Cabling between Floors

If your computers are on different floors, you have more work to do. You need additional cable because your cable length measurement must include the height of the room in addition to the horizontal length required to reach the computer. Here are some tips on what to do if you have a multilevel home network on your hands:

• Basement/second-floor room arrangement: If you have one computer in the basement and another on the second floor, you need sufficient cable length to make the trip to the concentrator. Putting the concentrator on the first floor instead of next to one computer may be easier because you may have a problem finding cable that's long enough to span from the basement to the second floor.
• Stacked room arrangement: If the rooms are stacked one above the other, you can run the cable through the inside of the walls, near a corner. Use openings around accessible radiators and pipes, and use stacked closets when you can. If the stacked rooms occupy three levels, put the concentrator in the middle level. If you're moving between two floors, put the concentrator on either floor.
• Kitty-corner room arrangement: If the rooms are on opposite ends of the house, in addition to being on different floors (as far away from each other as humanly possible), you have to use both walls (or closets) and ceilings. For the vertical runs, use any openings around pipes that are available (houses with radiators usually have lots of space next to pipe runs). If no pipes are available, use the inside of the wall. For the horizontal runs, find a chase above or below the room.

TipNow, here are some bonus tips to help you run cable across multiple levels:

• Use gravity to your advantage. After you drill your holes and find the space in the wall or next to a pipe, work from the top down. Put a weight on the end of a sturdy piece of twine and drop it to the lower floor. Then tape the cable to the twine and haul the cable up. This way is much easier than pushing the cable up through the walls and using a fish to grab it from the top.
• Use ducts if you can. You can also use HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) ducts, but you should be aware that many municipalities have strict rules about this choice. Some building codes forbid using HVAC ducts to run cable of any type; other building codes just set standards. The advantage of using HVAC ducts is that they go into every room, and they're usually rather wide. The disadvantage is that they rarely travel in a straight line, so you may have to run cable through several rooms to connect a computer to the concentrator. Never enter the duct system by drilling a hole. You must use existing entry and exit points, usually through the grate over the point at which the duct meets the wall.
• Network everything. Haul some electrical wire, regular telephone cable, and stereo speaker wire through the walls when you run your network cable. Later, if you want your electrician to add outlets for all the computer peripherals you'll probably accumulate, you want to add a phone jack, or you want to add speakers, most of the work is already done. In fact, if you bring several telephone wires along, you have a head start for installing a home security system or a home intercom system. If you think you'll be adding more computers in the future, haul extra lengths of Ethernet cable.
• Consider getting more than one concentrator. If you have a large amount of space to cover, you may actually save money on cable, not to mention saving yourself some trouble, if you use more than one concentrator. And you'll have a head start if you decide to add computers to your home network later. See the section, "Getting into the Zone," later in this tutorial, for more information.