The Structured Wiring Concept

Before we get too far into things here let me make a disclaimer. I am not a professional cable installer. What I
describe may not comply with local codes and accepted practices and standards. What I am is an ordinary guy who
was determined to install my own Structured Wiring system in my own home. I have searched the internet to learn
most what I have learned and in some cases I have consulted professionals. Follow my advice at your own risk. I'll
assure you though that my wiring system is fully functional and is working great for me.

That being said, let's get on with things.

In one sentence Structured Wiring can be described as combining ALL of the communications
wiring in your home and treating it as one wiring system. This can include wiring for a home
network, telephone, video, audio, alarms, infrared remote control and anything else you choose
to throw in.

Structured Wiring is very different than the older way of doing things.

On the left is the older Daisy Chained method of wiring, if you can go as far as calling it a method.
Cables would be run from one outlet or jack to the next and then on to the next and so forth.
Splices were often used in the telephone wiring. CATV splitters would be stuck away deep inside
walls or in attics somewhere. Little attention was paid to good wiring techniques - as long as the
wires were touching every thing would be ok. The signal quality and strength at the end of the chain
would be seriously degraded and inconsistent. If one of the connections were to fail all of the
devices connected further on down the chain would fail as well. With this method the phone lines
follow different paths through the home as the video which are different again from the network.
And each of the wiring types usually has it's own separate outlet plate. The wiring paths and the
location of splices and splitters was rarely documented. Adding to or troubleshooting or
documenting this mess was nearly impossible.

On the right is the Structured method. One of the main features of this is having a central location
and how all of the cables from the outlets go back to the central location. This is commonly called a
Home Run configuration. Typically one outlet plate is used for all of the wiring types - phone, video,
network or whatever. And the wires are typically run in bundles containing ALL the types of wiring.
No splices are used.

The advantages of structured wiring are .

Configurability - With all of the cables running back to the Central Wiring Panel you can easily
change how and what these individual cables are connected to and what they are used for.

Troubleshooting - Each of the cables can be individually isolated from the rest of them and tested
for shorts and opens if need be.

No splices - Splices are taboo here because they are prone to failure and can pickup noise and
interference and, quite simply, aren't needed here.

More consistent signal quality - with all cables running back to the Central Wiring Panel they can all
be connecter to the same source and get the same signal level. You can easily avoid having some
outlet passing through more splices or splitters than others.

Did I mention No splices?

Another feature key to structured wiring is the choice of wiring types. The use of high quality
cabling is stressed here. For video this means a high quality RG6/U Quad Shielded cable is typically
used instead of the older RG59. The RG6 Quad Shield has less signal loss especially at the higher
frequencies used for DSS (satellite) and is less susceptible to interference. For the data network
this means a high quality CAT5 , CAT5e, CAT6 or even fiber optics. For the phone this means the
same CATx cable used for data instead of the older 4 conductor phone cable resulting in less noise
and interference pickup and the capacity for 4 phone lines instead of 2 . The idea here is use the
most advanced cabling you can afford. You may not need all the capabilities these advanced cables
provide today but with home networking and entertainment evolving so quickly you may find them
quite useful sooner than you think.
See the Links page for other sites that discuss Structured Wiring.

Planning - Chapter 1
This is no doubt the most important part of the process - hence the 2 chapters on the subject.

You now have decided what types of wiring you want your structured wiring project to include. For
mine I decided on:

Ethernet
Video
Telephone

I'll focus on these wiring types because I know them best from my research and from experience.

One just excellent source of information on the subject of Structured wiring in Levitons'
publication titled 'Strategies'. You should check this out because it offers some excellent
How To information along with some more thorough technical details of wiring types. I would
encourage you to download this entire 2.1MB pdf document and look it over. Note: Leviton has
a history of moving the URL of this document which causes my link to it to fail. If the link
doesn't work use your favorite internet search engine to search for 'levitons strategies'

Locate the CWP

The CWP (Central Wiring Panel) will be the heart of your Structured Wiring System. It will be the
'Home" where all of your home runs run to.

Where do you want to locate the CWP (Central Wiring Panel)? How many rooms do you want these
things to run to? What do want running to each room? How many stories will your house have?
Basement, crawlspace or slab?

The location for the CWP is a good place to start. This doesn't necessarily have to be physically
located in the center of your home as the name may suggest. Central is more of a virtual term here
than a physical. An area that is considered non-living space would be an advantage such as a utility
room, a large closet or the garage (attached of course). The CWP will likely be rather ugly despite
how proud you'll be of yourself and your do-it-yourself accomplishment. Keep in mind to that,
depending on the extent of you wiring system, you will have a LOT of cables all wanting to run into
the CWP. If you have an extreme number of cables running to the CWP you may need to work with
your builder to build in some type of wiring race or some means for passing such a large bundle of
cables through the walls and between stories. You should keep your wiring a certain distance away
from devices generating electrical and magnetic fields such as motors, fluorescent lamps,
transformers, doorbells, etc. Avoid excessive heat or cold or moisture. See the reference page for
guidelines on how far to keep ethernet wiring away from other electrical devices. I ended up putting
my CWP in my utility room that also has a natural gas furnace (with a blower motor and an
electronic or high voltage ignition), a washer and dryer, natural gas water heater and a water
softener. Most of these things have motors and the high voltage gas igniters which the wiring
should stay away from. That doesn't rule out a room like that as a location for the CWP. Just keep
the recommended distance from these things and you'll be OK. And you'll need a significant amount
of wall space to mount the CWP. Having the space available to expand the CWP in the future is
important. Having a place that is easily accessible with lots of room for you to work on is important
as well.

The CWP can be surface mounted or flush mounted. Flush mounted means the CWP in built IN TO
the wall and only the front surface is accessible through an opening in the wall. With a surface
mounted CWP the entire panel is on the outside of the wall. A flush mounted CWP really needs to
be installed during the rough-in to allow you access to it before the drywall goes up limiting your
access to it later on. A surface mounted CWP can easily be installed after the home is built when
you are likely to have more time to work on it. I chose to surface mount my CWP.

The Rooms

Deciding which rooms will need which wiring types means you have to have some knowledge of what
the room will be used for and by whom, now and in the future. Do you really need network wiring
running to every bedroom? The baby's room won't need anything will it?. Well baby's grow up and
bedrooms can change into dens or offices, and you know how things can change. I decided that ALL
of my outlet plates will be the same and all of them will have the same cable types running to them.

This is my outlet plate (front view on the left - rear view on the right).
 (Click for a larger image)

One common question I get is why did I run two video lines and two data lines to every outlet plate.
I did it because it was easy and relatively inexpensive to do. I do make use of the two video line by
using one of the lines to feed a video signal from a room BACK TO the CWP. For example, I can
allow a Digital CATV in one room to feed TV's in a different room. The 2nd data line gets used
mainly when I have visitors. I also included wiring to support 4 phone lines. This is because one
CATx will support 4 phone lines so I just went ahead and installed enough RJ11 jacks to support
those 4 lines.

I would recommend using a wallplate with openings for anywhere from one to six inserts. See the
photo below for Levitons' QuickPort Wallplates. Several other suppliers make a similar line of this
type of product. I found the Leviton to be an excellent product, easy to work with and easy to buy.

The nice thing about these wallplates is that you can buy several types of inserts that are a
standard size and you can snap any type of insert into any of the wallplate openings. You can
customize each of your wallplate to suite your own needs. Some of the Leviton insert types available
are shown below.

These are, from left to right, RJ45 (CAT5) for Data, RJ11 for telephone, Type-F coax for video
and a blank insert. These inserts are also available in CAT5e, CAT6, 5-Way Binding Post for
speakers, Banana Jacks for speakers, Fiber Optics ST inserts and S-Video among others.

My wallplate was built using the pieces shown above. It contains two RJ45 (CAT5) ethernet jacks
(or a better term - ports), two RJ11 phone ports with each port carrying two phone lines and two F-
Type video ports.
This outlet plate has three CAT5 and two RG6 quad shield cables running from behind it into the
walls. These should all be treated as a bundle and kept together until they get to the CWP. FYI -
this bundle of cables measures just under 3/4" diameter using the cable types that I selected. Your
diameter may vary.

Which wall to mount the outlet plate to is important. But it may be difficult to predict which wall
the TV or the phone or the PC will be near in a lot of the rooms. You just have to either take your
best guess or install outlets on multiple walls. I took the best guess route except in the large living
room and the master bedroom. In these two rooms I installed outlet plates on two separate walls.

Inside walls are easier to run wiring through than outside walls because of the minor complication
caused by insulation in the outside walls. Additionally, outlet boxes displacing some of the insulation
and the additional openings cut into the walls are not good for energy efficiency considerations.
Outside walls have their disadvantages but I didn't rule them out in my home. You can usually deal
with them the pretty well.

If you will have vaulted or cathedral ceilings keep in mind that you will have little to zero attic
space to work in should you decide you need to run wiring in these spaces after your home is built.
In addition tall ceilings obviously mean tall walls. Builders will often make use of additional 2x4 run
horizontally somewhere between the floor and ceiling to add support for the tall vertical wall studs.
These addition horizontal 2x4 running somewhere in the middle of these tall walls can make it very
difficult to run wire through the wall later on. Plan ahead where you have types of walls and
ceilings.

Routes to Run Your Wiring

How will all these cable get from your outlets to the CWP? Will you have multiple stories in your
home? Attic or crawlspace? Take a hint from the way electricians approach this. On upper stories
run the cables from the outlets upwards into the attic. On lower stories if you have a crawlspace or
basement, run the cables from the outlets downward into whatever you have down there. If you
have a slab foundation you have little choice but to run all your cables upward. Now you have to get
what are are now rather large bundles of cables from the attic to where your CWP is located. When
you combine several of the 3/4" diameter bundles of cable from each outlet together you can end
up with one fat bundle that needs to get through the walls . My home is a is a single story home on a
slab so running from one story to another wasn't a problem. With a multiple story house a 4" to 5"
bundle of cables can be difficult to deal with. You want to keep the cables together as one bundle
whenever possible. But you can't very well drill a 5" or 6" hole in a 2x4 wall plate. This is where you
need to plan ahead and work with your builder so they can build in some provisions for you to run a
large bundle. If for whatever reason you aren't able to do that then you can split up the large
bundle into smaller bundles and drill smaller holes. It would make sense here to run cable bundles
down from the attic or up from the basement so they come out right near your CWP.
Look at a photo and a drawing of my CWP to get an idea of how I surface mounted my CWP and how
I divided the wiring types up into the various types and ran each wiring type through several smaller
holes.

I'll include a comment here and expand on it in the Rough-In section later. Even though I refer to
treating and running cables in bundles I firmly believe you are better off NOT tightly binding these
bundles together with cable ties or cable clamps. You'd be better of to loosely tie the bundles
together. I used loosely tied 'foot long pipe cleaners' to keep my cable bundles somewhat organized
into a bundle.

(Click for a larger image)

And another important point to make here is - Don't use staples - Don't use any kind of staples.
Don't use the kind of staples that you shoot with a staple gun. Don't use the kind that you hammer
in with a hammer. The reasons are that low voltage cables don't need to be anchored down, they
aren't going anywhere. And if you were to use staples and years later needed to replace a cable you
will really be pissed off to find the cable stapled down making it IMPOSSIBLE to work with.

More on this later.

Planning - Chapter 2

Start with your floorplan. Determine the

location of your CWP (Central Wiring Panel)
and each of your outlet plates. Remember
that a key part of a structured wiring system
is running ALL of the cables from each outlet
plate back to the CWP. This is the 'Home Run'
configuration.
Having labels for your cables is very important. When you end up with 30 or 40 cables coming
into the CWP you'll be lost with out some form of label to know where the cable goes to.

Give each outlet plate a short name. This short name should be somewhat descriptive of the outlets
location. Keep the name short because this name will be used to label each end of the cables running
to and from that outlet. In my case I used:

OUTLET
OUTLET
PLATE
LOCATION
NAME
DNR Dining Room

LVR1 Living Room 1

LVR2 Living Room 2

Master
MBR1
Bedroom 1

Master
MBR2
Bedroom 2
3BR Bedroom 3

2BR Bedroom 2

GAR Garage

Now, draw into the floorplan the

approximate route the cables will take as
they run from the outlet plates back to
the CWP. Using this floorplan sketch with
the cable routing shown to estimate the
cable lengths required. This will help to
get an idea of how much cable to order.
Remember that this floorplan is 2
dimensional and does not show the length
of cable needed to get from the wallplate
up to the attic or down to the basement
or to run in-between floors. This floorplan
can also help for identifying areas where
your builder may need to build in
something to allow the large diameter
cable bundles to get from one floor to the
next. In my case, being a single story
home with all the wiring running up from
the outlet plate up into the attic, there
was no need for any special wiring structures to allow the cable bundles to get back to the CWP. As
you'll see in the CWP section, my CWP is surface mounted (mounted ON TO the wall as opposed to
IN the wall). This allowed me to run the large diameter cable bundles down from the attic through
PVC conduit tubes mounted ON TO the wall as opposed to IN the walls. This way I avoided having 4"
to 5" cable bundles running through the walls and drilling large holes into the framing lumber.

Now that every outlet plate has a name we need to give each port or jack on the outlet plate a short
name. Remember that the goal here of all these names is to be able to label each cable on BOTH
ends of every cable so that when you know where every cable goes. On the right you see my outlet
plate and the names I used for each port.

How I Assigned Port Names:

PORT
DESCRIPTION

PORT NAME

D1 DATA 1

D2 DATA 2
T1 TELEPHONE 1

T2 TELEPHONE 2

V1 VIDEO 1

V2 VIDEO 2

Now we combine the outlet plate name with the port name to make up a cable name. For example:

DNR-D2 indicates the cable going to the dining room (DNR) outlet plate's data 2 port (D2).
3BR-V1 indicates the cable going to the bedroom 3 (3BR) outlet plate's video 1 port (V1).

I created an Excel spreadsheet as an aid for me in this planning process. You'll need to have Excel
or an Excel Viewer to see this spreadsheet. Or you can view this version of the spreadsheet in PDF
format. The spreadsheet shows which type of ports are included in each of the outlet plates. In my
case, all of the outlet plates have the same ports on them. But if you decide to use some different
set of ports on each of the outlet plates this Excel spreadsheet can be a great deal of help. One
very nice benefit of this spreadsheet is that the
column on the right has all of the cable names
listed. I actually used this column to make the
labels that I put on each end of every cable. I
printed this spreadsheet then used scissors to
cut out each cell in the column labeled 'CABLE
NAME' to end up with a small label. Then I used
scotch tape to tape the cut out paper label to the
cable.

You can see these cable labels taped to the

cables in the picture on the right. (Click the
picture for a larger image)