Running Cat5e in Our New Office

Hi Everyone,

My organization, the St. Albans Community Justice Center, just relocated right down the street to a new-to-us office space.

Unfortunately, it is not currently wired for a network, which is something we need. I am debating over how to go about doing this and would like the advice of others here with some experience.

The wiring could be run on the surface through conduit (anyone have sources for conduit??), but that presents the issue of aesthetics and going between rooms. All of the walls between rooms are hollow, so I'm sure there's a way to do it, but I am unsure of how to run a conduit with 4-6 cat5e's in it through the wall.

Another option is to run the cable through the floor (from the central point) to the basement/crawl space and back up the wall/floor in each place a jack is needed. This method is probably not good because not only is the basement very wet, but much of it is not accessible (crawl space). It could be done for part of it, but I'm not totally sure.

Finally, I plan on having a cabinet of sorts mounted near the ceiling in one of the rooms to house the modem, router, switch, etc... Since it is a relatively small office, is it necessary to use a patch panel or should I just put another jack for each run and then a short patch cable from there to the switch.

Thanks so much!

Hi Michael,

For starters, local code and regulations may dictate how the wiring must go through the walls, so you will need to know from someone knowledgeable in your area.

For me in my area, I would use the basement and if the crawl space is large enough to crawl through, then you can pull wiring through it, and that usually will be more pleasant then crawling through an attic. Once the wiring is in place you shouldn't have to go back there again.

If you use plenum rated cable, as long as it isn't sitting in a puddle of water, should be fine in a humid damp area. Even the PVC jacketed cable should be ok.

For the central point, there are several options, depending on the number of drops you are dealing with. Absolutely you want to terminate each drop into an RJ-45 jack and use a patch cable to connect to the switch. Don't even think about crimping the RJ-45 plug on the end of the wire to plug into the switch. They will cause you problems in the future.

I often use keystone style jacks and you can get blank jack panels that hold up to any number of jacks, and can be mounted on a surface mount box or even pieces of wood. If it's just a few jacks you can use surface mount jack boxes that hold one to four jacks.

Getting wiring done "professionally" can range all over the place from the guy working out of the trunk of his pinto wagon to fully certified and tested wiring plants. I don't use joe and his pinto, but for our needs we won't be running gigabit to the desktop any time soon either.

I've bought materials from greybar before you look for the telcom suppliers and some elecrtric suppliers will have the data and surface mount conduit. Panduit and wiremold are a couple that come to mind. Even your home depot type stores have data networking and surface mount conduit now.

Dave

Michael, do you have drop ceilings in your new office space? I've run a lot of cat 5 in drop ceilings at our office. You just need to stay away from fluorescent lighting. I agree with dave on not terminating the ends of the cables with RJ-45. If I have fewer than 6 cables, I use keystone jacks to terminate, if more, I use a patch panel.

Dave,

I guess my question, assuming we decide to run most of the wiring on the surface, is it okay to run plastic type conduit straight through a wall from one room to another? I'm not totally sure how to go about doing this.

Some of the telephone wiring (which will be coming at with the successful completion of this wiring) was just run through a hole drilled in the baseboards. This wiring is also draped from the ceiling in part of the basement with cable staples. I am still trying to trace the path of some of the wires (in one area they run in to the ceiling and there are various telco line jacks that need to be dealt with as well).

If the wiring was done through the basement, would it be acceptable to just run the wire, not using any conduit at all? In some areas, will it be best to drill a hole for conduit to run the jack on the wall as opposed to in the wall?

I believe we will have ~8 terminations for data and ~8 terminations for voice. I think that keystone jacks in a surface box would suit our purpose well.


Gary,

Unfortunately we do not have drop ceilings. When I heard that we were moving, I was really hoping for them!!


One more thing I am looking for is some sort of low-cost equipment cabinet to run all of the wiring in to, terminate, and patch to the switch, router, modem, etc. It would be nice to also fit the phone system (about the size of a large shoebox) in there and have a keylock on the door.

Michael

As far as the wiring is concerned, no conduit is needed. As far as your local building codes they may require conduit. Since your old telephone wiring is just run tacked to the ceiling, either the codes don't require it or the wiring was installed with out regard to the codes.

If running plastic surface mount conduit will be visually pleasing there is no reason to run in the walls. If visually they don't want to look at that, then you'll have to fish wires in the walls.

As far as your existing telephone wiring, you may be better off abandoning the wiring and just pull two cat5 cables to each location. Or you may be able to use the old telephone wire as a pull string to pull new cables in place.

When doing the surface mount conduit between rooms, normally you fish the wire through the wall (drill a hole through the wall) and butt the surface mount conduit to the wall, so the wire leaves the conduit goes through the wall and back into the conduit on the other side. If I had a bunch of wires going through the wall I might try to fix a short piece of conduit in the wall to give me easier access to put multiple wires through, but I wouldn't do it for one or two wires.

If you end up inside the walls there are trim rings that you saw the rectangle in the wall and insert the ring with tabs that bend inside the wall, you can then affix the jack plate to the ring.

If you can spend a couple of hours on the Internet you can find less expensive rack enclosures. Remember they are used in audio, industry, computer, radio, so a suitable cabinet may be less from an industrial supplier than a computer supplier.

Dave

Dave,

This is how I picture it going then. A cabinet of some sort either with a patch panel or jacks for all of the wires (1 data/1 voice run per location) mounted near the ceiling (works best in our situation) with all of the wires running down through a conduit of sorts through the floor, in to the basement, where the wiring is left uncovered and distributed to various locations.

In each location, a hole is drilled with some sort of conduit (suggestions, getting stuff through walls/floors is what I'm trying to figure out, what type of conduit to use,where to get it) going from the floor to a surface mount box for the jacks.

I've done wiring, just not in situations like this and I have no idea where to get a lot of the supplies!

Thanks so much,

Michael

Michael,

Sounds good to me.

One option for your cabinet, if you aren't trying to house servers inside, is to look at the ready made cheap kitchen cabinets at the home center. You might even be able to mount a lock on the door.

Take a road trip to Burlington it's about 30 miles away?

look for Home Depot and Graybar

Look on the web for http://www.panduit.com/products/ and http://www.wiremold.com/ for your conduit and surface raceway hardware. If you can't buy it off the shelf at Home Depot, you should be able to get an account at Graybar. Graybar normally sells to electricians and installers, but you may be able to talk them into selling to your nonprofit.

Also a google search for keystone network should locate some web suppliers for the components.

I've used cyberguys and jameco for network jacks and other stuff but there are online retailers out there.

Dave

Thanks, Dave. I will take a look at some cabinets, the only thing I'd be worried about is ventilation. It definitely should have a lock, though.

Assuming we could budget for it, where would you suggest getting a "real" wiring cabinet?

I took a ride to Home Depot and priced things out (comparable to online retailers) and looked at conduit. They had Wiremold raceway that would probably work to meet the wires at the floor and go to a box. We also have an electric supply company locally that sells products retail.

Thanks so much for all of the help, I'll be sure to let everyone know how it goes!

A hole saw and some muffin fans and grills and your cabinet is ventilated.

I'll have to do some web digging on cabinets. The last time I looked, I seemed to find high priced and higher priced cabinets, but then I's stumble on to a good priced site (still too expensive for what I wanted)

The electricians will use anixter but you'll have to search manufacture's web sites to get style numbers and make sure you get all the bits and giblets as often you have to almost order every panel and screw to make a rack.

Dave