Average cost of networking house?

[MAW1082]

im trying to figure out what a reasonable figure for this would be, including all hardware

 

[bruceb]

Why would you want two routers ? ? .. Either just get one with enough ports or add a Switch / Hub to expand for a couple of added ports
Depending on the items you pick, hardware should be under $300 for top quality home equipment ... cabling you can get a box of CAT 5
1000 feet for around $120 max depending on where you look .... figure on another $7 per outlet for a Wall Plate & Jack & Gem Box
The wall plates can be had with one cutout or up to 6 cutouts ... you might want to run your Telephone and TV coax to the same
plates ... easier to fish all the cables at the same time rather than break up the wall to get to other spots (unless you have to, if say the
tv or phone is on the other side of the room from the pc)

As to labor costs, if you get an expert to do it for you, figure about $70 per hour, depending on how hard & how much wire needs to
be fished, I would say on average about 5 hours or so

 

[Tazanator]

look around .. I've had several commercial grade (corp.) routers and switches for sale on the for Sale board. Home networking is good .. if you got the extra money buy the enterprise/commercial gear and reap the better benifits.

 

[homestarmy]

But what kind of cost for labor for setting up those outlets?

 

[Tazanator]

it's an easy do it yourself with a $2 tool and 5 min per jack.

 

[DaiShan]

Yes, the wiring is extremely easy, just buy the wall plate and the appropriate port and it tells you which wires go where, most are even self-punching so you don't even need a punch tool to use them.

 

[homestarmy]

Originally posted by: Tazanator
it's an easy do it yourself with a $2 tool and 5 min per jack.

Cool, you can come over to my house and wire me up a network .

 

[ColKurtz]

If you sent out RFPs you'd probably get numbers all over the place. You could probably do it for $300 -$500+ The numbers came right out of my ass... $50 - $150 for the router, $150 for someone to string cable, $150 for someone to plug your router in-- errr-- I mean set up your network.

But if you have an attic (which makes it very easy to string cable), you could do everything yourself in an afternoon for $100 - and it would be a lot easier than you think.

 

[naimcohen]

what about a wireless network?

much easier and cheaper

 

[imported_romank]

I don't know where you guys live to say that wiring the house is easy. I was thinking about wiring the house I live in (2 floors plus basement) before the wireless days and I eventually gave up. I couldn't see how I was going to snake all that cable through the walls. Especially on the first floor.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: naimcohen
what about a wireless network?

much easier and cheaper

and slow, and can be unreliable.

With the move towards on demand digital content at HD resolutions wired is a requirement these days for a home network.

 

[Tobolo]

I charge $70 per cable on my jobs + mats. So if you want 5 drops, I would charge $350 + $70 for a spool of Cat5e Riser. Routers are dependent on need. Buy big now and save trouble later.

EDIT: $10 for ends on the cables too (for the router end). Plus wall plates.

 

[CU]

Originally posted by: romank
I don't know where you guys live to say that wiring the house is easy. I was thinking about wiring the house I live in (2 floors plus basement) before the wireless days and I eventually gave up. I couldn't see how I was going to snake all that cable through the walls. Especially on the first floor.

I have this problem. I have though about wiring my house, but it is two stories and I cannot see how you can easily run cable between floors. Also the crawl space for my house is really a crawl space. It is only about 2 or 3 foot.

 

[RebateMonger]

The only choices I had for my house were WiFi, HPNA, and running a CAT5 cable over my roof. We have no attic and no crawlspace. So I've had a 100-foot run of CAT5 over my roof for seven years now. I recently replaced the cable with a new one, since the insulation was gone in spots, exposing the internal wires.

I originally considered running it inside PVC piping, but decided it was easier and cheaper to just replace the CAT5 cable every five years or so than to glue all the PVC together.

 

[bruceb]

The way to run cable between floors depends on how the house walls are built ... in some cases, it is easiest to drill into the wall top plate from the attic & then drop down a fish tape, pull the cable up, run it to where it needs to go, drill the top plate again, drop cable down, fish it out

This does however, require relatively accurate measuing of where the wall plate will be & where the walls are, say in relation to the attic stairs.You can also use a very specialized drill bit, called a "Diversibit" ... most electrical supply house have them .. it is a bit with either a normal tip or a woodbooring drill tip .... it is about 3 Feet long on average ... you can also get an extension for it ..... it works with a special holder to
keep it centered in the wall stud cavity ... it also requires a Variable Speed Reversible Drill .. once the bit comes thru where you want it, attach a pull wire to the hole in the end of the bit & use Reverse on the drill to bring it back up ... secure your cable to the pull wire & pull it from the other end

Now you can see why techs can charge $70 or so per Connection Point, with Materials Extra ... in some cases really easy (walls are not plastered) or it can take a lot of time

Some info on Diversibit: (home depot also carries them, at least in NJ area)

http://www.tselectronic.com/greenlee_pr...ssion=6a7ecca96aebe098e0d3cd2e467355b2

 

[CU]

Sounds like lots of fun. I think I will stay wireless for awhile. Thanks for the info though.

 

[kamper]

I know it's not really proper, but I've got cable dropped through heating ducts and cold air returns. Generally, cables go down the ducts from rooms upstairs to the basement, then along the basement ceiling (in the open) and up a cold air return to the office. The only hard part was one duct that runs parallel to the floor for 10ft or so. The snake kept getting stuck at the bend so I wrapped string around a squash ball and threw it down until I got it to fall off the end

 

[amdskip]

I did a drop from the attic, ended up attaching a bolt to the end of a piece of string and dangling it so I knew where to put the wall mount at.

 

[videobruce]

what about a wireless network? much easier and cheaper

Easier, yes, cheaper, no way.

That's the lazy way out. Wired it the way to go especially in these cheaply built new houses with those useless paper/chalk wallboard.

 

[networkman]

I cheated and wired my 2-story with basement at the same time that I re-did the electrical/insulation/drywall. Ripping off the plaster & lath board was a chore, but it was fun learning experience all around!