I recently wired a friend's house. I used Leviton's Structured Media solution. I'm not done yet, but it seems to be a good way to go. Anyone else use that? If so, what did you think of it?
Anyway, the reason for my post is because I did what turned out looking like too much cable. I maybe overdid it in some areas, but overall, I think it was about right. When you compare it to convenience outlets installed by the electrician, the number of communications outlets I installed is nothing!
Here is the standard I tried to stick with: each location, except for the bathrooms (customer requested telephone jacks in each bathroom...not my idea!) consisted of 2 RG6 and 2 Cat5e. That would be a standard location. I had read somewhere once that this was the new standard trying to be pushed into residential installs. I don't remember who came out with the standard, but it made sense to me, for most intents and purposes. So anyway, each of the 3 bedrooms started out with 2 "locations". The master bedroom turned into 4 when they said they wanted a phone on each side of the bed, and a TV jack up high for a wall-mount TV. Each of those got standard locations. This went on throughout the house. They wanted a home office to use for their business, so the office got 3 locations, each getting 4 Cat 5e and 2 RG6.
Sorry for the lengthy post, but I guess I'm looking to get the "DANG! NOW THAT'S CRAZY!!" award.
Here's how it ended up:
* Office: 12 Cat 5e, 6 RG6
* Master Bedroom: 8 Cat 5e, 8 RG6, 3 RCA jacks between upper TV and lower jack (for stereo or whatever)
* Master Bathroom: 2 Cat 5e, 2 RG6
* Master Closet (customer-requested): 2 Cat 5e, 2 RG6
* Master Toilet: 1 Wall-Mount Cat 5e
* Living Room: 6 Cat 5e, 6 RG6 (4 each to TV, 2 each to another wall)
* Back Patio: 2 Cat 5e, 2 RG6
* Breakfast Nook/Dining Area: 2 Cat 5e, 2 RG6
* Kitchen: 4 Cat 5e, 4 RG6
* Bedroom: 4 Cat 5e, 4 RG6
* Bedroom: 6 Cat 5e, 6 RG6 (another wall-mount TV). Also did the same 3 RCA cables from high location to low location.
* Main Bathroom: 2 Cat 5e, 2 RG6
* Powder Room: 1 Wall-Mount Cat 5e
* Laundry Room: 2 Cat 5e, 2 RG6
* Garage Workbench Area: 2 Cat 5e, 2 RG6
I also ran 2 of each from the outside box to the Structured Media Cabinets. I also wired for audio with volume controls in each of 4 rooms, and surround-sound in the living room. I also ran a Cat 5e from the SMC to the doorbell, for possible future doorbox.
I ended up with about 61 homerun Cat 5e cables and about 47 RG6 cables.
Now, who said you can never run too much cable???
