Phase One complete for 1st time homeowner
Yes!! I was so excited as I walked out the door for class, I could hardly contain myself. I drove to class blasting an old tune I had written, just feeling exhilirated!! Why?? I successfully undertook the task of running Ethernet and coaxial cable wire through the walls and floors to compensate for the ineptitude of my homebuilder -and it worked!!!! A little background? Well, okay.
In my house there is a great family room that is the main room of the house. There is also a living room, in which people may also congregate, though it is a little smaller, has no fireplace, and lacks direct access to the kitchen. The usual option is to put French doors on the entrance to the living room -to close it off and call it an office. Indeed, most people who have a floor plan similar to mine go this route; however, the builder failed to put in a phone jack, or a cable jack. Before the house was built, I wanted it wired for Ethernet throughout the whole house, but they would not pick up the option. Anyway, how is someone going to effectively use a room as an office if there is no phone line? And high speed internet comes in either by phone or cable, right? So these profit-minded mercenaries gave me (and my fellow subdivision neighbors) a neutered office space.
Thus, I decided to take matters into my own hands and run the cabling myself, despite having never done it before. A guy I talked to named Kirk said that because I had a basement, I had a definite advantage. I could in theory, he postulated, drill down through the floor behind the wall and run cabling along the basement ceiling into any 1st level location I choose. "Okay," I mused, "I'll do it." I cut a large hole in my family room where the cable jack was. I measured from the jack to the fireplace wall, then applied that measurement in the basement, hoping this was not a foolish thing to do. I drilled up from the basement, and after much anxiety, I broke through. Using fish tape, I took an Ethernet cable, tied it to a length of coaxial, and fed it through the drilled out hole. On the first floor, I attached a coax signal splitter inside the wall, so that the coax I just ran could have an entry point in the cable data stream. The Ethernet cable is just taking up space for the moment. The router is in the office, so the only need for Ethernet in the family room is if I needed put in a computer there and needed net access , which is doubtful. Phase one is now complete. Now I just need a phone line in there.
In my house there is a great family room that is the main room of the house. There is also a living room, in which people may also congregate, though it is a little smaller, has no fireplace, and lacks direct access to the kitchen. The usual option is to put French doors on the entrance to the living room -to close it off and call it an office. Indeed, most people who have a floor plan similar to mine go this route; however, the builder failed to put in a phone jack, or a cable jack. Before the house was built, I wanted it wired for Ethernet throughout the whole house, but they would not pick up the option. Anyway, how is someone going to effectively use a room as an office if there is no phone line? And high speed internet comes in either by phone or cable, right? So these profit-minded mercenaries gave me (and my fellow subdivision neighbors) a neutered office space.
Thus, I decided to take matters into my own hands and run the cabling myself, despite having never done it before. A guy I talked to named Kirk said that because I had a basement, I had a definite advantage. I could in theory, he postulated, drill down through the floor behind the wall and run cabling along the basement ceiling into any 1st level location I choose. "Okay," I mused, "I'll do it." I cut a large hole in my family room where the cable jack was. I measured from the jack to the fireplace wall, then applied that measurement in the basement, hoping this was not a foolish thing to do. I drilled up from the basement, and after much anxiety, I broke through. Using fish tape, I took an Ethernet cable, tied it to a length of coaxial, and fed it through the drilled out hole. On the first floor, I attached a coax signal splitter inside the wall, so that the coax I just ran could have an entry point in the cable data stream. The Ethernet cable is just taking up space for the moment. The router is in the office, so the only need for Ethernet in the family room is if I needed put in a computer there and needed net access , which is doubtful. Phase one is now complete. Now I just need a phone line in there.
posted by Jahan at 9:18 PM
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