Questions about wiring my laneway house.
 

So the contractor has started working on my laneway house. I'm trying to avoid making the same mistake that was made with the main house. I'm going to be getting someone to install at least Category 6 cables and a conduit in the laneway house. Is there anything that I should know or mention to the person that will be wiring the laneway house? I want to future proof the house as much as I can. Installing fibre optic cables is a bit of an overkill right now and very pricey as well. Is it worth going Cat. 6a cables over regular Cat 6 cables? Should the laneway house be connected to the main house as well?

Any tips will be greatly appreciated!

Are you planning on renting out the coach house? if not then it would be a good idea to network it with your main house.

some notes to heed to when running lengths also keep cable below frost line to keep dry or run in PVC piping

I would probably run 2 pair to each location. Who knows what the future brings but it could be that everything will be double trunked.....

Yea, the laneway house will be rented out for now, but I've discussed this with my folks and we rather spend the money and setup the place properly in the event that either me or my brothers will move into it in the future.

Any tips or idea on how the networking aspect should be done?

What do you mean by 2 pairs to each location?

I'm no expert on this, but should I mention that to the installer? In the main house all network cables run up into the closet of the master bedroom. The master bedroom is less than 10 metres from the laneway house, but since the network cables will loop around the laneway house, it'll take up some distance, but most likely less than 90 metres.

Well I'd run at least 2 cables through a PVC conduit buried below the frost line. Ideally separate from the electrical wiring (or is that going overhead?). This way you can either have additional bandwidth, or if one of the cables fails for whatever reasons, you have extras.

Then put a switch in the laneway house, this will negate any distance concerns. I'd assume there's already a switch/router in the main house.

Technically speaking though, you could easily do a point-to-point wireless link too. Setup two directional, outdoor antennas facing each other. Should be able to maintain a steady link without issues, unless there's large obstructions between the house and laneway.

However, if there's no need to have the houses connected, then don't need to worry about that. I just figure it'll be cheaper to share 1 Internet connection than to have 2, unless you really need to do so.

As for within the house, stick to regular CAT6. Have it all terminate at a common area where you can setup a patch panel and a switch. Ideally a closet or something out of the way. All I'd suggest is that the installer doesn't wrap the CAT6 cabling around electrical wires. Try to keep them somewhat separated to prevent interference.

I don't know if the wires will be going overhead or not. Which is the better solution? The laneway house will be on ground level and the master bed room is on the third floor of the house or the second floor if you don't count the basement as the first floor. Is a PVC conduit strong enough to withstand the environmental impact for many years?

What kind of conduit should I tell the installer to put into the laneway house?

Then put a switch in the laneway house, this will negate any distance concerns. I'd assume there's already a switch/router in the main house.

I don't want to install wireless because should I decide to go with wires in the future then it'll be a very expensive proposition to consider. This will cost me at most $1000 and the laneway house isn't even fully built yet.

I'm not sure if I understand you about sharing the one internet connection part, but that's what I'm trying to do. I want the laneway house to be fully connected to the internal network in the main house. At the end of the day I might force the tenants to use wireless internet and just safeguard the wired network for the future should I ever move into it 10 years into the future.

Again, I'm somewhat confused with your last paragraph. I'm not sure if you checked my other thread, but the main house is already wired with Cat 5e cables. It's a long story how that happened. As of now, the wiring in the main house terminates in the closet of the master bedroom. What I had in mind is to simply connect the ethernet cable from the laneway house and somehow drag it into the closet of the master bedroom. I don't know how it'll be done and I'll be discussing this with the installer. Do you have any tips? Or you're suggesting that there should be a patch panel and or termination within the laneway house itself?

Is interference really that much of an issue? I think the TV, telephone, and ethernet cables in my main house is installed fairly close together with the electrical cables. How will I know whether interference is a big issue or not? Will the installer be liable to fix it if interference proves to be a major problem?

Should I set a contract with the installer and specify certain terms to ensure that things are done correctly?

Off topic question here , what is the difference between CAT6 and CAT5e? I was thinking of running some lines into a few rooms But looking around at web sites I see both, and also what are the female connectors called so I can mount them in the walls?