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Do NOT running ANY wire of ANY type inside home heating ducts. This is dangerous. It is bad, bad, bad, advice.
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Do NOT run ANY wire of ANY type next to a flue. It’s even more dangerous than 1.
(And people why I started a 2nd thread about this.)
I second this opinion.
As noted above, the right way to do it is with a fish tape. However, if you have cross-bracing between the studs, or fiberglass bat insulation, it won’t work. You’ll have to cut / pull away the drywall and run it. In any event, you will have to cut away and replace a good section of drywall on the second floor in order to run the cable.
Assuming there aren’t any cross-braces or bats, here are some tips:
If you are having trouble lining up where to drill in the basement, you can take a coat hanger, and clip off about 8 inches of wire. Drill though the first floor to mark the spot, then drill up from the basement sill plate after locating the protruding wire in the basement.
There is no shortcut to removing about a three-foot square of drywall on the second floor in order to get your hands and drill into the wall. You have to drill straight down into the wall. If you try to cheat it by making a small hole and drilling diagonally through the sill plate, you will never get the fish tape through it and lined up with the floor below.
You can expect the process of dropping the fish tape through the two floors to take a half a day of trial and error. You can potentially shorten this process if you have a partner stand in the basement with a piece of flexible wire made into a noose and shoved through the hole to catch the end of the tape as you move it around.
Good luck.
One option that no-one mentioned is ------ Can you run the data on a coaxial cable? If you have access to the cables in the basement and there is a cable jack near the computer upstairs can you use it? Curious as to if other dopers have done this or tried it. It would be similar to having a cable modem but the reverse would be true – CAT5 to cable verses cable to CAT5. Any help here?
I have to raise a caution flag also. While wireless systems may say they work out to 200 feet or so, that’s for a rather ideal topography. I had trouble (co-incidentally with LinkSys also) going 40 feet in my ‘real’ home, even though all the signal-strength indicators said I had a 100% strong/quality signal. I had to relocate the wireless transmitter to get it under 30’ and now it ‘mostly’ works but still occasionally gets stubborn. The folks at LinkSys technical support said mine was a very common experience.
Thanks to everyone who has replied to my OP! I’m taking all of your ideas into consideration. Right now I’m doing some extra research into wireless–I guess I didn’t look hard enough for deals…the prices some have quoted sound good.
I’m also looking into drilling holes into closets. It just so happens that there are two closets that line up perfectly on the 1st & 2nd floors. And that 2nd floor closet is in the room we plan to put the computer! So that may work out perfectly…
Thanks again…
There’s actually a very nice shortcut called a flexible bell hanger’s bit. Here’s an example of one, although I’ve seen cheaper versions.
The shaft of the bit is flexible, so you can get it through a small opening and still drill a straight hole. And what’s even better is that the bit has a small hole at the end that you can use to attach a wire, pullcord, fish tape, or whatever, then just pull the bit back up through the hole. So you don’t have to bounce a fish rod up and down for hours trying to find the hole you drilled.
It’s a good investment if you plan on doing this more than once. But I’ll also second what other people of have said – really think again about wireless.
Besides wireless, you can also try HomePlug as you mentioned. It works well. But, the cost is almost up there with wireless products. There is also the same type of bridge poducts that use your phone line instead of AC wires. The products I played with also work well.
Cheapest is to install Cat-5 wiring. 100-foot box will run you about $30-50. You can always hire a wiring person to install the wire. About $25-100 depending on who and where you live.
Wireless through 2 floor may or may not get you the results you want. Will you use the upstairs PC for interneting only? Or, are you also planning to have the 2 PCs talk with each other?
- Cat-5 wire = 100Mbps max
- Homeplug = 14Mbps
- Phoneline = 10Mbps.
- 802.11b wireless = 11Mbps
- 802.11a = 54Mbps
With the wireless, you will be luck to get 1/2 the advertised speed. I will be surprised if you get more than 3Mbps through 2 floors.
Jim
I have done this before and this is the absolute easiest way to do it. Why make work for yourself? If there’s any type of wire or cable already there, use it. Just hope whoever installed the first cable didn’t staple it down. Good luck.
When I was a lad, my father wanted to install an exhaust fan in our bathroom. He got himself up in the attic and disconnected the wire from the lightswitch to the light fixture, with the idea that he’d connect it to his new cable and I could pull it down to the light switch box.
He yelled down “OK, pull it through.”
I pulled. “It’s not coming,” I said.
A tone of annoyance crept into his voice: “Try harder.”
[hanging bodily from wire, pushing against wall with all my might…]
“It’s not budging.”
Well, I thought I’d knocked loose a hornet’s nest he came boiling down out of the attic so fast.
“Don’t be such a weak sister!” His rebuke was not particularly biting, in that as he finished the word sister he proceeded to attempt to yank his arms out of their sockets on the still-unbudging wire.
A 12" hole in the drywall revealed the staples that held the wire fast. We had our new wire installed, the drywall patched, and I had a great story of how (for once) my dad underestimated me.
Back on topic, if it were me, I’d run cable (cat 5e or whatever it is you can do gigabit on cheapest) to every room in the house and install a patch panel in the basement. Here in California, basements are rare, so I had to settle for the garage, and my patch panel is only “good enough” to get my required networking done. I guess if it were me I’d run cable to every room but get lazy and not actually terminate it until I needed it.
I think I have an extra Linksys phoneline router lying around somewhere. Probably this one. I can try to find it if you want it.
It has a WAN port , a LAN port, and a phoneline port. Computers on the phoneline can be daisy-chained.
Just send me an email if you want me to dig it up.
MAN this thread is old! Hello people of the past, with expensive WiFi and Windows 98 
Jadereraj, don’t pointlessly raise old threads. This is closed.
Colibri
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