Question for nellisir

[electricland]

My uncle says thank you very much for the info, and has a question: when low current wires -- coax/cat-5/phone -- are running parallel to house wiring, how far apart do they need to be? Is 6" enough, or should it be 1', or 6'?

And I thank you too. ;)

(Edited to put the right symbols in. Email posting not always infallible, clearly.)

Comments

[nellisir.livejournal.com]

Replied in previous post. Am beginning to worry that Canadian wiring is all made out of plutonium, though, and I will tell you wrong thing and house will blow up. If happens, will feel really bad -- let me know & I'll bring some garbage bags & a broom. ;-)

Still, despite insecurity am 100% certain coax & cat-5 can be run together, because a) we've done it in every house we've built, and b) they sell those cable/phone/ethernet multipurpose box covers. Notice they don't sell combo cable/power outlets.

If canadian phones similar to US phones, easiest thing in the world to hook up. Easy to test too.

[electricland.livejournal.com]

:D

Thank you so much! I'm pretty sure our wiring is not significantly different from your wiring -- we ARE all on the same grid, after all (except Quebec). And if your phones are like our phones (4-pin wiring that comes in a little plastic plug with a brittle... flat spring, I guess, to keep it in the socket) then yes. Well, once we get a phone line.

Anyway, have passed all info along...

[(Anonymous)]

Yep, that's it. You only need two wires for a single phone line. Normal phone line now has 6, which I think can be paired up in different ways for multiple lines. Cat-5 has 8 wires.

When I wired (coax & cat5) my house, I just ran cat5 everywhere and put in ethernet outlets. Got a patch panel from Home Depot and ran everything to that. An ethernet port will take a regular phone line, so I can plug either a phone or a computer into any port, and so long as the patch panel is "patched" correctly, get either phone or ethernet.

Then, of course, I got a wireless router. ;)

[nellisir.livejournal.com]

Googled...
Confirming cat5 & coax can coexist:
http://www.cabling-design.com/helpdesk/answers/38.shtml

Confirming 12" clearance between coax/cat5 & electrical wiring (see #11):
http://www.connectworld.net/syscon/support.htm

Relevant quote: "Avoiding EMI is as simple as not laying your network cable within 12" of electrical cable..."