Multi-Dwelling Unit - New Construction

A company I do a lot of commercial subcontract work for has asked me to give them a price on wiring approximately 70 townhouses for voice, data and video. My plan so far is to provide (2) CAT5e and (2) RG6 Quad-Shield to a single location in each bedroom, the living room, and kitchen (a counter top location), and (1) CAT5e in the kitchen (for a wall phone). Additionally, two RG6 Quad-Shield cables will be run from an attic location to the distribution panel, for possible satellite connections.

I also plan to provide (1) CAT5e 4-pair, and one RG6 Quad-Shield cables as a demarc extension from the building demarc to each units distribution panel.

With this in mind, I have a few questions:

  1. Is anything I have listed above considered too much or too little? 2. Are there any multi-dwelling unit considerations I should be aware of? a. access to attic space for first-floor-only units (satellite installation) b. routing of cables to a unit via another units space (attic)

All of the residential work I've done before has been retrofits of single family homes, so this is a new area for me, and any help would be appreciated.

Reply to
Michael Quinlan
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IMO, you can cut way back on the pulls to all the rooms if you plan for a few neat WiFi locations that will, if lit-up with APs, provide strong coverage to the entire house and the appropriate patio/pool areas.

You can't always anticipate where the owner wants to put his device in a room, or the number of devices.

Reply to
Al Dykes

I would recommend pulling 4 RG 6s to the attic for HDTV satellite. (I'm in the midst of dealing with that now in a development of 12-plexes, and would seriously love to slap the developer with the "I'm going to save me some money and only pull 1 cable" attitude) I would also suggest pulling 2 CAT5e from the demarc rather than 1. The developer may have plans now or in the future for a fixed wireless ISP, and it would be better to have a cable for them rather than having to share with telco.

CIAO!

Ed N.

Reply to
Ed Nielsen

Reading ahead, define townhouse. I picture a two story structure with bedrooms up, maybe a bedroom on the 1st floor, and a basement. It's tough to predict, but is there a chance that someone would want a home office on the first floor? It would tend to need data, both in the living room and a second location in the same room. I'd seriously consider pulling more cables to the rooms, especially if the aforementioned basement exists. You don't necessarily have to trim them out, but at least they're in place. Let them hang in a box and put a blank cover over the unused spots. They are pricey, but look to put a distribution box between studs or on the wall in these units. Even if you don't use the modules, you'll have a nice area to terminate the cables.

I'd also pull a pair of data and video cables to the demarc. You always want the backup video and someone may try to do some common data sharing or more than 4 phone lines in their space. Perhaps even the tenant association might spring for broadband.

Carlon Smurf tubes work, but how did you get single floor units...on the ends?

No issues there. It's just like a motel or apartment complex. One man's floor is another man's ceiling :-)

Carl Navarro

Reply to
Carl Navarro

I recently helped out someone buying a house in a PUD where it had been pre-wired with the Leviton system but drywall not yet up so we could adjust a few things.

They were wiring the entire house with 1 RG6 and 2 Cat5 cables to each room. TV, Phone, Enet. They did have ONE RG6 to a south 2nd floor eave for cable. I had them add a second Cat5 to a few locations where they might want a router that they could feed down to the distribution plus one new complete set for a better TV location in the living room. Oh, yeah, the Leviton panel had 2 6 way splitters with one chained off the second crammed inside a cabinet that was at least one size too small. All phone wires onto 1 8 pair jack.

Buildings worry about $10. Consumers don't know what they are getting. In this case the builder was saying we have the house completely wired for the future. Our requests were considered very "high end custom".

I think this is almost a deal where the builder gets to sell "wired for the future" houses and the folks doing the wiring get to do a LOT of custom upgrades via referral down the road. And I bet a lot of them involved splitting the Cat5 cable used for Ethernet into 2 runs to allow for things that need to get to a useful location and back.

Reply to
DLR

Just my opinion but I'd use the composite cables with 2 Ethernet and 1 or 2 coax, and possible some fiber (Belden HomeChoice Home Automation Composite Cable 7878A 2 coax + 2 Cat 5e 1 2fiber ). Fiber is becoming a big thing, in my area its offered almost everywhere except the condo complexes that don't have fiber. Imagine you buy a 1/4-1/5M$ condo and can't get the high-speed internet that the house next door can.

Run the composite cable to wherever you want in each unit back to a wall panel with punchdowns for phone, patch for Ethernet and fiber, and a T for the coax. If you're really thinking ahead you make sure it's in a closet with an electrical outlet so the owner can put in his own switch/router.

Each unit-wall-panel would have the same composite feed back to the buildings central panel where they can patch and punch to whatever the carriers are providing. And as someone else said, put in a bunch of coax up to the roof for satellite (or maybe just a 4"-6" conduit with pull-cords). The conduit is one way to keep costs down while still being able to say it will support satellite, which the developer will like.

One final thought, If this is new construction, remember you are working for the "developer" not the end owner. Developers are more interested in what they can say to the potential owner, such as "constructed to support future voice and high-speed data services", then it what it might cost the owner later to turn "supported" into actual implementation.

Reply to
RC

however, I wouldn't run 2 rg6 to each room. I would think that one would be enough for residential. 2 cat5e are ideal for each room, however, I would consider mentioning or quoting cat6 to the developer. It will run twice as much, however, as networks are upgraded, cat6 can handle it, especially if fiber is being run in the community. I wouldn't worry about extra wires for wireless points, since a wireless router can be plugged into the outlets you are running...and remember, the developer will more than likely tell you where they want the drops placed in the rooms and they will take into consideration optimal placement. They may even want more than on drop per room to allow for multiple room configurations. I would make sure someone passes on to the end users the importance of securing their networks since any one person will be able to pick up multiple signals in a townhouse setting. Sounds like a sweet contract to get, wouldn't mind getting one of those.

Reply to
scolio

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