New home and cat5e

[rick]

What is the minimum distance that I need to keep my cat5e cable from my electrical wires. I am building a new house and would like to run them thru my existing holes in the studs that my electrical wires go thru. I also heard this might not be a good idea. If that is the case I will need to drill all new holes. Also how about my intercom wires and cable and phone wires. Can I run the cat5e cable thru those holes?

[joed]

1 foot is the generally accepted minimum. You can run them with phone and cable wires.

[dkerr]

electrical cables under load recreate magnatic flux / fields of varying intensities, in some certainstances can cause problems for communication cables. While it is easy to route , I would recommend going on the side of caution, instead of wait and see later when the house is finished and in the event their is problems, correcting it will be even more of a problem.

I would recommend at least a 6 inch separation between electrical and communication cables.

I would also advise to....

Use only rg 6 high qaulity cable for all cablevision runs, and a separate run to each location from the common entrance (likely the basement where all wires enter fromoutside) Don't run one cablevision wire between the wall to be connected thru a spliter to serve 2 bedrooms.

The reason for this is...
high quality rg 6 could be used for a satellite system feed, although smaller cable can serve cablevision, it cannot be used for satellite. The same holds true that cablevision splitters cannot be used for satellite. Further planing...
Separate feeds to each lcoation and rg 6 cable. Also note with every splitter you lose 3 to 4 db of the signal. Even digital cable systems will often perform better with rg 6.

Most house run their telephone cables daisy chain thru the house, may be oen loop or perhaps a loopfro each floor. It was done in my house that way also. This type of system is a little more tricky to trouble shoot than if a separate phone line went to each location. ALthough it is not the norm ,if I was building a new home , I would like a separate run of phone wireline from each jack to the common point (likely the basement wire entrance from outside) can be a lot less pain to trouble shoot. Contractors like the daisy chain method as less wire is involved.

Computer networking will need a separate cat 5 run (from every location where a computer may be) to a common location (where the dsl / cable modem & router will be)

Most communication wires can be run thru the same whole, but not with electrical wires, but never tightly tie them together, the tightest spot should only be for the 2 inches going thru the stud, and losely together the rest of the way.

[dkerr]

joed's one foot recommendation is even better especially on high current line going to dryer or range.

[mdshunk]

Further planing...
Separate feeds to each lcoation and rg 6 cable.

Computer networking will need a separate cat 5 run (from every location where a computer may be) to a common location

Do you mean like this:

http://www.taudio.com/tripod_images/photos/Rough_Wires.jpg

This is one of my favorite "I can't believe you actually did what was wrote on the stud" pictures.

[dkerr]

This is nothing. I work in a television broadcast station and we could have a hundred or 2 of video / audio cables being routed thru a common passageway, but never tied tightly together, except in an audio patch field tower along the row of patch plugs.

And are never near electrical wires runs.

One thing I forgot to mention is labeling when using a pile of sparate run cables. At the Tv station we use a 4 digit numbering system wrapped around each end of the wire and documented in a book. ALthough not the same nightmare in the home setting, somekind of labelling in the common location (likethe basement where everything comes to) would help to know what wire / cable goes where, another one of those things that makes life easilier later.