5 ms·

IMO a not-tiny house should have several sub-panels: Kitchen (enough to run the big stove + ~100A, but every outlet it's own 20A circuit), 'lab' / workshop (sam

IMO a not-tiny house should have several sub-panels: Kitchen (enough to run the big stove + ~100A, but every outlet it's own 20A circuit), 'lab' / workshop (same idea), laundry room (lock-out breaker near / in room for connecting / disconnecting), etc. A family member who's doing better in life than I am purchased a house built within the last 5 years, and it didn't even _have_ Ethernet run anywhere. WHY!?! I can't fathom how it's possible anyone would find that a negative.

nkurz 2y ago
> A family member who's doing better in life than I am purchased a house built within the last 5 years, and it didn't even _have_ Ethernet run anywhere. WHY!?! I can't fathom how it's possible anyone would find that a negative. I'm less sure. Are there any 40 year old cables that you'd consider a positive in your house today? 20 year old cables? I wouldn't be too excited about having a house full of Coax, 10Base-T, and twisted pair. I feel like the much better solution is to run conduit in which you can replace the cable rather than permanently putting in twice as much of whatever is in favor today. The conduit is always better, right?
- bhouston 2y ago
  Yeah, conduit makes sense. The future in homes - from this current vantage point - is likely all wireless via multiple APs around the house that have short range but very high bandwidth. Only us power users will have wired ethernet.
  - mjevans 2y ago
    Wireless will _never_ have the bandwidth nor wall-penetration people want. If it has the latter all the neighboring houses / apartment units will bleed through, and if it doesn't even the limited frequency domain won't be enough unless you're in the same room as an AP that doesn't penetrate walls... at which point everyone will want drops running to the rooms they stay in anyway. Yeah, conduits with pull strings and super-gentle curves (to safely satisfy minimum bends) are ideal... but at least run the lines there! Re: Copper / Fiber. Fiber's a PITA for all users, even powerusers probably don't want it outside of the rack / enclosed areas. Delicate cables / connections.
    - Dylan16807 2y ago
      5-6GHz is good at covering a house without too much leakage. And with 9 separate channels that each run at a gigabit or higher, you can have very good neighbor avoidance. That seems fine to me for covering both bandwidth and wall-penetration needs. In a big apartment building you might have to use more narrow channels but I still think the overall picture for 5+6GHz is a good one. Especially because MIMO can squeeze a gigabit into 80MHz or theoretically even 40MHz.
      - mjevans 2y ago
        The 6ghz spectrum finally looks useful compared to the DFS tainted (in practice, if you're anywhere near an airport or military air base NEVER use) 5ghz bands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels#6_GHz_(802.11ax_and_802.11be) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels#6_GHz_(8... In 5ghz there was only a clean 80mhz + 160mhz block ; while the 6ghz full WiFi 6E / 7 devices can use has 3x full 320mhz (low power only) blocks. However as a negative, a _vanishingly_ small number of OpenWRT devices support either of those standards https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_16128_wlan6.0ghz https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_16128_wlan6.0ghz and worse chances are really good someone's phone / laptop probably doesn't either.
    - chgs 2y ago
      99% of people don’t need the bandwidth. Of devices that can really benefit (mainly games consoles assuming your upstream connectivity is enough to cope), how many even have a copper port nowadays?
- epiccoleman 2y ago
  > 20 year old cables? I just bought a new house and the previous owner had phone lines everywhere (bedrooms, kitchen, office, rec room - honestly kind of weird). The house was built in 2002 and I gather that it was common at that time to put in Cat5e and just not use all the pairs. So all it took was a pleasant afternoon with the circuit toner, a new patch panel, and a few keystone jacks, and now the house is networked beautifully. Sure, they're not in exactly the places I'd have dropped 'em if I'd been starting from scratch, but it's hard to beat cables already in the wall for zero effort!
  - slow_typist 2y ago
    You are lucky they went with cat5. In my house there are phone lines everywhere, too, but real phone lines. Like in ISDN. That’s 8 strands plus some extra strands (the European ISDN bus needs 4 strands, so for a faked star topology you need 4 to every room and 4 back). It is neither shielded nor twisted of course. Just plain dumb copper wires. On some connections a stable 10 Mbit link is possible. From what I gather the cables were installed around 2000…
  - kelnos 2y ago
    Five years ago I bought a house built in 2008, and every room has at least 2 ethernet (cat6 even, good for them), 2 coax, and 2 telephone. I guess this was some sort of transition period where people were starting to understand the benefit of running ethernet, but people hadn't cut their tethers from their landlines yet. The coax is a bit weird, though. Two ports per room? Seems like overkill, but I guess it's better to have and not need than the alternative... I've still not found a use for the coax or telephone lines. I ditched cable TV 20 years ago, and haven't had a landline since 2004. The ethernet is super useful, though, for APs (paired with a PoE switch), and to to hard-wire the office, and stuff connected to the TV in the living room.
    - epiccoleman 2y ago
      You can always use the coax for MoCa - but since you've already got ethernet, seems a bit pointless. I've got coax all over too, and, well, it's pretty much useless to me. But maybe someday I'll need a drop somewhere and be happy to have it.
- terribleperson 2y ago
  Cat6 is twenty years old and still entirely usable today in a residential setting.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    Even cat5 is not only usable but will probably give you 5gig or higher.
    - chgs 2y ago
      Dunno about m-gig, but I don’t like 10g copper as the power use is so extreme. I go for 1g copper or 10g fibre.
    - terribleperson 2y ago
      Yeah, I considered mentioning cat5 as well but figured cat6 was the better argument since people are still installing it today.
    - tguvot 2y ago
      Have 20 years old cat5e. It actually gave me 10g
- IncreasePosts 2y ago
  I was thankful I bought a house full of coax recently - now I have MoCA 2.5 adapters installed in the living room/kitchen/office/den/bedrooms all connecting to a central coax manifold which became my server room - this lets me hit ~2Gbps. Sure, cat6 would have been better, but that was 30 years from being invented when my house was built.
- myself248 2y ago
  20 years is not that long ago. 30 years ago I was pulling cat5 into office building ceilings. Some of it is still there, still relevant. GigE runs just fine over it (most of it turned out to meet cat5e spec anyway), and very few applications on the desktop need more than gig. Conduit is always better, but cat5 has proven to have a surprisingly long relevance.
kelnos 2y ago
> MO a not-tiny house should have several sub-panels: Kitchen (enough to run the big stove + ~100A, but every outlet it's own 20A circuit) This seems like crazy overkill. Certainly there are kitchen appliances that devour power, but... what? Assuming an electric stove/oven, you really just need one dedicated circuit for that, and then everything else can run off another circuit. If you expect to use a microwave often, you might want it on its own circuit, but everything else you might have (blender, mixer, toaster, coffee/espresso machine, electric kettle, etc.) will run just fine on a single circuit. And regardless, you don't need a sub-panel for this. All of these can run just fine as separate circuits off your main panel.
- tguvot 2y ago
  In usa at least in area where i live code requires dedicated circuits for most of kitchen appliances

nkurz 2y ago

> A family member who's doing better in life than I am purchased a house built within the last 5 years, and it didn't even _have_ Ethernet run anywhere. WHY!?! I can't fathom how it's possible anyone would find that a negative. I'm less sure. Are there any 40 year old cables that you'd consider a positive in your house today? 20 year old cables? I wouldn't be too excited about having a house full of Coax, 10Base-T, and twisted pair. I feel like the much better solution is to run conduit in which you can replace the cable rather than permanently putting in twice as much of whatever is in favor today. The conduit is always better, right?

bhouston 2y ago
Yeah, conduit makes sense. The future in homes - from this current vantage point - is likely all wireless via multiple APs around the house that have short range but very high bandwidth. Only us power users will have wired ethernet.
- mjevans 2y ago
  Wireless will _never_ have the bandwidth nor wall-penetration people want. If it has the latter all the neighboring houses / apartment units will bleed through, and if it doesn't even the limited frequency domain won't be enough unless you're in the same room as an AP that doesn't penetrate walls... at which point everyone will want drops running to the rooms they stay in anyway. Yeah, conduits with pull strings and super-gentle curves (to safely satisfy minimum bends) are ideal... but at least run the lines there! Re: Copper / Fiber. Fiber's a PITA for all users, even powerusers probably don't want it outside of the rack / enclosed areas. Delicate cables / connections.
  - Dylan16807 2y ago
    5-6GHz is good at covering a house without too much leakage. And with 9 separate channels that each run at a gigabit or higher, you can have very good neighbor avoidance. That seems fine to me for covering both bandwidth and wall-penetration needs. In a big apartment building you might have to use more narrow channels but I still think the overall picture for 5+6GHz is a good one. Especially because MIMO can squeeze a gigabit into 80MHz or theoretically even 40MHz.
    - mjevans 2y ago
      The 6ghz spectrum finally looks useful compared to the DFS tainted (in practice, if you're anywhere near an airport or military air base NEVER use) 5ghz bands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels#6_GHz_(802.11ax_and_802.11be) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels#6_GHz_(8... In 5ghz there was only a clean 80mhz + 160mhz block ; while the 6ghz full WiFi 6E / 7 devices can use has 3x full 320mhz (low power only) blocks. However as a negative, a _vanishingly_ small number of OpenWRT devices support either of those standards https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_16128_wlan6.0ghz https://openwrt.org/toh/views/toh_available_16128_wlan6.0ghz and worse chances are really good someone's phone / laptop probably doesn't either.
  - chgs 2y ago
    99% of people don’t need the bandwidth. Of devices that can really benefit (mainly games consoles assuming your upstream connectivity is enough to cope), how many even have a copper port nowadays?
epiccoleman 2y ago
> 20 year old cables? I just bought a new house and the previous owner had phone lines everywhere (bedrooms, kitchen, office, rec room - honestly kind of weird). The house was built in 2002 and I gather that it was common at that time to put in Cat5e and just not use all the pairs. So all it took was a pleasant afternoon with the circuit toner, a new patch panel, and a few keystone jacks, and now the house is networked beautifully. Sure, they're not in exactly the places I'd have dropped 'em if I'd been starting from scratch, but it's hard to beat cables already in the wall for zero effort!
- slow_typist 2y ago
  You are lucky they went with cat5. In my house there are phone lines everywhere, too, but real phone lines. Like in ISDN. That’s 8 strands plus some extra strands (the European ISDN bus needs 4 strands, so for a faked star topology you need 4 to every room and 4 back). It is neither shielded nor twisted of course. Just plain dumb copper wires. On some connections a stable 10 Mbit link is possible. From what I gather the cables were installed around 2000…
- kelnos 2y ago
  Five years ago I bought a house built in 2008, and every room has at least 2 ethernet (cat6 even, good for them), 2 coax, and 2 telephone. I guess this was some sort of transition period where people were starting to understand the benefit of running ethernet, but people hadn't cut their tethers from their landlines yet. The coax is a bit weird, though. Two ports per room? Seems like overkill, but I guess it's better to have and not need than the alternative... I've still not found a use for the coax or telephone lines. I ditched cable TV 20 years ago, and haven't had a landline since 2004. The ethernet is super useful, though, for APs (paired with a PoE switch), and to to hard-wire the office, and stuff connected to the TV in the living room.
  - epiccoleman 2y ago
    You can always use the coax for MoCa - but since you've already got ethernet, seems a bit pointless. I've got coax all over too, and, well, it's pretty much useless to me. But maybe someday I'll need a drop somewhere and be happy to have it.
terribleperson 2y ago
Cat6 is twenty years old and still entirely usable today in a residential setting.
- Dylan16807 2y ago
  Even cat5 is not only usable but will probably give you 5gig or higher.
  - chgs 2y ago
    Dunno about m-gig, but I don’t like 10g copper as the power use is so extreme. I go for 1g copper or 10g fibre.
  - terribleperson 2y ago
    Yeah, I considered mentioning cat5 as well but figured cat6 was the better argument since people are still installing it today.
  - tguvot 2y ago
    Have 20 years old cat5e. It actually gave me 10g
IncreasePosts 2y ago
I was thankful I bought a house full of coax recently - now I have MoCA 2.5 adapters installed in the living room/kitchen/office/den/bedrooms all connecting to a central coax manifold which became my server room - this lets me hit ~2Gbps. Sure, cat6 would have been better, but that was 30 years from being invented when my house was built.
myself248 2y ago
20 years is not that long ago. 30 years ago I was pulling cat5 into office building ceilings. Some of it is still there, still relevant. GigE runs just fine over it (most of it turned out to meet cat5e spec anyway), and very few applications on the desktop need more than gig. Conduit is always better, but cat5 has proven to have a surprisingly long relevance.

kelnos 2y ago

> MO a not-tiny house should have several sub-panels: Kitchen (enough to run the big stove + ~100A, but every outlet it's own 20A circuit) This seems like crazy overkill. Certainly there are kitchen appliances that devour power, but... what? Assuming an electric stove/oven, you really just need one dedicated circuit for that, and then everything else can run off another circuit. If you expect to use a microwave often, you might want it on its own circuit, but everything else you might have (blender, mixer, toaster, coffee/espresso machine, electric kettle, etc.) will run just fine on a single circuit. And regardless, you don't need a sub-panel for this. All of these can run just fine as separate circuits off your main panel.

tguvot 2y ago
In usa at least in area where i live code requires dedicated circuits for most of kitchen appliances