Re: Home office design -- PCTECH

I believe it's not considered an air handling space.  Even if it was,
though, more expensive cable is bound to be cheaper / faster than the
labor and effort to drill holes in the wall and fish cable up two
floors.  Or go up the outside of the house & then drill in (I hate that
sort of thing).

I should say that I'm not planning on running the wiring; I'd have my
electrician do it.  As much as I understand what I want and how to get
there, my skill level is such that the end result simply would not look
as polished and my margin for error is, shall we say, a fair bit higher.
:)

What I currently have is:
1st floor den: Cable (data) enters house, cable modem, VoIP box,
wireless router, gigabit switch, main PC & work laptop, phone base
station, UPS.  A line runs from the Gb switch to the basement.
Basement: Another Gb switch with ports for my server & 'hobby' PC and a
KVM.  I took the framing under the stairs and mounted a shelf the entire
width/depth so I've an approx. 30" x 48" tabletop area with smaller
shelves mounted higher up for the switch & KVM.  Access is available on
3 sides and there's plenty of ventilation.  A UPS sits raised off the
floor and drives everything; it's sourced from a separate 30 amp circuit
I had run.  Since the basement is naturally cooler I don't have to worry
about the heat thrown by everything; I just made sure the wine rack was
placed far away just in case.
Second floor: Wife's PC in a spare bedroom on a smaller UPS.  Connects
via wireless.

What I want to do it:
Disable wireless.
Run CAT6 cable to the spare bedroom and possibly to all bedrooms.  Other
end terminates by the switch in the basement.  The wire will actually
run up to the attic and then down the wall into the bedroom.  That's the
easiest way to do it.

Other than the wife's PC I'm not actually sure where I'd actually need
the other Ethernet jacks so I may choose to just have the cable pulled
but not terminated.  That way if/when we decide we need a jack in
another bedroom it's a small, quick job to place it exactly where
desired.

If 802.11n wireless comes out in final form before I get around to the
wiring I may settle for upgrading the wireless infrastructure instead of
pulling cables.  300Mb is plenty.

John A. Jones, CISSP
Americas Information Security Officer
Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.
V: +1-630-455-2787 F: +1-312-601-1782
john.jones@xxxxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: pctech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:pctech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Burns, Bryan
Sent: Friday, October 13, 2006 7:43 AM
To: PC Technical Discussion for iSeries Users
Subject: Re: [PCTECH] Home office design

Keep in mind that if you're running the cable in an air handling space
(an air return for sure, I don't know if the flue box is considered an
air handling space) you'll need to use plenum rated cabling, which is
pricey.

Bryan Burns
ECHO, Inc.

-----Original Message-----
From: pctech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:pctech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of Jones, John (US)
Sent: Friday, October 13, 2006 6:56 AM
To: PC Technical Discussion for iSeries Users
Subject: Re: [PCTECH] Home office design


Depends on your municipality but in some places, yes, running _any_
cable through a vent is a violation.  Crossing through or streaming
along; either way can be illegal.  I didn't know it until recently when
the electrician I use mentioned it when discussing some of the work he's
come across in other homes. 

However, spaces around vents are apparently OK, at least where I live.
In my home there's a vent space for the furnace & hot water heater.  The
flue is only about a 4 or 5 inch diameter and the space is far bigger
than that.  Local code says it's OK to run low voltage cable in that
vent space.  I plan on doing that when we run CAT6 from the basement to
the 2nd floor.  We'll just take pains to keep it to the side so it
doesn't touch/vibrate against the flue.

John A. Jones, CISSP
Americas Information Security Officer
Jones Lang LaSalle, Inc.
V: +1-630-455-2787 F: +1-312-601-1782
john.jones@xxxxxxxxxx

-----Original Message-----
From: pctech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:pctech-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Dan
Sent: Thursday, October 12, 2006 2:24 PM
To: PC Technical Discussion for iSeries Users
Subject: Re: [PCTECH] Home office design

On 10/12/06, Shannon O'Donnell <shannon.odonnell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


An alternative to running the wire inside the walls is to run it on 
the outside of the wall and use a plastic wire cover to hide it.
Doesn't looka as nice but if you can't get into the walls, a problem I

had in my cabin where the walls were 6-inch logs, then it's better

than nothing.


Another alternative that worked for us was to use the return air vent.
Our router is in the basement, and my son has a PC on the second floor.
Instead of running the cable through the vent "grid" in his room, I
rerouted it in his room so the cable comes out of a wall plate.

Dunno if I broke any building codes doing this.

- Dan
--

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