Cat 5e
Today I worked through lunch so that I could leave when the fitness equipment delivery guys called to say they'd be at my place in 30 minutes. By 4:30 they still hadn't called, but I decided that I might be the last delivery of the day, and so I wanted to get home before 5pm. They called about 5 minutes after I got in the car and were waiting at my place when I got home (which was far less than 30 minutes after they called). They set up the home gym in my basement 5th bedroom, so I've now got quite a little setup down there with the bicycle and gym.
They were done a little before 5:30pm, but I decided that it wasn't worth going back to work since it would basically be to turn around and come back home. After dinner at the Bell, I decided to finish what I had started yesterday, running Cat 5e around the house. Well, to the master bedroom at least.
I had cut holes in the drywall in the basement stairwell, and the wall of one of the bedrooms, and had used my 1/2" Milwaukee drill with 54" long 1" wide drill bit to drill some holes down into the basement stairwell wall. I drilled three holes without an issue (going to be running lots of cables through there), but the fourth hole bogged out and stalled the drill.
While a very impressive feat to be able to stall this powerful drill, it also left me quite worried. What the heck did I drill into? There was no metal or plastic on the bit or in the shavings when I pulled it back, no water came rushing out, and no air when the heater ran. I'm guessing that I might have drilled into the top of an LVL (Laminated Veneer Lumber, heavy structural beam). No matter what it was, it clearly was not ideal, but I doubt it's done any real damage to the house. I left it at three holes and fished some Cat 5e down one of the holes. Getting the cable over to where I'm thinking of mounting the network panel was easy as the wood I-beams have knock-outs to pass through things like this.
Tonight I completed the job by running the cable through the attic and down to the master bedroom. That was considerably more difficult than it should have been. I got a 54" extension because the drill bit isn't long enough to drill from outlet level into the attic. However, trying to fish 108 inches of 3/8" spring steel into a wall cavity while missing power wires with a 1" auger bit is harder than it sounds. The handle that they make explicitly for bending the bit wasn't up to task -- it's now a pretzel. I wonder if Home Depot will let me return it? I was able to bend the bit with my hands, eventually, but wasn't ever able to get it to bite, so I went for plan B -- find the wall in the attic and drill down from the attic.
Blown in fiberglass sucks. I really have to remember to wear a dust mask. Blown in paper insulation (what I had at my previous house) is far easier on the lungs and throat, though you still want a dust mask (tastes bad as opposed to feeling like bad things are happening in your lungs).
I was able to find the wall through more than a foot of loose fiberglass and use my DeWALT drill to make a hole for the cable. Those quick change drill attachments are great, except when you're in the attic drilling a 1" hole and finally break through; thereby engaging the quick release mechanism and dropping the drill bit into the wall to certain doom. Luckily I was able to fish the bit back out of the hole I had made for the wires I was running. I doubt I will be that lucky a second time.
After that, I wired up the jack in the bedroom and called it quits for the night. There is no sense wiring up the other end in the basement since there is nothing to connect to that wire. I still have to run a cable from the living room down into the basement, and then extend the cable coming into the house so that I can put the cable modem in, or near, the structured wiring box, and then move the Ethernet switch into, or near, the wiring box. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow night after work.
At least none of that work involves being in the attic when it's only 15F degrees up there. I can wait to wire the rest of the house (or at least the upper floor bedrooms) until spring -- we're supposed to have a high of -8F by the end of the week.
They were done a little before 5:30pm, but I decided that it wasn't worth going back to work since it would basically be to turn around and come back home. After dinner at the Bell, I decided to finish what I had started yesterday, running Cat 5e around the house. Well, to the master bedroom at least.
I had cut holes in the drywall in the basement stairwell, and the wall of one of the bedrooms, and had used my 1/2" Milwaukee drill with 54" long 1" wide drill bit to drill some holes down into the basement stairwell wall. I drilled three holes without an issue (going to be running lots of cables through there), but the fourth hole bogged out and stalled the drill.
While a very impressive feat to be able to stall this powerful drill, it also left me quite worried. What the heck did I drill into? There was no metal or plastic on the bit or in the shavings when I pulled it back, no water came rushing out, and no air when the heater ran. I'm guessing that I might have drilled into the top of an LVL (Laminated Veneer Lumber, heavy structural beam). No matter what it was, it clearly was not ideal, but I doubt it's done any real damage to the house. I left it at three holes and fished some Cat 5e down one of the holes. Getting the cable over to where I'm thinking of mounting the network panel was easy as the wood I-beams have knock-outs to pass through things like this.
Tonight I completed the job by running the cable through the attic and down to the master bedroom. That was considerably more difficult than it should have been. I got a 54" extension because the drill bit isn't long enough to drill from outlet level into the attic. However, trying to fish 108 inches of 3/8" spring steel into a wall cavity while missing power wires with a 1" auger bit is harder than it sounds. The handle that they make explicitly for bending the bit wasn't up to task -- it's now a pretzel. I wonder if Home Depot will let me return it? I was able to bend the bit with my hands, eventually, but wasn't ever able to get it to bite, so I went for plan B -- find the wall in the attic and drill down from the attic.
Blown in fiberglass sucks. I really have to remember to wear a dust mask. Blown in paper insulation (what I had at my previous house) is far easier on the lungs and throat, though you still want a dust mask (tastes bad as opposed to feeling like bad things are happening in your lungs).
I was able to find the wall through more than a foot of loose fiberglass and use my DeWALT drill to make a hole for the cable. Those quick change drill attachments are great, except when you're in the attic drilling a 1" hole and finally break through; thereby engaging the quick release mechanism and dropping the drill bit into the wall to certain doom. Luckily I was able to fish the bit back out of the hole I had made for the wires I was running. I doubt I will be that lucky a second time.
After that, I wired up the jack in the bedroom and called it quits for the night. There is no sense wiring up the other end in the basement since there is nothing to connect to that wire. I still have to run a cable from the living room down into the basement, and then extend the cable coming into the house so that I can put the cable modem in, or near, the structured wiring box, and then move the Ethernet switch into, or near, the wiring box. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow night after work.
At least none of that work involves being in the attic when it's only 15F degrees up there. I can wait to wire the rest of the house (or at least the upper floor bedrooms) until spring -- we're supposed to have a high of -8F by the end of the week.
posted by Mark at 10:15 PM
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