azazel1024
Very Senior Member
Okay, I am trying to wireup one of the last rooms in my house (my daughter's room). There is pretty much no feasible way to run wiring without hacking the heck out of her walls and probably the ceiling/walls in my basement to run cabling. Sadly, it was the one room I didn't think of to run cabling while I was renovating my basement and could access the area below her room. Sigh.
Anyway, the other day, I noticed there was a covered box in her room. Its behind her bed, so I hadn't noticed it till now (it wasn't in my head last year when we bought the place and moved in). Heart in mouth hoping it was one of the coax boxes I had removed/converted, I removed the cover plate and SCORE! Coax! So I started to pull it ever so gently with the hope I could find the end point in my basement.
No luck, apparently a former owner installed the box and ran coax to the run through the outside of the house!!!
And left a giant cavity with no insulation to boot. Sigh. So anyway, I figure I'll just reuse the path. It runs about 4-5ft along the siding outside of the house before running back in to the basement in the unfinished storage area (the corner of it) and I can then run it to my switch.
What considerations should I have with this? I already ordered 50ft of outdoor rated cat6. I probably really only need 35ft, but I figure I can always trim down the cable. My biggest fear is lightning. I don't know that it is an overly rational fear, as there is no evidence this home has ever had a strike and a direct strike is unlikely as the house is located about a mile horizontal and 200ft vertical from the crest of a ridge line as well as having several >>>taller trees within 100-300ft of the house. Of course an indirect strike in the vicinity is always possible.
Doing as much research as I can, it sounds like shielded cable provides zero protection from strikes, direct or otherwise. A surge protector also sounds like it would provide little to no direct strike protection and indirect strike protection is at best even money if it would truely protect anything and questionable whether an indirect strike would even use an elevated cable as a ground path. I was looking at the APC Protectnet ethernet surgeprotectors for either end, but it seems to be an open question on A) Should I even bother worrying about it and B) if I should, how likely is it that they'd actually protect anything.
Anything else I could do to minimize the risk? The wire will not be buried and does run along aluminum siding, which is bonded to ground through the hose spigot located about 8ft away from the location where the wire would be running. Its located about 3ft down to about 18" from the ground. At some far flung future date I'll be pulling and replacing the siding on the house and I can cut through the exterior to run the wire interally and then patch before putting new siding on, but that is several years away, at least.
I don't particularly want to run fiber for this as the expense would be rather large and I am hoping the risk is minimal for this setup. I do plan to run fiber to an outbuilding at a future date, but that is ~100ft away and it would be buried all the way, which I figure increases the risk on a ground strike as well as >>>length of cable for lightning to find as a lower resistance ground path.
Suggestions? Thoughts? Reassurances?
Anyway, the other day, I noticed there was a covered box in her room. Its behind her bed, so I hadn't noticed it till now (it wasn't in my head last year when we bought the place and moved in). Heart in mouth hoping it was one of the coax boxes I had removed/converted, I removed the cover plate and SCORE! Coax! So I started to pull it ever so gently with the hope I could find the end point in my basement.
No luck, apparently a former owner installed the box and ran coax to the run through the outside of the house!!!
And left a giant cavity with no insulation to boot. Sigh. So anyway, I figure I'll just reuse the path. It runs about 4-5ft along the siding outside of the house before running back in to the basement in the unfinished storage area (the corner of it) and I can then run it to my switch.
What considerations should I have with this? I already ordered 50ft of outdoor rated cat6. I probably really only need 35ft, but I figure I can always trim down the cable. My biggest fear is lightning. I don't know that it is an overly rational fear, as there is no evidence this home has ever had a strike and a direct strike is unlikely as the house is located about a mile horizontal and 200ft vertical from the crest of a ridge line as well as having several >>>taller trees within 100-300ft of the house. Of course an indirect strike in the vicinity is always possible.
Doing as much research as I can, it sounds like shielded cable provides zero protection from strikes, direct or otherwise. A surge protector also sounds like it would provide little to no direct strike protection and indirect strike protection is at best even money if it would truely protect anything and questionable whether an indirect strike would even use an elevated cable as a ground path. I was looking at the APC Protectnet ethernet surgeprotectors for either end, but it seems to be an open question on A) Should I even bother worrying about it and B) if I should, how likely is it that they'd actually protect anything.
Anything else I could do to minimize the risk? The wire will not be buried and does run along aluminum siding, which is bonded to ground through the hose spigot located about 8ft away from the location where the wire would be running. Its located about 3ft down to about 18" from the ground. At some far flung future date I'll be pulling and replacing the siding on the house and I can cut through the exterior to run the wire interally and then patch before putting new siding on, but that is several years away, at least.
I don't particularly want to run fiber for this as the expense would be rather large and I am hoping the risk is minimal for this setup. I do plan to run fiber to an outbuilding at a future date, but that is ~100ft away and it would be buried all the way, which I figure increases the risk on a ground strike as well as >>>length of cable for lightning to find as a lower resistance ground path.
Suggestions? Thoughts? Reassurances?
