Phone wires in new construction

[davidchomes]

Hello Guys.
I was wondering how you guys handle new phone wire installation in new construction.

Question 1: In an average 2000 sq ft house do you daisy chain the phone boxes or do home runs?

Question 2: If you have more than two wires in a box do you splice them and pigtail like a recepacle or just hook all wires under the screw terminal?

Question 3: What wire would you recommend?

Question 4: Do I just tail out the wire to the outside and then the Telco connects to it?

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions.

Dave

[mdshunk]

Question 1: In an average 2000 sq ft house do you daisy chain the phone boxes or do home runs?Never, ever daisy chain. Use a home run for each and every jack.

Question 2: If you have more than two wires in a box do you splice them and pigtail like a recepacle or just hook all wires under the screw terminal?You will have no need to do this if you use home runs. Do not daisy chain, do not splice. Use only punch down type jacks and not screw terminal jacks.

Question 3: What wire would you recommend?CAT 5e is the minimum cable now required for residential voice and data per EIA 570(A) and the latest BICSI standards for residential. It's only about 65 dollars for a 1000 foot reel at a wholesale house, since it's so popular now.

Question 4: Do I just tail out the wire to the outside and then the Telco connects to it?Yes, you can certainly do it that way. This is how most installs are done. The other method is to run the home runs to a central location and make up your own structured wiring panel and run one home run from this hub to the telco demarc location.


P.S. Don't forget a series 6 cable (RG6) to each jack plate location too.

[Mr T]

Hello Guys.
I was wondering how you guys handle new phone wire installation in new construction.
Simple, plan for the future now.

Question 1: In an average 2000 sq ft house do you daisy chain the phone boxes or do home runs?
I would not daisy chain. Do home runs to a central location such as a basement, or a lesser used closet. Run cat-5 cable. This setup will allow for phone, computer network (aka broadband internet), some intercoms, low-level audio (unamplified) for multi room sound. With the right adaptors you can even send video over cat-5. You can use a punchdown block now, or just connect a single pair together for all the phones and let the customer handle the punchdown block later (leave plenty of wire). I'd leave the punchblock to the customer to decide on.

Question 2: If you have more than two wires in a box do you splice them and pigtail like a recepacle or just hook all wires under the screw terminal? You can twist them together and put under the screw. But see question 1 first. This should not be necesary.

Question 3: What wire would you recommend?Cat-5 period. It is not that much more expensive then cat-3.

Question 4: Do I just tail out the wire to the outside and then the Telco connects to it?
Is the network interface box installed yet? If so, its your job. The customer access side of it is your responsibility. If its not there, tail out and they should do it for you.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions.

Dave
No Prob.. good luck.

[davidchomes]

Thanks guys for the quick responses and detailed answers!
Now I can Sleep easy knowing what to do..............

[Mr T]

No prob.. dig around in the computer room as well as this room.. THere has been quite a few threads on this latley.

On the RG6 note...Same applies, no splices, no splitters. Send everything to the same location as your cat-5 runs.

Many of the box stores and companies such as Leviton have some nice looking structured wire panels and accessories.... You pay out the *** for these.. Get yourself a normal 110 punch down block and a coax distribution tap block, and build your own panel. I think 110's are friendlier to the end user then 66's. Plus if done right, all the wires that run to the rooms are not readily accessable to the end user. They have access to the jumpers and thats it. Less chance of them really screwing things up. The customer can also use one of the toothpick punch tools that comes with the wall jacks to make their own basic jumps. No expensive tools needed for the customer.