Anybody give rough estimate on price

Hi all,
I'm thinking of asking somebody in to quote for inserting a couple of Cat-5
cable runs into our 8 yr old detached house - from the loft to the kitchen
and from the loft to the lounge - terminating at nice tidy flush sockets.
The floor isn't down in the loft yet - the cables have just got to be fed
down through the external walls.

Could anybody please give me a round idea of how much somebody should charge
for this? It'd be nice to have a ballpark figure in mind before I talk to
installation companies.

cheers,
Ian

On Wed, 24 Sep 2003 15:38:48 +0000 (UTC), "Ian Mayo"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Hi all,
>I'm thinking of asking somebody in to quote for inserting a couple of Cat-5
>cable runs into our 8 yr old detached house - from the loft to the kitchen
>and from the loft to the lounge - terminating at nice tidy flush sockets.
>The floor isn't down in the loft yet - the cables have just got to be fed
>down through the external walls.
>
>Could anybody please give me a round idea of how much somebody should charge
>for this? It'd be nice to have a ballpark figure in mind before I talk to
>installation companies.

Parts: 20.00 (back boxes and faceplates etc)
Labour: One guy, 3 hours (rough guess.. without seeing your house) @
20.00 /h.
So bank on at least 80-100 quid, and that's with you making good
plasterwork that'll probably get trashed when breaking through.

Most installers won't get out of bed for that kind of cash, so you're
probably looking at over a ton.

Have you considered how hard it may be to get a cable down your
cavity? (wink wink... nudge nudge..) If you have full fill cavity
insulation (not unheard of) then it'll be a total nightmare job.

Can you actually get to the top of the walls from the loft? It'll
depend very much on your roof structure. The cavity won't be open (at
least if it is.. someone screwed up badly when building your house)

Regards

Jeff

--
Jeff
http://www.supersonic.org.uk/

"Jeff" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> Have you considered how hard it may be to get a cable down your
> cavity? (wink wink... nudge nudge..) If you have full fill cavity
> insulation (not unheard of) then it'll be a total nightmare job.
>
> Regards

Cheers Jeff,

As the house was built in the last 10 years I do suspect my cavities have
been well filled......

Does this make it impossible for the installer to get cables down through
them? To be honest, fitting the plates and wiring things up doesn't sound
too scary to me - it's just tidily getting the cables from A to B.

If I do have cavity insulation, does this mean that it's plain impossible to
get cables down through it meaning we have to either have new channels dug
or have them surface mounted?

Thanks again,
Ian

On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 06:58:38 +0000 (UTC), "Ian Mayo"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>"Jeff" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>news:(E-Mail Removed).. .
>>
>> Have you considered how hard it may be to get a cable down your
>> cavity? (wink wink... nudge nudge..) If you have full fill cavity
>> insulation (not unheard of) then it'll be a total nightmare job.
>>
>> Regards
>
>Cheers Jeff,
>
>As the house was built in the last 10 years I do suspect my cavities have
>been well filled......
>
>Does this make it impossible for the installer to get cables down through
>them? To be honest, fitting the plates and wiring things up doesn't sound
>too scary to me - it's just tidily getting the cables from A to B.
>
>If I do have cavity insulation, does this mean that it's plain impossible to
>get cables down through it meaning we have to either have new channels dug
>or have them surface mounted?
>
>Thanks again,
>Ian
>

You will have cavity insulation, it wouldn't be possible to meet the
building regulation requirements of that age without it.
(as a side note, it's even harder now, you need around 65mm of
insulation to pass the regs!)

Common practice for that age was to use partial fill insulation. This
usually comprises of a 50mm cavity partially filled with around 25mm
of insulation board which is held in place against the inner blockwork
by the wall ties. The problem, is that although in an ideal world
there would be a nice clean 25mm gap for you to feed your cables down,
this is rarely achieved due to poor quality of workmanship (snots of
mortar left in the cavity, lack of insulation retaining clips on the
wall ties).. So..
You may find cables will pass down easily, but then again, it may be a
total sod. Of course, unless you can weight the cable to get it to
fall vertically, it may be tricky to find the other end when you break
into the cavity at the ground floor.

Personally, i'd look at running the cable internally. Got any built
in cupboards or suchlike you can run the cable down the pack of out of
sight?

Oh, and run two cables, just incase you want another spur later on.
Cable is cheap!

Regards

Jeff

On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 06:58:38 +0000 (UTC), "Ian Mayo"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:



>As the house was built in the last 10 years I do suspect my cavities have
>been well filled......

They will have been, probably with fibreglass or vermiculite slabs.

>Does this make it impossible for the installer to get cables down through
>them?

It makes it extraordinarily difficult. Network installers are, in
general, not experts at hiding cables in domestic installations.
They like cables accessible and would probably prefer to use surface
mount trunking in a house.

>To be honest, fitting the plates and wiring things up doesn't sound
>too scary to me - it's just tidily getting the cables from A to B.

Ask in uk.d-i-y for some ideas.

>If I do have cavity insulation, does this mean that it's plain impossible to
>get cables down through it meaning we have to either have new channels dug
>or have them surface mounted?

Putting cables down wall cavities is generally not a good idea.
Apart from anything else even assuming you have access to the top of
the cavity trying to get it to go where you want without removing a
couple of bricks or a wall block at the other end is almost
impossible with no insulation. With insulation in the way it's an
exercise in futility.

--
Peter Parry.
http://www.wpp.ltd.uk/

I'd go for wireless networking rather than wires everywhere.
cheers
Bob

"Ian Mayo" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:bksdq8$o49$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi all,
> I'm thinking of asking somebody in to quote for inserting a couple of
Cat-5
> cable runs into our 8 yr old detached house - from the loft to the kitchen
> and from the loft to the lounge - terminating at nice tidy flush sockets.
> The floor isn't down in the loft yet - the cables have just got to be fed
> down through the external walls.
>
> Could anybody please give me a round idea of how much somebody should
charge
> for this? It'd be nice to have a ballpark figure in mind before I talk to
> installation companies.
>
> cheers,
> Ian
>
>

On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 10:27:50 +0100, Peter Parry <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 06:58:38 +0000 (UTC), "Ian Mayo"
><(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>
>
>>As the house was built in the last 10 years I do suspect my cavities have
>>been well filled......
>
>They will have been, probably with fibreglass or vermiculite slabs.
>
>>Does this make it impossible for the installer to get cables down through
>>them?
>
>It makes it extraordinarily difficult. Network installers are, in
>general, not experts at hiding cables in domestic installations.
>They like cables accessible and would probably prefer to use surface
>mount trunking in a house.
>
>>To be honest, fitting the plates and wiring things up doesn't sound
>>too scary to me - it's just tidily getting the cables from A to B.
>
>Ask in uk.d-i-y for some ideas.
>
>>If I do have cavity insulation, does this mean that it's plain impossible to
>>get cables down through it meaning we have to either have new channels dug
>>or have them surface mounted?
>
>Putting cables down wall cavities is generally not a good idea.
>Apart from anything else even assuming you have access to the top of
>the cavity trying to get it to go where you want without removing a
>couple of bricks or a wall block at the other end is almost
>impossible with no insulation. With insulation in the way it's an
>exercise in futility.


I cat 5'd my old house about 3 years ago...must admit though if it is
just for general internet access etc..etc... you might be far better
(and cheaper) to go wireless 54G.
No mess with that and pretty stable...

CP

I want to die in my sleep like my grandfather,
not kicking and screaming like those in the back
of his car....

"BobSt" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:bl17go$6g7v1$(E-Mail Removed)...
> I'd go for wireless networking rather than wires everywhere.
> cheers
> Bob
>

Cheers Bob,
last year I did experiment with 802.11b, and it was fine whilst the
equipments were in the same room. As soon as I took the laptop downstairs
the signal dropped off, then became intermittent once I was in the lounge
(there's an external wall between our home office and the rest of the
house).

An intermittent connection just isn't good enough - it's just SOOO
distracting when the connection breaks. And then there was the fiddling to
get a connection when the laptop is first switched on.

Maybe you've had better experiences?

If a good wireless connection is completely reliable, then I could consider
just laying a single network cable down into the ground-floor hallway then
hanging a wireless access point off that.

Hmm, that sounds a good idea.

Cheers,
Ian