Pre-wiring house under construction

[ronm]

My questions concern pre-wiring a 2-story house under construction. I want to run my own RG6-quad while the walls are open, then have someone install the dish later.

When I ask specific pre-wire questions (like the ones below) to DirecTV/Dish and resellers, they all say: "I don't know, but don't worry, the dish installer will do that for you." That's my problem. I'll end up with a rookie who'll try to run cables through my gutters or staple them to the siding.

Some quick notes...

* We might also get Wildblue satellite Internet.
* We don't have an HDTV, but may get one soon.
* I plan to wire 5+ rooms, but we only need 2 receivers initially (only 3 of us right now). Someday we may have 4 receivers. For now, I'd like to be able to go my (basement?) panel and connect an unused room as needed.

Questions:

* Where should I run the cables that connect to the dish? I assume I should terminate them in the attic and leave a bunch of slack. But where? I'd like to have the dish mounted high on southern wall (not on roof to prevent snow buildup). How will the dish installer access these and pull to the outside?

* How many "dish" cables should I install? A local installer suggested 4 receiver runs (even if we don't initially use all), plus reserves (2 for future HDTV, 2 for future Internet) for a total of 8. They said having 4 receiver lines means I won't need a splitter.

* So what device would I use to hook these cables to? Home Depot sells Leviton video splitters/distributors but all of them have one input. Is there some kind of 4-input patch panel for video? I don't want to run the 4 "dish" cables right to the rooms, that would hardwire the whole thing.

Thanks!

 

[Tom Cahill]

I would run a minimum of 6 (from the panel) to the outside where your power meter is located to insure proper grounding is available.Then I would run a minimum of 2 per room/per location.Dishnet has dual tuners that require 2 feeds to each receiver.Directv has the Tivo and HD Tivo both require 2 feeds also to use all functions.Even if you use a single tuner receiver you can either use the second line to feed additional tvs throughout the house.For what it will cost for the extra coax it will be well worth it.If you have to pay for an installer to wall fish wire he will charge around 75.00 each.

As for connecting the coax,don't do anything.When your installer comes out he will have the proper switch needed.

I never installed Wildblue so i don't know what is involved,but I would guess it is a two way satellite internet.So the 2 extra wires you ran outside should cover that.

 

[ronm]

Tom, thanks for the info.
Dual cable runs - check. I'm planning to twin RG6 per location, just in case.

Not sure I understand the 6-cable feed to the meter. I thought the electrician or dish installer installs a grounding rod down from the dish. The dish will be near the roof, and our meter will be near the ground on a different side, affixed to the 1st story brick. How will the wires get from one to the other? I really don't want 6 coax cables snaked across the side of the house.

Wildblue is supposedly coming in June, not sure what year - or century . I heard it's 2-way. Waiting to see if they offer 1-dish option.

 

[korsjs]

i am not an expert, but i would run the coax wire close to where your distribution box will be or to where you believe the satellite would be located. as said above, a minimum of four for the satellite, to be safe i would run five. better to run more now than more later. as said above two to each room. i would run more to the main tv view area.

i am in your spot (about a year away) to buying a new home and i plan to have six wires from the satellite go to a distribution box. from the box, i am going to have three go to each room and six to the main tv. this will give me expansion possiblities. i also plan on running cat5 cable to each room as well.

 

[Neyko]

It's nice to see customer's thinking for the future. I'm a pre-wire tech/installer, and would suggest the following.
Place your distribution panel in the basement near wepco's box
run your dual RG6 to each of the rooms in question, food for though if you have the extra cable, run to different walls within each room for future expansions ie, broadband etc. Label your runs in the basement, only use plastic clips to hold the runs to the stud.

As far as dish placement I would recommend running 4 lines up the outer edge of the exterior wall, (siding will cover the exposed cables ) and let them terminate at the ground with enough slack to be grounded outside.

If you wanted to have everything ready for your tech, you could use the Levinton box in the basement, but don't use the narrow unit, it doesn't leave enough room for expansion, such as adding multiswitches.

I do have some layout maps for pre-wiring if that helps, or if you care to drop me a line I can walk you through your own custom pre-wire.

Hope this helps.........

 

[angiodan]

The prewire is the most important thing you can do when building. I probably went a little overboard when I did mine (4300 feet of cable total)

From my home run closet, I ran 9 RG6 lines to my sat location outside. I also ran 2 RG6/2 Cat5e to two different locations of every bedroom, study, etc. In the main room, I ran 3 bundles plus a couple of extra lines of RG6. To my Home Theater room, I ran 4 bundles, as well as 4 extra runs of RG6. I even ran a bundle to the master bath! I think I ran 19 bundles like this total. Not to mention the HDTV bundles I ran from my HT room to the family room, family room to master bedroom... well you get the idea. Then 5.1 in the family room, master bedroom, den, whole house audio, security and home automation.

You can never run too much cable, especially if you plan to be in the house for a while.

I'm starting to find out that terminating all these connections is almost as much work as running the cable! I'm still slowly getting to that when I get time.

Good Luck!

 

[RicS]

I think the suggestion of adding it on two seperate walls is a great idea. Wish I had done that so I could move my TV. While you are at it, might as well run Cat5 for networking. Also, think about the future - may not need it, but right now I have 3 lines run in my main room - 2 for a dual tuner UTV and 1 for my new HD tuner so may want extra in the main viewing room. Unfortunately one had to be run just around the walls along the carpet - I already had one pushed under the baseboard to hide and now ran out of room. Also, with receiver - don't forget the phone line.

 

[angiodan]

That is why the 2 runs of cat5e is nice. 1 for data, use the other for phone.

 

[angiodan]

Almost forgot, make sure if your main telephone/cable lines are coming in to a different part of where your satellite dishes will be, that you run the 2 RG6/2 Cat5e as service input lines to your central closet.

My back yard faces south, so that is where I put up my dishes and OTA antenna, but the cable and phone inputs are at the front side of the house (like most). I almost forgot about running the service input lines, which would have really sucked!

 

[ronm]

Thanks for the great advice by all - this is good stuff.

I was planning to run 2 RG6/2 Cat5E to the locations, plus a few extra to TV room & Den as time/cable supplies allow. Time and $$ will prevent me from doing 4300 feet , plus we're not huge TV/music buffs anyway. Instead, I want to attach 3/4" $1 PVC pipes to the studs at major outlets and leave them empty for future needs.

Neyko said,
"As far as dish placement I would recommend running 4 lines up the outer edge of the exterior wall, (siding will cover the exposed cables ) and let them terminate at the ground with enough slack to be grounded outside. "

I don't quite follow the termination part - where would the cables enter the house and go to the panel? Or are the cables that run to the ground something different?

Our layout will be the same as angiodan: rear side faces south, service inputs on the west near the front. Service lines (fed from underground utilities) and dist panel will both be in basement. Problem is, the 1st floor is brick, and the dish will be 2 stories up. I'm not sure I want to run cables up the side of the house (underneath brick?) in this circumstance! Any other ideas?

Several web sites + my builder mentioned using the attic as the termination point. I'm just not sure how the dish guy will access them & feed them to the dish.

New small question...How do you keep track of which cable is which if you run multiple cables at once? Some web sites even sell "dual" RG6 cable (attached together).

 

[angiodan]

Several companies now sell bundled cable, for example the stuff I used had a black rg6, a pink rg6, yellow and blue cat5e. This makes it all little easier, not only for pulling, but knowing whats what. Just label where each bundle is going to at your distribution panel!

 

[Tom Cahill]

ok what I would do is this. 1st the ideal situation is to make home runs (direct from wall plate/box location to the exterior of house by the meter base) so it can be grounded to code. I would pull 1 wire per room except where you think you may have something like dtv tivo and in that case I would run 2 runs from those locations as a just in case. dtv hi-def only requires 1 line to the receiver.

and then from where you would like the dtv/dishnet dish I would run 4 lines to that location to where the home runs are pulled. This is just in case you you go with hi-def from dtv. also know that most good installers won't consider lagging a dish to the side of a vynell siding, so if you want it there consider a mounting bock to fit the footing of the dish.

As far as terminating anything in the attic I would not think most would do it because it doesn't meet grounding codes we as installers need to follow. and if you do want something like an inclosed telcom panel or something I strongly recommend you put it right next to your electrical panel in your basement or garage or where ever it is so it can be grounded to the electrical system. I can speak from experience that alot of companies prefer to have all connections outside so they can come by and check it for proper installation even when you are not at home. dbsinstall.com/Whatis/Whatisgood-5.htm (just add the "www.") is a good link to explain this.

It will be by far in your best interest to consider these things when pulling your own wire to avoid any extra charges or having to see cable etc.

As far as the setup for your wildblue or say even direcway I would run 2 dedicated lines to the location you plan on having the modem sit to the outside and stop there. reason I recommend that is because I would recommend a pole mount for dway (which is a 2 inch rigid steel mast about 10 ft long set about 4ft-4 1/2ft in the ground in with a post or barb or something set in concrete so it can't spin. There are roofmount options but I do not recommend them for most because of potential roofing damage. We as installers can do everything in our abilities to try and prevent it but you put bishop tape, silicon, roofing tar or whatever nothing is ever a 100% guarantee so why take the chance.

Running wires now in pre-wiring stage will prevent anything from really being behind the brick or siding but rather in the open studded walls.

 

[jbcheshire]

Another option to think about is if you think you may need to add some wiring later, then install PVC pipe in the walls that run from the attic and into the basement throughout the house in various places. This will give you easy access to your rooms if you have to run new cable in the future.

 

[wobbie]

If your back yard faces south theink about puttong the dish on a poile and then you can run all the cable you want to a home run in the basement. A cable toner cost about $15.00 should you need one to label lines.