Adding 10 Gigabit Ethernet to my 129-Year-Old House!

ah, these Gen Z kids ring my no, oh hey, that's an annoying bell, right? You're done? Welcome to my

house

, I'm Quinn from fancy labs and yes this is the new place okay so it's not new it's over 120

year

s old but it's new to me yes we have moving boxes all over parts and it's a little messy, but we love it, except for one thing that really bothers me. My wife doesn't care, but here's the state of our network in this

house

. No, that's not old school either, jack, that's a phone jack, there's two in the house and that's it.

Now you might be thinking, wait, Quinn, it's 20 21. Surely the people who lived here before you had the Internet, yes, probably until the mid-2000s, they had dial-up like most Americans and then, Like most Americans, they upgraded to something like this: a cable router with a modem, a router, and a built-in wireless access point. Here's the problem, although that's not ideal. Wired devices are much more reliable, their speed is much higher and when you want Wi-Fi in your home, you really should have multiple access points. Having one of these and sticking it in your basement closet is not going to provide a good internet experience, but there is no

ethernet

cable in my house there is nowhere to install access points and those mesh networks are fine but not ideal, so in this video I'm going to modernize my crazy old house with

ethernet

wiring in almost every room.

I'm going to put modern. advanced wireless access points in most rooms and lastly I'm going to get

gigabit

fiber to make this 120

year

old house feel incredibly fast and I'm going to show you how to do it so if you're interested you can do it in your type of house old, it's not difficult, it just takes a lot of work, so let's start now, before you do anything, you should consider step number zero, the planning phase, I'm usually a measure once, practice twice guy, but when It's about networks. I don't do it because it's dangerous or difficult, but because you will run into problems and if you don't anticipate those problems before they happen, they will pile up, you will get very frustrated and you will wonder why you did this and why you even own a home and consider set it on fire, which is insurance fraud and you won't get your money back.

You'll go to jail as a general anyway. As a general rule, there are three ways to do this: The first, and by far the easiest, is through the existing cables in the wall, if you have a telephone cable somewhere or if you have a coaxial cable inside the walls which he doesn't have. You don't mind abandoning, well, just take that old cable, cut the connector, tie the new Ethernet cable, go to your crawl space or attic, pull the old cable up, you have the new cable there, you're done, go to celebrate at Texas Roadhouse. Lucky son a second way and this is a way that I will occasionally take advantage of in my modernization is to be a little lazy and instead of trying to mess with the wires inside the walls, just leave your house.

That's right, you go through the foundation or attic space, go down or up along the exterior wall of your house, and reinsert the Ethernet cable or access point where you want it. It's actually less harmful than you think. I want to seal them with silicone caulk or whatever, but it's a really good way to do things and it's very, very simple the last way and it's not very fun, but it's doable to get through the interior walls. Now interior walls are generally uninsulated. So unlike exterior walls, you won't have a hard time pushing the cable down or up to where it needs to be so you can grab it through the hole you've previously prepared, and don't worry, we'll do it. this, but it's a lot easier if you have drywall because you just pick a couple of studs, drop the wire in, and you're good to go.

My house is problematic because I don't have gravity to help me. I have a crawl space, not an attic. so I have to push it up and then my walls are made of laughter and plaster, which is really disgusting because it's very rigid and there are nails and all kinds of things inside my walls that will catch on the wire at any moment, like this I'll show you how to do mine, but those are the three ways, think about how you're going to do them, crawl in your crawl space, crawl in your attic and figure out where you're going to run the wires and how you're going to run them.

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I really do any of those jobs particularly well. My Google Fiber internet connection has what they call a fiber connector, so it works with real fiber. If you want to know how a fiber network installation works, check out our tour we took last year with Utopia. It was a lot of fun anyway, I have the fiber coming into my house and then it ends up inside this little box and changes to a copper rj45 ethernet cable. Then for my router or for my gateway I selected a ubiquiti dream machine pro and now I bought one. of these last year for our office when we moved everything to a 10 gig network and it's fantastic, we love it, it's really cool and that was a no brainer in my mind for this house, it's a server rack mount product for the that is destined.

You know, the small companies are not really aimed at households, but I think their price-performance ratio is really excellent, it is a great gateway and overall I recommend it and the best thing about buying one of those is that you can use Ubiquiti's excellent security cameras, which they are installing around the house, as well as their amazing Wi-Fi access points, all they do is Wi-Fi and nothing else, so it's like a mesh network, but it's much better because you plug each of these in they don't repeat the signal they transmit the same signal so these are your hard drives built into the wall that just sit flush into the drywall and then we have these nano drives hard ones that are a little larger and have a more pointed appearance.

Here's the Although I didn't know how many of these I really needed because this house is old, it has very thick walls, there are a lot of bricks, but I didn't want to overdo it because if you put too many wireless access points in your house. The transfer actually becomes quite difficult to do and the Wi-Fi gets worse, so I discovered that unify has this really useful design center tool - you upload a plan of your house and if you don't have one like me, I couldn't do it . use an ipad app called magic plan. I believe it is also on the iphone and uses ar and lidar if you have that on your device to measure the dimensions of your house and create rooms.

I went a little over the top because I wanted it to be exact and I also used a Bosch laser rangefinder that works with the app, really cool and handy, but yeah overall it was pretty easy to make a floor plan and then upload it to the design center. Ubiquiti and then I basically tell you which walls are cool. thick like brick or concrete what walls are interior walls and then where are my windows and they will generally advise you on how each of their wireless products will work in your home which is really helpful and they will also let you know when you have too many so I checked it out and decided based on where I could reasonably install my cables.

This is where I can place an access point. What happens if I put this one here? What happens if I put this one here? And to get the best five gigahertz coverage in my home, I decided to use two wall HDs and two nano HDs and I think that will work very, very well, so that's the equipment that we now need to do the hard part and that is laying The cables are fine, but what kind of wiring should I use? You're wondering, well, that's easy. Ethernet cable. Okay, so it's not that easy because it's a little more complex.

You'll see that the design of all Ethernet cables is generally constructed the same if I take the cover off this inside. You will see four twisted pairs, four colors with a corresponding striped cable and as long as they are in the same order on both ends of the cable the cable will work, however its performance in the real world and the length of cable runs it can do They are determined by two main factors, category and rating, Cat5 or Cat 5e is by far the most ubiquitous cable you will see and has been around for decades.

It offers

gigabit

speeds very reliably. I don't recommend it in a new implementation like this. because while gigabit is theoretically amazing in the next 10 or 15 years, the likelihood of us using a 10+ gig network is good, there are reasons to install this cable if it's not a lot more money and in reality it's not, this It is a category 6 cable and cat. 6 in my opinion is quite underrated, there are newer standards like cat6a cat7 and there is even a cat eight on the horizon now cat6 6a and seven are all rated for 10 gigabits per second, however, cat6 is only rated for 10 gigabits per second at less than 55 meters of run now, 55 meters is still quite a lot and in your house you probably don't have a single cable run longer than 55 meters, which is why I recommend cat6 and the reason i'm going to use it is because, like cat5e, it's extremely easy to work with it's very easy to terminate and crimp and its life just goes better cat6a and cat7 have all this crazy shielding and these difficult jackets that make working with them to be a real hassle and the performance in your home probably won't be.

It would be different now if we are talking about an office building, of course, but in a house not, so what I am doing is cat six, it is what I recommend now let's talk about the rating, there are a lot of cmr cm cmx cmp ratings, you really don't need to know any of them, this is cmr, it is rated for indoor use. Cmp is rated for full use so it is an indoor air duct and then cmx sometimes also called heavy duty is rated for outdoor use so I am using cmx outdoors for running.

My cameras, when I have cables outside my house, are only rated for a single gigabit, but that's okay, the rest is Cat 6 rated at 10 gigabits and it's running cold in my basement, so let's talk about how I'm going to fish it Welcome to my spooky space where Pennywise and the hantavirus definitely do not reside. I found this really old ad in the Sears newspaper. However, for a $138 two-speed Kenmore washing machine, this is probably my insulation. Okay, so I grabbed a two inch hole saw. and I cut a hole right above where I intend to put my server rack and then fished all this pre-cut cable through the wall.

I already have the measured lengths for where I intend to send each cable and made sure it is the correct category and rating for the intended use, so this one here I can tell that it is an outdoor-friendly cable and yes, it says front camera here so I can choose to do this like I did. I want each Ethernet port in my house to have its own dedicated 10 gig link back to the switch back to the network, but you can choose to use, you know, five port switches, that's fine too, it just depends on how long I'm willing to put in the wiring, but I imagine that if you're down here, crawling in your filthy basement.

You could also do it from the beginning. Now I have to put it in the place where they really go. They're all rolled up, but it's no use. so I'm going to connect them to where in the crawlspace they need to go right underneath because again, this is my house, we're going to drill through the subfloor into this basement and I'd like to have the cable in the right place. put it up now instead of just wiring everything into the ground, I suggest you get one of these. This is a stapler, it doesn't cost a lot of money and the nice thing is that they are rated for Ethernet cables so I can go to the floor joist directly.

Here, snap and look, my cables are supported, but what you may notice is that it can still slide, that's because the spacers don't allow the cablepinch the ethernet cable and that's good because if you pinch and twist it severely. These cables can affect your 10 gig speeds, so yes, get a stapler like this one, remove the cables, organize them a little, and put them where they need to go. Now let's go back upstairs and drill our floor. here in the only room in my house that has drywall because that's probably what you have in your house and I want to demonstrate it, but if you have Latin plaster like I do, you're in an older house, the process is pretty much the same, It's just that it's The number one, much more complicated step, regardless of the type of wall, will be to identify the studs.

Uh oh, I'm a stud. If you have drywall that's very easy, just use a stud finder. If you have laugh and plaster, it's a bit more complicated, you can purchase a more expensive magnetic stud finder that will actually identify the nails the lath is nailed to or you can use a neodymium magnet if the plaster is not too thick to identify. the nails attached to its beam. It's interesting that it's over. that you're going to need one of these, this is an old low voltage work box, old work because it has these little ears on the back and that's why it attaches to the wall without any screws, you know, and then the other thing what are you doing.

It has a large cavity in the middle, unlike most boxes which are now closed for low voltage wiring such as Ethernet coaxial cable and the like, there is no need to have a back of the box so it is much more easy to work with. The cables are easier to route, they're awesome and they cost like a dollar so get a couple of these and then you're going to take a pencil and stick it through the four holes that are around the corner of the box and this will give you four references. Points where you need to make incisions in the wall.

I usually take the box and then make straight lines so I know where to cut and then use a multi-tool if you're lazy or a drywall saw if you're lazy. You don't have a tool like this or you know you want to use tools designed for the specific task you're doing, these are great, so we have a hole in the wall pretty easy, all we have to do next is get a drill bit. through the floor, yes one of these is designed to create cavities within your subfloor when you have an existing framed wall as they are a little tricky to use, there are a ton of brands that make them, I will link a few that I have used that I enjoy and some I would recommend staying away from but basically it's just an auger, your standard type of bit with a small threaded screw at the beginning to really grip the subfloor and then a long flexible shaft and the purpose of this is to allow you to drill towards down into the wall from above, so you're going to need one of these drill bits, you're going to need a cordless drill, you're going to need one of Well, you don't need one of these, but I find them useful, basically what it does is it just ensures that your drill bit stays at 90 degrees from the floor while on the wall to make sure you don't drill. an angle, all right, I have a couple of techniques and tips for you, tip number one, make sure that when you start drilling, the drill bit is square.

The second suggestion is that if you hear the auger struggle, they are not handling nails or screw heads. very good, so if it looks like you are hitting a stop, remove the drill and try a different place, the good thing is who cares, no one can see behind the wall, so if you need to make a couple of holes and see which one works. lastly you can and this is the most important thing, it may seem counterintuitive, but go slowly, if you move the bit quickly, it will heat up, get dirt stuck in it and will have a hard time continuing to drill down slowly at 90 degrees and well. lots of patience here we go, okay there's our flexible auger bit, it went through the subfloor with no problems and now we need to run the ethernet cable through the wall again.

Now I could try fishing this by hand, but that would be ridiculous, so I'm going to use a pull line. The pull line is basically a very inflexible rope, it's a strong rope but it doesn't stretch and the best thing about this is you can tie it to the end of the auger here and then I can tape or duct tape the rope the line to the cable and then I can pull the drill bit out of the wall this rope will pull the wire through the wall and then I'm done so let's do it except not done because look we only have two bare wires there are two types of common terminations and I'll show you how do both, but sitting at the table my legs are tired, there are two types of common connectors and you have no doubts.

I saw them both before, an RJ45 Ethernet connector and then a Keystone connector, which is what the RJ45 connects to. Now you can choose to have it on your wall. I chose to use Keystones because they look very flush and you just plug in a patch cord. like this from your device to the wall, but that requires more Ethernet cabling, is a little more complicated, and introduces an extra point of failure, so a lot of people, and I don't blame them, just like to run the Ethernet cable directly. from your wall directly to the device you want to provide connection to.

Either method works. There is no wrong way. You will simply choose what you want to do and follow it. Okay, you'll need a couple of tools regardless of the method. When making rj45 connectors you will need this crimper and if you are making keystones you will need this punching tool. Both methods are really easy and I want to show you with just a couple of cat5e how to do it. everyone go ahead and take off your outer jacket. You can use a fancy little remover like the one I have. I'll join them below. They are not too expensive or you can just use scissors if you want.

You'll notice that on the inside there are the four twisted pairs and then there's this little white furry wire that's called the polar line and you can actually rip that out and tear the jacket even further down, but we need to get it out of the way so we're just going to Go ahead and cut it now that the hairy parts are out of the way, we have our four twisted pairs. There is a little trick that no one tells you that is very useful. Untangling these pairs, especially with cat6, is quite tricky, but if you use the Ethernet cable jacket you just removed, you can stick it between the two pairs and then just twist it off.

Once you have the four pairs of colors separated, you need to put them in order now, as I mentioned before, it doesn't necessarily matter what. order they are in, as long as they are in the correct order on both ends, but you should really use a standard because technically and the jury is still out on this case, some of the pairs are twisted tighter than others and therefore, by putting them in the correct order you'll just want to, there are two standards, t568b and t568a, which used to be very ubiquitous until probably 15 years ago, now almost everyone uses b, it doesn't really matter which one you choose again, just do it.

Make sure whichever you choose, most of these drilling tools will have a little guide on the back that tells you what order to put the wires in, so this is white and orange and then orange and then white and green and you just know you can pull these wires as you see fit, there's not much reason to be careful with them, so we have blue, and we'll bring it to the front, okay, and now we have striped blue. now we have green, now we have white and brown and then brown, okay, so they're all in order and I generally like to pull the wire and run them back and forth just to make sure they stay properly in place.

They are, so let's go ahead, take our little scissors here and just tap them down so they're all the same length and then you take the connector and there are two types of connectors, there are snap connectors, which is what I'm using. and it's great because you can push the wires all the way in, make sure they're in the right order before crimping them and then your tool crimps them and trims them or you can cut them to the proper length, jams. Make sure they stick and then move on, it doesn't really matter, I've been pretty comfortable with both, but it's generally recommended to tap down for beginners because get this, I just glued the connectors, pushed the jacket all the way in. as far as it goes and then I make sure my order is correct, what it is and then I take my piercing tool, I insert my connector and then I just crimp it, I'm done, it's a pretty easy Ethernet cable, okay? now on the other end we're going to make a keystone, these are very, very, excuse me, a keystone, these are very, very simple, so on the front here I'm just going to stick my wire in and then just connect them together. between these cavities and the best thing is that they are the correct color, so you know what color is there, you have the solid and the striped on the same side, so once you have all the connectors lined up and they are in the right place place where you need to grab your drilling tool now there are two different types of drilling, there are 99 and 110, almost all modern things are 110. so you put this on your drilling tool, this is cool because it has an impact sensor on it and then you just push it until it clicks.

I would recommend purchasing one of these, they cost a little more money but it's better than just playing the game of did I really push it or did I press it too hard and break the jacket, these tools are useful and then seriously just pick up the tool of drilling, stick it in the cavity and drill quite easily once you're done, you can take the excess connectors, just twist them until they break and now we're done. have an rj45 ethernet cable on one end and a keystone on the other now if you want to make sure they work you can buy one of these this is a cat 5e or cat6 tester now it's fancy with a screen and it will actually tell you which pins are incorrect in case you got it wrong, but there are basic ones that do the same function, you basically turn them on, connect one end to the keystone or one end of the rj45 and then connect the other ethernet. the cable ends and then you press test and our cable passes, we did it right and that's it and with everything installed, the house is complete now look, I can't say it was fun or that I would like to do it again, but I am getting a great speed in almost all rooms.

Stay tuned for a future episode where I'll talk about what I plan to do with this 10 gig LAN and how all of my smart home devices, even the ones that aren't supported, will reside within my Homekit in isolation. The internet is getting ready for it because it's going to be exciting and nerdy that you won't want to miss if you enjoyed this video, like it if you didn't like it, send it to someone you hate, thank you very much. lots to look at and as always stay agile