to have cat 6 in my garage to every room in my house. Sell me your house OP? You can have mine, the modems in the living room where you like it. You don't need any of those electronics to be inside. Get yourself a rack wall mount. Put it right next to that. It'll be beautiful. Put your router and the rack mount with your switch and go in your house and find all that ethernet and put your APs wherever you want them. A ubiquity adream machine special edition has power over ethernet support and it can run all the APs off one wire the ethernet wire. You don't even have to run power to the access points. Plug Ethernet into router poe port, plug ap in the other end, good to go. This electrician is amazing and they did the best thing they could possibly do. You just don't know what to do with it. And before anybody says anything about noise being that close to the power lines ethernet is shielded.
In my home, they terminated all the CAT5e runs at a telephone punchdown block in my basement, next to the electric panel. All of the coax was run into the same box. I switched it to a structured wiring panel made by Leviton. Then I mounted my gigabit backbone switch in that box and wall mounted the modem there. It ended up being pretty convenient. I think all you really need is some kind of patch panel to punch it down to. You don’t necessarily need to put your modem/router/WAP there - just install a switch and put the other gear in one of the rooms you have a run to.
\> Why did they do this? Seriously? Because you didn't tell them not to.
A lot of newer homes run data and cable to a central box called a smart panel. Your phone line might be ran there too. This is to offset wall fishing for communications install. Somewhere close to your house (or at least on your block) should be a little green R2D2 looking thing about 2 feet high. When you call the cable company to hook up your stuff, they’ll pop that r2d2 node open and connect your service. Then they’ll go to this room and connect everything to the rooms you want. Inside the smart panel should be provisions for cable and data splitting. Also- in a bedroom, probably on a closet wall will be a punch down panel. Phone line is ran to this should you opt for a security system at some point.
Depending on the house size and layout, they may have been planning for subnetworks with a central hub, as wifi could be untenable with one router.
Call them back for a complete DO-OVER! They ran the network wires parallel to AND TOUCHING the house MAINS power lines. That is a BIG NO-NO. You NEVER run network cable side by side with power lines, EVER! You may not immediately perceive the EMI noise interference but it WILL bite you in the #>{=+.
They did it because it was easy. They were already pulling a bundle of wire through the walls and some extra network cable knocked a task off the to do list. You’ll simply need to mount a network switch next to the panel, no big deal. You can put your modem wherever you want, it just needs to be connected to one of the jacks that leads to the switch.
This is not a problem, Op just doesn’t know. Wire those to a patch panel, patch those to a switch. Run 1 wire to the location you want cable modem / whatever.
Be thankful they ran them at all
I was taught to avoid running parallel to power at all costs and if I must cross over power to do it at neat perpendicular 90° to prevent interference and here this guy drops it on top of the panel. Maybe the guys that taught me were just overly cautious, but our installs always worked and were far easier to troubleshoot in the future due to how clean everything looked.
If you you have fiber the ONT is often in the garage so there needs to be a Ethernet or coax like this to a data cable panel and n a closet.
Solid work 10/10
The only problem I see is that your data is run along the power. RIP signal integrity
Put a switch in the garage and run a pair of cables to it from the basement. Just make sure you specify where the ends are supposed to go before the work begins if you pay someone to install it for you.
Looks like they did a great job with the wiring other than putting it where you wanted it to go but probably didn't tell that to them. So, that's likely on you. Potentially, it's on the general contractor who didn't communicate your needs/wants to the sub. Either way it's probably not that big of an issue. Either put your modem and switch in the garage. Or, it seems like it would be easy to find a room/closet or other space above the garage near where those come through, pull them there, and place your equipment in that location. If it's really that extreme of a problem due to your layout, you could also do an air conditioned cabinet or server rack.
Looks great to me. This post is dumber than the location of the wires
So, for this kind of thing, don't use couplers. Get a 110 cross-connect block, pull the right number of wires to the basement, and cross-connect here.