I’m buying some bulk ethernet cable to wire my house, garage, and between them.
I’m planning to use Cat6, not because I really need that speed now, but I expect to use this for higher-definition video delivery at some point in the future, and the cost over 5e isn’t that much.
The run between the house and the garage is going in the ground, so I need direct burial cable. I’m going to put a conduit in too, but I’m not going to count on it staying water-tight. The stuff in the house should be of the kind that doesn’t give off toxic fumes when it burns.
Is there any cable that will actually work for both? It would be simpler and cheaper to just buy one 500ft spool and use it for all my runs.
I’m having trouble figuring out what cable to buy. I’ve looked at Amazon and Monoprice, and there are significant price differences both between cable manufacturers and even with the same cable manufacturer that seem to list the same specs.
I would think that if a cable is Cat 6 it meets the requirements. I hate working with direct burial cable; it has some grease in it to protect from moisture if the sheath fails. It is greasy and very stiff.
If you want the non-toxic fume stuff, you need to look for “plenum” in the description. Plenum cable is made to go into air-handling spaces because of low-flame, low-smoke characteristics. This means it’ll cost more.
whatever you pick make sure that you avoid any cable that is labeled CCA. That is copper clad aluminum wiring. Pay a little extra and get the pure copper stuff.
Not a cabling guy, but I can find no evidence online that “direct burial” and “plenum rated” are compatible, so I guess you’ll be buying two different spools of cable.
A bit more reading suggests that I don’t actually need the plenum-rated stuff, since that’s really for large buildings with HVAC systems that might move fumes from an area where fire is to another area.
If my house is on fire, there’s lots of stuff that’s going to generate toxic fumes, and it’s not that big, so the cables are probably not a major worry.
And it turns out the direct-burial stuff is more expensive than the CM in-wall/in-ceiling rated stuff, so I might as well buy two separate spools.
Consider using pvc conduit instead of direct burial. Much better if you need to replace or add cable in the future.
I ran cat 5 in my house while under construction, but did not run conduit or smurf tube as I should have. A few years later a near lightning strike took out the cat 5 and I’m not tearing up the drywall to replace it. Now I have to depend on wifi.
Recommend visiting and reading some of the forums at www.avsforum.com, and posting if you need specific info. There are a lot of really knowledgeable posters there and some are contractors and installers so you’ll get a much better answer there.
Between house and garage use a line that could be buried even if it’s in a conduit. I don’t know what it’s called buts it’s 22 gauge, filled with icky pic and has a secondary copper sheath so it can be bonded at both ends. I wouldn’t go crazy with the cat6 in the house, just run it to a few centralized/convenient locations where you think a WiFi router would go, maybe to a room that would serve as an office in case you wanted a phone. In a decade most devices will probably be on a 5g celluar network, wiring will be largely moot.
Yeah, I’m not going to wire things until I need them.
There are existing used-to-be phone jacks in many rooms with blank faceplates over them and the phone cable still coiled up inside, so I’ll just use the phone cable to pull network when convenient.
Ok, another question, sort of piggybacking on this one:
I’m going to run pvc conduit for the underground run. Should I just pull the cable through while it’s in segments, then glue it all together, or glue it up first then pull the cable through?
Option 1 puts less stress on the cable (it’s about a 120 foot run with several turns in it), but there is some hassle with trying to glue the PVC with the cable running through it.
