Cat5/6 run down garden

[MiloD]

Gents, simple question, possibly?! I've installed the obligatory garden office, given the soon to be new arrival will be taking up my home office. I've got a mate who is a spark who is helping me to run an armoured cable down to the bottom of the garden - fortunately I have a brick wall running the length the garden (c. 40m), so don't need to bury it. My question is, if I buy a shielded outdoor cat5/6 cable, can i simply zip tie it to the armoured power cable. Will I get interference or will it be fine?? I intend to leave a laptop down there, which will serve as a media server for the house, otherwise it will be the standard office with no heavy internet use. All advice gratefully received. Cheers.

[SteBrown91]

I wouldn't bolt it too close to the power cable as there will be a risk of interference

Otherwise as long as the cable run is no further than 100m from the router or switch it should be fine

[SilverSpur]

Yeah should be fine, unless it's more than 100 meters.

[VX0075]

I've ran Cat6 to the garden, not the back but around 20m. i would not put it with the electrical cable due to possible interference however it may not affect you if its not going to be heavy use. Maybe hook it all up without fixing it to the all and leave enough slack in case you need to move it away from the electric cable. Mine comes from the loft with telephone, tv ariel and CCTV cable no issues, however the router sits in the living room and the CAT 6 cables are around 6 inches apart from electrical cables, not had any issues with interference.

[ATG]

I'd be very surprised if there was any interference. The frequency of the two signals is hugely different, and in any case the armoured sheath round the mains cable will provide a Faraday cage.

[six wheels]

Hi OP,

I have a similar setup - armoured cable along a wall to a garden office, maybe 30m I think.

We have two runs of normal CAT5 cable tied straight to it, there is zero interference, the stuff is shielded anyway.

Only thing I'd suggest is buy black cable if you can get it - ours is grey which makes me sad. Oh and run twice what you can imagine using in case of breakages and "stuff", e.g. sending HDMI needs two cables straight away - something I now cannot do because I didn't run enough.


Cheers, Steve.

[mikees]

Wanted same result for Internet to my pool house and app controlled lights. Used a Ethernet over mains and worked a treat plus other complications of airport express and wireless power switches. Works well. I'm still putting armoured cabled everywhere to power the lights tho

[SilverSpur]

Don't cable tie cat 5 too tight.....

[bigdom]

As per mikees reply, I'd just use power over Ethernet. I stopped wiring the house a few years back and moved to these, I see less than 5% drop from router. The missus works in the garden with this set-up, no complaints in the past couple of years.

[MoelyCrio]

My office is 40 m from the house and I use the mains cable by plugging in the ether net (devolo) adapters. Works fine, little difference to the house. I had cat 5 cable put into the office but I it's sitting in a big expensive coil next to my water butt at the moment.

[48k]

If it is genuine cat6 cable then don't zip tie it too tightly. You musn't pinch the outer casing of the cable or have any kinks or curves with a radius tighter than a tennis ball. cat5 on the other hand, is a bit more tolerant of poor installation.

[Pheo]

TLC sell black, outdoor grade CAT5e. Should do you nicely.

[MiloD]

Thanks all, really helpful. Was thinking of using power lines stuff instead of cat 5/6 but think I'll go belt and braces. Little job for next weekend me thinks.

[MiloD]

Pheo said:

TLC sell black, outdoor grade CAT5e. Should do you nicely.

TLC as in Waterfalls?

[J4CKO]

When I did mine, similar distance I put Ethernet cable in the same trench as the power, didnt work for reasons unknown, just stuck some homeplugs in either end and they work fine.

[weeboot]

Glad you've made that choice, bandwidth over my EoP setup at home is poor, and that's all across a common consumer unit with very few cable runs in the building.
(although, if the quality of the workmanship in the house is anything to go by, I wouldn't be surprised if there were some issues in the wiring!)