Pulling CAT6 cable in existing conduit

We recently put up a wall in our previous family/play room — to make another bedroom, with a hallway outside. I might want an access point in that hallway at some point.

So I repurposed a telephone outlet and conduit, to run a CAT6 cable from the hallway down to the patch panel in the basement.

The plan

We needed another bedroom — the twins are getting older and needed their own rooms. But to make that happen; we have to move our youngest son into a new bedroom. So we put up a wall in a room on the 1st floor — that we have been using as a family and play room.

Outside this new bedroom will be a hallway with a wide dresser — and on this dresser I might want to put a Wi-Fi access point in the future.

The conduit for the telephone line goes from #1 to #2, from the hallway to the entryway. Luckily — from wall box #2, there is another conduit, going down into the basement. So I can run my new CAT6 through wall box #2 to reach the basement 👍

Running the cable

The first thing I did was to attach a fish tape to the existing CAT5e cable currently going through the conduit.

My future wife and I then pushed and pulled the fish tape all the way through.

Then I took the other end of the fish tape, and guided it down through the conduit going into the basement. Leaving the fish tape going from the hallway, all the way down into the basement.

Using the same technique of pushing and pulling, we got the CAT6 cable all the way through. There was a few tight spots, probably sharp bends in the conduit, but we got it through 🙂

From the hallway, the CAT6 cable now goes through the wall box in the entryway…

…and into the basement.

Where it ends up in my home office 🙂

And with the cable now pulled, I put the blanking plate back on the wall box in the entryway. Don’t mind the wall — this room is due for renovation.

We have old telephone and coaxial outlets around the house, totally useless of course — but repurposing the wall boxes and conduits is great 👍

Terminating

With the cable pulled — it’s time to terminate it. On the patch panel and; I’m using a tool-free keystone jack.

In the hallway; I’m using an ELKO Plus RJ45 single CAT6 outlet — with punch down connectors.

Once both ends have been terminated — I verified with my Fluke network tester.

The ELKO Plus series looks clean 🙂 The blanking plate is where the old coaxial outlet used to be.

On the patch panel; the keystone was snapped into place.

Slowly, but surely, the patch panel is filling up. 5 and 6 are reserved for future fiber runs — I have one planned to the garage.

Finishing up

About a week later; the carpenter came back and finished the trim in the new bedroom, and hallway outside.

We had to wait three weeks to get the new dresser. Hidden behind it is a CAT6 network outlet, should I ever need one 🙂

I’ve been thinking of putting a Unifi U6 Mesh access point on the dresser — to get a strong 5 GHz signal in the new bedroom. I need to do some more measurements first, to see the current signal levels. At least now I have the option 🙂