Step 1

Wire Your Home with Ethernet Cable

Step 1 - Some of the Basics

Here in Step 1, we'll review some of the basics on wiring, detail the materials we selected, and provide a few handy tips.

The basics

If you have ever run AC wire, phone wire or cable TV wire through your house, then you've already mastered the hard part of running Ethernet, or UTP, cable. The process is the same: gather the tools and materials, select the location of your "outlets", run the cable through the walls (the hard part, of course) and make the final wiring connections at the outlet boxes.

Running UTP cable is most like running phone wire. It certainly isn't as hard as running AC wire, which as you may know, requires a lot of careful "tie downs" or staples to make sure wires aren't loose for safety reasons. Typical AC wire is also fairly difficult to handle.

UTP cable, on the other hand, has more wires than typical phone wire (8 vs. 4) but for the most part handles the same and can be installed the same. Specifically, you don't need to worry about tying it down very often. There obviously isn't any heavy duty electricity involved and other than tripping over it, no real safety issues.

The materials

This photograph shows the tools and materials we used. (As appropriate, we've included the link for Premise Plus parts.) Clockwise from top: fish tape, stud finder, low voltage outlet box, wallplate mounting bracket, plastic punchdown tool and wire stripper, keystone jack, keystone wallplate, wallboard saw, and wire cutters. Everything sits on a box of Category 5e PVC bulk cable.

Lets take a little closer look at these materials and tools from Cables to Go:

Bulk cable - we selected an "enhanced" Category 5 PVC solid cable. The "enhanced" designation indicates that the cable is rated to 350Mhz and goes beyond the Category 5 standard which supports Fast Ethernet speeds (100 Mbps). Category 5e can also support the latest gigabit Ethernet over copper (versus fiber optic cable) so you'll be absolutely future-proof. Of course, any Category 5 cable will probably do, but in our minds spending a little extra on cable is worth it considering the money we'll save on installation and the time we'll take to do the install right. You'll also note that there is stranded cable and solid cable, the difference being the type of individual wires inside the cable. You'll want the solid cable for running through walls since it is stiffer. Stranded is the more flimsy cables that are used for short patch cords. (See Cables to Go - Bulk Cable pages).
Wall jacks - we selected the combination of keystone wallplates and keystone jacks for our job. This provides ultimate flexibility in your wire project. As you can see, we chose the 6 port wallplate. In each port, you can insert an Ethernet keystone jack or any one of several other options including jacks for cable TV, audio jacks or even blanks to allow future expansion.
Electrical box / mounting bracket - there are several options for the hardware needed to mount the wallplate to the wall. We're showing two in the photo above: the blue box, known as a low voltage outlet plate mounting bracket, is similar to a regular electrical outlet box, but has the back removed. It is designed especially for low voltage applications such as phonelines, cable TV and network cables. The other option is a wallplate mounting bracket that you simply insert into the hole we'll make in the wall and then push the metal flanges into the hole until they grip the wall.
Punchdown tool/wire stripper - we selected the very inexpensive plastic tool from Cables to Go. After all, we're only going to use it a few times even if we install jacks in every room. If you expect to do a lot of this work, you'll probably want to purchase a separate wire stripper and punchdown tool. As the name implies, this tool has a dual purpose. The wire stripper part of this tool helps strip the outer casing of the cable. The punchdown part of the tool helps you push (or "punch") each wire down into a small crack in the back of each jack. You may think you don't need this punchdown tool, but trust us on this, get one. To see how the tool works, see Step 4.
Fish wire - no ifs, ands or buts here. Get this tool. A fish wire is a spool of thin metal that helps you pull wire through a wall. It has the right combination of flexibility and rigidity. If you try to fish the wire through the wall without a fish wire, the wire can bend easily and never make it all the way to the other hole in the wall. To see how the tool works, see Step 3. (Available at any good hardware store in various lengths and sizes).
Wire cutters - standard wire cutters to cut lengths of cable from the bulk box.
Drywall saw - any small saw will work. Other varieties include keyhole saws or hole saws. Some folks use utility knives to cut wallboard and then punch out the openings, but we think small saws work much more easily.
Stud finder - a great tool that helps you determine where the studs are inside the wall. This is important because you can easily drop wires down from above or push them up from below, as long as you are inside the same studs at both ends. Needless to say, it's nearly impossible to get a wire through a stud that's inside the wall.

The tips

OK. You've probably heard many of these tips elsewhere but for what they're worth:

Patience is a virtue - take your time. If you are doing the job yourself, try to estimate the time you think it will take to complete the job, then double it. That will account for all the unforeseen "challenges" (and, yes, you will have those) and help determine a much better time estimate to get the job done.
Get a partner - pulling cable from one part of the house to another is damn near impossible without some help. Once you read this entire "how to," you'll probably be able to figure out what parts you can do by yourself (e.g. the cable connections) and which you can't (e.g. getting the fish wire through the wall).
Measure twice, cut once - the idea here is to be very, very careful before you put the first hole in your precious walls. Yes, you can repair holes in drywall, but why make a stupid mistake just because you didn't take the time to take the second measurement to make sure a stud is where you think it is or the hole for an outlet box is the proper distance from the floor.

OK, with materials and tools ready, let's look at the layout we used in our example and, along the way, hopefully provide some food for thought for your own layout. Read on to Step 2.

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This page last updated 07/27/2002