Finally getting fiber between the house and garage

Getting network to the garage is a story with many chapters. I started out with Wi-Fi mesh, then CAT6 — and now, finally, fiber!

Story time

I knew we needed to get new power cables to the garage at some point, and could use that occasion to put down conduits for fiber as well. But in July 2021, one year after we moved in, I got tired of waiting, and dug CAT6 between the house and garage.

Then; another year later, in August 2022, we did install the new power cables — and put down a conduit for fiber. Early 2023 I bought a 200 ft (61 m) roll of single mode fiber, and a used D-Link DGS-1210-10P PoE switch.

But it wasn’t until May 2024 that we finally pulled the fiber through the conduit between the house and garage. The long delay was primarily because I was unsure how to do it, and then put it off.

The fiber

I didn’t know what kind of fiber to get — my initial idea was to use multi-mode with duplex LC connectors, like I used between the basement and attic. But I wasn’t confident that it would survive being pulled through such a long conduit, about 25 meters.

They had lots of nice fibers on FS.com, but with shipping, VAT, and the customs fee it got quite expensive. Then I learned that Ubiquiti had an affordable single-mode LC fiber cable, that I could source locally 🙂

Ubiquiti FC-SM-200, it is 200 ft (61 meter) and, according to the datasheet, have the following spec:

• Outdoor-Rated Jacket with Ripcord
• Integrated Weatherproof Tape
• Kevlar Yarn for Added Tensile Strength
• Outer Diameter of Cable: 6.0 ± 0.2 mm
• Six-Strand Single-Mode (G.657.A2)
• Outer Diameter of Fiber Strand: 0.25 mm Nominal
• Insertion Loss
  • 1310 nm: ≤0.5 dB/km
  • 1550 nm: ≤0.5 dB/km

I placed and order and voilà — a few days later I was the proud owner of a roll of single mode fiber 🥳 It is also available in 100 ft (30 meter), but that wasn’t long enough for my fiber run.

The only single-mode fiber SFP transceivers I had available, was a set of Ubiquity UF-SM-1G-S — 1 Gbit/s bi-directional. I tested the fiber between my MikroTik CRS317-1G-16S+ core switch, and the used D-Link DGS-1210-10P PoE switch I picked up for cheap.

Both switches accepted the SFP transceiver, and the link LED went green 👍 I have yet to find an SFP/SFP+ transceiver that MikroTik wont accept.

The conduit

To prepare for pulling the fiber I first had to get my fish tape through the conduit. But my fish tape is only 20 meter, and the conduit is about 25 🫤

So I tied a pull string onto the end of the fish tape, and a piece of plastic onto the end of the pull string. Then used a vacuum cleaner in the basement while feeding the pull string and fish tape from the garage.

The vacuum cleaner pulled the piece of plastic, and pull string, all the way through. Ready to pull some fiber!

And then absolutely nothing happened until May 2024, one year later…

Pulling the fiber

I knew it would be a challenge to get the LC connectors through the 25 mm conduit. My initial plan was just to cut some of the fibers, I didn’t need all six, three would be enough — TX, RX and one spare.

But instead of doing that, I bent the fibers back and stacked the LC connectors along the outer jacket. The pull cord was secured to the outer jacket with duct tape. Then I wrapped everything in plastic wrap, and electrical tape.

Unfortunately I forgot to take any photos of that process — I was too focused on the task.

After wrapping everything; I was 100% certain that this would never work — that all the fiber strands would break during the pull. I told my wife, who was assisting with the pull: “let’s just forget about it, this will never work”.

To which she replied: “you already have the fiber, might as well try it”. A good points indeed — so we proceeded.

I used some wire pulling lubricant at the beginning and the pull went smooth, without much resistance 😃 — at first 😞

The conduit runs pretty straight between the house and garage, but there is a bend when it goes into the ground — and after clearing the cobblestone by the house.

There are also some slight turns, both in the basement and the garage.

As the length of fiber in the conduit increased — so did the resistance. When the fiber finally reached the garage; progress ground to a halt. My wife pushed the fiber in the basement, and I pulled from the garage.

I pulled so hard I was certain the entire cable would snap right off. By some divine miracle the fiber didn’t snap, and we managed to pull enough through in the garage to reach the network cabinet.

Looking back; what I should have done, through the entire process — was to keep applying wire pulling lubricant. A generous amount at the start was not enough. As we fed the fiber through, the lubricant slowly wore off in the bends — increasing the friction. Lesson learned!

Alright; but did the fiber still work? I tested each fiber strand, between the D-Link switch in the garage, and the MikroTik in the basement. I checked the interface SFP information for each test, and wrote down the TX and RX power.

These were the results:

• Brown: 💀
• Orange: 1 Gbps, -6.147 dBm -7.904 dBm
• Grey: 1 Gbps, -6.196 dBm -7.447 dBm
• White: 1 Gbps, -6.147 dBm -7.535 dBm
• Blue: 1 Gbps, -6.147 dBm -7.113 dBm
• Green: 1 Gbps, -6.219 dBm -7.276 dBm

One fiber strand was completely dead, the brown one — but looking at my fantastic illustration, that makes sense. The brown fiber was in the front, and probably took quite a beating going first through the corrugated conduit.

All the other strands were OK, with similar dBm values. The task execution wasn’t ideal, but the fiber was through 😎

Connectivity

With a working fiber between the house and garage, it was time to put it to use. This janky setup is temporary. I’ve just done what was needed to get the fiber operational.

So; for now, the fiber is connected to a MikroTik CRS305-1G-4S+ switch placed on network patch panel above the homelab rack. I’ve zip-tied the fiber to the wall mounted rack.

A large roll of excess fiber hangs on the homelab rack…

And the fiber itself hangs in the basement ceiling, using the lamp to keep it suspended — before entering the conduit to the garage.

On the garage side it looks better; the fiber comes out by the sub panel and runs together with some electrical cables to the network cabinet.

The D-Link DGS-1210-10P PoE switch is installed in the garage network cabinet.

Removing the old

The old CAT6 cable between the house and garage, that I spent so much time installing, is now removed…

It wasn’t the prettiest thing, running up the support beam for our 2nd floor veranda — and it was in the way for some added bracing that was put in when we got glass railings installed.

My wife was very happy when it was removed and the support beam painted 🙂

I was able to reuse the 40 m CAT6 cable for two outdoor CCTV camera runs.

Future plans

First and foremost; I’m need to clean up the fiber run in the basement. Hang it together with the other network cables, find a suitable place for the excess fiber, and terminate it in the patch panel — like my other CAT6 and fiber runs.

And then get the bandwidth bumped to 10 Gbit 🤘 I already have the SFP+ transceivers. I just need to move the MikroTik CRS305-1G-4S+ switch out to the garage, and patch the fiber into the MikroTik CRS317-1G-16S+ switch in my homelab rack.

Currently; I don’t really need the 10 Gbit bandwidth, but that will change once the shed renovation is complete. We have some plans for the shed — which include 10 Gbit network 📺 🎮

🖖