I want to retrofit ethernet to several rooms in an old house. This being the UK the house is made of brick with plaster walls. Usually cables like TV antenna are on the outside of the house.
Really the whole house wants a re-wire but it’s very messy and quite expensive.
Has anyone tried external ethernet cables?
Those are fine but they need to be rated for outdoor use or you need to have a conduit to do your runs.
I think it may be better to run the Ethernet cables via some sort of trunking instead but shouldn’t be an issue if you use the outdoor rated cables. I have one cable run from the house to a garage, which is across a road. This Ethernet cable has been exposed to the elements for roughly 8 years now without issue. Coax is a different case though…
We have the same brick/plaster setup in the Caribbean so we usually use PVC trunking internally to run cables if ceiling access is limited. It’s not the neatest looking thing but it depends on your ceiling access.
Thanks guys. I’d use trucking inside but a lot of the walls are chipboard so they don’t sit flush, and adhesive doesn’t work. I could screw them in but the walls in this town are made with a high sand content so even just trying to hang a picture from a nail often results in the nail just falling out.
Honestly I think some of the wallpaper is structural now.
I did think about replacing the skirting board with some that is hollow and thick enough for sockets.
This is what I use for runs in brick/outdoor if a conduit cannot be used.
We do have clay style bricks internally where we sometimes experience similar issues. Usually the regular masonry wall plugs work without issue.
There is a nail option with an expanding sleeve that we refer to as “Hit it” locally, but I honestly have no idea what is the proper name for this. I find these are the quickest fastening option when mounting trunking.
If I were building a brick house, I’d just leave all wiring outside the walls, maybe inside a conduit like dynamic gravity said… Something like this
I think the conduit carrying electric wires and conduit carrying ethernet wires need to be a few feet apart?
Apparently so for unsheilded, less for sheilded. Thing is they run them closer all the time in data centres and around my home so I’m not going to worry too much about it.
The other problem is then getting all the wires to somewhere I can install a switch. I have a loft and a utility cupboard but either are very accessible from the outside.
Almost wondering is a 5GHz point to point link for some rooms might work but it’s not cheap and it’s hard to predict performance without splashing the cash.
There’s been a Monoprice 100ft ethernet cable running from the front to the back of my parent’s house for thirteen years now. It’s still being used to extend the range of their router. The only thing my father did was fill the hole he drilled with some caulking to prevent nesting bugs from getting into the walls. He did route it with those plastic holders in the post above. This is in Texas where we get temperatures up to 110F. Hope these details help some. 
Thanks, although I think the weather in the UK is probably a bit harsher
I’m not so much worried about the cable surviving, I’ll just use outdoor rated, I’m interested in what people have done. Examples, how it looks, if it worked out well, where the switch can go, what they did in each room.
For example you usually want to run two cables to each room if you are putting them in the wall.
I used a high UV rated cable for ip cameras in Washington DC as long as you get good shielded cable and don’t puncture the cable while mounting it will be fine
Uv rated cable because the sun will kill that cable in 5 years or sooner … like mounting it to the building is going to be the fun part maybe terminating
When it comes to the ethernet cables being beside the power cables, I would imagine it should be just fine.
As long as you’re using good quality cable whereby all of the 4 pairs are twisted tightly together. The other thing is that there’s a certain level of electrical isolation built into ethernet - there are physical transformers in either the RJ45 connecter or on a seperate IC on the board of every PC/Switch etc.
I guess it’s possible you could get a packet error every now and again with an unshielded cable, but it certainly should be fine from a component safety point of view. Best practise is obviously to keep them apart though.
Regarding running the cables - what kind of house is it? One floor/two floors? If you’ve only got one floor, the easiest option if you can do it is run an ethernet cable through the ceiling of every room into the attic and then bring them all together at one point up there and put a switch there.
I ran Cat6 cables around our house last year which was is old aswell. I did a mix of running cables in conduit along the walls and going in and out of the attic. I used surface mount keystone jack connectors like this to terminate each of the cables.
Don’t have anything to say about external ethernet but have you tried powerline adapters?
I’ve had lots of success with them in the past and having always rented, I havent be able to hardwire ethernet throughout the property.
I have not tried them but looking at reviews I think with the ancient wiring here it won’t work very well. I don’t know when it was installed but it looks like the 1970s wiring colours so…
I really want gigabit speeds.
Ah fair enough, even with good wiring you wouldn’t get gigabit but its better than WiFi. Hopefully you fond a solution that works 
It’s a two story house with loft. Brick walls, plaster inside.
How would going through the ceiling work? You mean channel down the walls? That’s an option but messy.
Also need to think what cat. 5e is cheap, 6 is a bit of a pain to work with, don’t know much about 7.
I’ve done far worse. We just ran some cables under the floor of transportable buildings with no conduit by simply drilling holes in the floor in various rooms.
Sketchy? Yes. Intended to be temporary? Yes. Worked for years? Yes.
(Was on a remote mine site with time constraints and limited supplies on the day 
)
I’m not suggesting you do that. Put it in conduit, etc. though and you’ll be fine.
Please don’t use CAT5e. It’s like 10 cents cheaper per foot compared to CAT6a and you are capping yourself in the knees by using it.
Again, there are UTP and STP. The ones that are a pain at STP, but there is CAT6a UTP cables.
The higher numbers are just for marketing really as CAT6a is Tbase10G so there really isn’t a need unless you are doing higher than 10 Gbit networking but if you are you’re doing fiber or infiniband.
That’s acceptable for riser rated cables but the second you go into a plenum space without properly rated cables you can have you ass sued off for infringing upon safety standards.
To hell with time constraints if its not safe I tell them to pound sand.
Yeah, like I said I am NOT condoning that, more indicating that the cable itself will likely work just fine.
And yes definitely, pay attention to the regs in your location.
