DIY Doctor UK DIY Forums

Hiya there,

I'm trying to figure out as to whether it would be possible for me to network some rooms in my house for a wired computer network. The caveat is that I don't want to lay the cabling down the stairs nor chase out walls.

I'm hoping that I'd be able to pass the cable through the interior walls, most likely via the loft. The house is a new build (< 2 years old) and as such does have fibre insulation in all of the internal and external walls.

Are there any ways or techniques that I might be able to get a cable through these types of walls or should I scrap the idea and stick to using WiFi?

Thanks in advance,
Matt

Unfortunately adding cable of any kind is usually a messy and frustrating job if you want it to be completely hidden. I have recently added cat5 to all of my rooms. I found that dropping them from the loft vertically and running them behind my skirting boards was the best option. I then chased a small channel from the skirting up to the position where I wanted the socket. Im afraid I dont know how difficult it would be to run cable through the studwork, but I can imagine it being a frustrating process.

You might ask yourself if you really need data cabling in the house? Wireless N routers are pretty good now or you could look at the powerline adaptors that send data through your house electric wiring. These have progressed in the last couple of years and can maintain a HD signal pretty reliably.

Hope that helps a bit.

Hiya,

How did you get the cabling from the loft into your room, did you use something to pull the cable through or just dangle the cable and hope for the best?

Thanks,
Matt

The best way to do what your talking about is to use a tool called a Fish Tape, some of the cheap ones are less than useless but if you shop round you could find a good one for less.

For what your planning on doing you want one with a stiff wire since you will be pushing it thru/past insulation, if your going to do a few runs the tool will pay for itself (the cheapest one i've seen was £15 but a bit to flexy)

Hope this helps.