External Cat 6 cable for garden room

[Henz]

Hi all, my dear mum has a garden room that we want to run a cat 6 cable to from the virgin router in the front room of her house. About 40m total and not going to bother burying the 20m outdoor so looking for something that can face up to the elements. As with everything there seems to be plenty of options and was hoping someone could let me know the most critical "must haves" for the cable or are they all much of a muchness? It's just WiFi and TV streaming, no hardcore gaming for her

This is what I've found initially...

https://www.cablemonkey.co.uk/cat6-network-cables/...

Cheers...

[Mr Pointy]

That's what is called a patch cable; it's a pre-made cable but it's not what you would usually use for your purpose. You'd usually run a solid core cable like this (either Cat5e or Cat6 will do):
https://www.cablemonkey.co.uk/cat5e-cable/20-ccs-c...
https://www.cablemonkey.co.uk/cat6-cable/22-ccs-ca...

At each end you would have an RJ45 socket mounted in a wallplate:
https://www.cablemonkey.co.uk/cat6-modules-outlets...

Or something like this:
https://www.cablemonkey.co.uk/cat6-modules-outlets...

You'd then use a short patchcord form the wall plate to the equipment.

Your patchcord will probably work but it's susceptible to damage - if you damaged the connector at one end you'd have to write off the cable & run another one.

[Cupramax]

As above, use external grade cable, and put it in a duct ideally or it will get eaten by something.

https://www.plastics-express.co.uk/ducting/twinwal...

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

Cupramax said:

As above, use external grade cable, and put it in a duct ideally or it will get eaten by something.

We've got external grade cable to our cameras at the rear of the house. I stuck one extra camera up myself to the front of the garden and I already had a drum of bog standard cat 5. I buried it inside a hose pipe and so far (3 years in) I've had no issues with either.

(I'm colour blind, and I was amazed I managed to crimp the RJ45 plugs on myself )

[Cupramax]

Hosepipes are usually 4 or 5 layers so a pretty good substitute. I’ve done many site to site underground cables for work and wouldn’t do it without ducting, trust me.

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

Cupramax said:

Hosepipes are usually 4 or 5 layers so a pretty good substitute. I’ve done many site to site underground cables for work and wouldn’t do it without ducting, trust me.

True.

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

I don't know why squirrels & rats find cables so tempting to chew, but they do!

[Henz]

Much obliged to you all, that's some excellent advice there and many thanks

[mikef]

Does your mum really need cat 6? Is she running a server farm down there?

I have a 100m run of Ubiquiti ToughCable CAT5e F/UTP External/Outdoor Ethernet Cable - it lasts me 5 years in direct sun, after which it can get a bit brittle, probably twice that in shade

Running through hosepipe or flexible ducting sounds a neat idea, if you can manage to thread it through - squirrels like to eat cable...

[tendown]

I'm doing a similar thing not bothering with duct, going underground the whole way. I almost went swa cat6 but decided to do two lines of this for less money

https://connectec.uk/networking/network-infrastruc...

It's pretty heavy duty stuff for the money

[Mattt]

Visit this post in a few years time when you need to run another cable and ask - why didn’t I just duct it with a draw wire?

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

Mattt said:

Visit this post in a few years time when you need to run another cable and ask - why didn’t I just duct it with a draw wire?

I think we are all saying stick it in a duct of some sort.

[RizzoTheRat]

If she wants wired internet in there, does that imply she has power in there already? In which case would a powerline do the job?

[seveb]

mikef said:

Does your mum really need cat 6? Is she running a server farm down there?

This is pistonheads where reality is a distant notion for many people. We've had the argument about how much bandwidth an Internet connection really needs to support a family of 4 working from home and streaming Netflix 4K and it invariably comes out to " the latest FTTP 500 gig service is still too slow". But mesh wifi is also highly recommended which rather defeats the objective of having LINX speed interconnects to the local exchange.

5e is still fast enough for most data centres and exchanges but for some reason 6 is the flavour of the month on pistonheads. People here must be able to see into the future and know they need 10gig for extreme streaming in the next few years.

No offence to the OP, you've probably just picked up on the cat 6 vibe in these forums

[Mr Pointy]

I suggested Cat6 as it's physically a bit more robust than 5e which might be useful for an exterior cable.

[LightningMat]

You might want to consider armoured cable too, which will be more resistant to rats/squirrels/mice - Either belt and braces inside ducting, or without ducting - I have used this for a similar purpose out to our garden room: Cat 6 Armoured Cable link (but terminating the ends does take extra work due to the armour).

[Mr Pointy]

LightningMat said:

You might want to consider armoured cable too, which will be more resistant to rats/squirrels/mice - Either belt and braces inside ducting, or without ducting - I have used this for a similar purpose out to our garden room: Cat 6 Armoured Cable link (but terminating the ends does take extra work due to the armour).

Given the patchcord the OP linked to is £34 I suspect the most cost-effective option is just to buy a spare & chuck it in when the first one gets eaten.

[Bikerjon]

How far away internally is the garden room from the router? CAT6 might be complete overkill if mesh Wi-Fi could reach.

[crmcatee]

I've just done something similar - got 25m of 20mm blue MDPE water pipe to house the two cat5's.

Using a highly flexible rodding tape I had I managed eventually to get the whole cable fished through (a lot easier to do prior to installing the pipework) as bouncing it makes it go through easier then get the cables tied on.

All buried.

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

crmcatee said:

I've just done something similar - got 25m of 20mm blue MDPE water pipe to house the two cat5's.

When I pulled mine through the hose I also pulled a second, just as a spare.