Drilling Holes in my Wall (cable).

Rhino

In my house, for some odd reason the "designers" decide to put only two cables jacks in the entire house. In the room with my computer I need a cable jack for the interwebs.

What is the best way to do this? The cable company said it would be a $49.95 charge plus service fees (apox 10-20 dollars they said) and labor (which 40 an hour) and supplies/hardware (they said apox 10-20).... which seems kind of a lot to install a simple cable jack..

How hard would this to do myself? I'd like to safe some money on this if possible.
I don't have a drill, but I could borrow one. I've never spliced cable, but I know how to splice ethernet and "copper" wire and have very basic soldering skills if needed.

Can someone walk me though this?

Juice

Is this a phone connection point (Place to plug in an ADSL modem) or some Cat5e Ethernet networking stuff?

Zeon

Depends on how far youre going. If youre going through one wall, then just get a stud finder with a metal finder (To make sure youre not drilling through a power main or water pipe or something) and just drill through the drywall. If you want to do it right, youre going to have to either go down into the basement or up into the attic and fish the coax through the walls. This is kind of hard, especially if you dont have a straight shot... a lot of the time its easier to run it along another wire or a pipe or something, or even to tear the entire wall out, but most of the time that is not an option.

Splicing coax is easy though, all you need are the end peices and a coax crimping tool.

Personally i would call the cable company and tell them you want them to install the jack for free or youre going to cancel your service and go with DSL and satellite. If not, just pay them, seriously, its worth it to save yourself the hassle. Running cables fucking sucks.

The Cat

are you renting or do you own? You can't go punching holes in the wall without asking if you're a renter. Also, this really isn't like changing a lightbulb.

Zeon

The Cat wrote: »

are you renting or do you own? You can't go punching holes in the wall without asking if you're a renter. Also, this really isn't like changing a lightbulb.

You can if you claim it was an upgrade to your rented house. Adding cable outlets in additional rooms would normally be seen as such. This is assuming you do it properly, not half ass as i suggested.

The Cat

Zeon wrote: »

The Cat wrote: »

are you renting or do you own? You can't go punching holes in the wall without asking if you're a renter. Also, this really isn't like changing a lightbulb.

You can if you claim it was an upgrade to your rented house. Adding cable outlets in additional rooms would normally be seen as such. This is assuming you do it properly, not half ass as i suggested.

So if I felt like renovating my bathroom, I could do it without even asking the landlord?

Uh

no

no, I couldn't. Because its not my property. You need to ask the landlord's permission before making any material changes to their house. Especially if you're not actually qualified to make them. It gives them the option of quality control, and incidentally gives you the chance to negotiate splitting the cost, or even getting them to pay for it. Hell, I had to get permission to change my doorknob to a locking one. Its often a formality because they'll say yes, but its still the done thing.

Cycophant

You could probably get away with installing a splitter at one of the other jacks, and simply running a length of cable along the floorboards to wherever you needed it.

When our local cable company offered free installation of jacks, this is all they did anyway. There's really no need to rip open walls, particularly if you're only renting, for something as simple as a cable jack. Run the cable along the edge of a wall, hold it tight with a few staples, and you'll be fine.

EggyToast

If you own the place, adding cable is relatively trivial due to the fact that it's one cable, and pretty stiff at that. Do you have access to the basement?

If you rent, the easiest way is to go wireless.