New House Network Advice

Real_PhillBert · March 26

My wife and I just signed the contract to have a new house built over the next ~6 months or so. Because I'm picky I've negotiated with the builder to allow myself to do all of the low voltage wiring, so speaker wire and networking is my responsibility. I've been planning this for some time but as I'm not super fluent in networking I wouldn't mind a bit of feedback on my basic plan.

The Plan:

I'm going to put all the network equipment and servers in the utility room of in the basement where all the network runs will terminate.

I already have a Unifi UDM SE that I plan to continue to use in the new house. However my current switch is a gen1 Unifi 24port PoE switch which will no longer have the ports or the POE capability that I want in the new house, so I'm planning to pick up a Unifi Switch Pro XG 48PoE to be my main switch. To be honest I really wanted the last generation Enterprise 48 that was 2.5G and quite a bit cheaper but now I see that one is discontinued.

From the Switch I'll add an SFP28 NIC into my current media server (way overkill, I know), and an SFP+ to my Unifi NVR. Eventually the plan is to build a detached shop about 30ish yards from the house, and run another fiber line to that structure but that's for a later date.

Inside the house I was planning on being simple and just running CAT6A to each keystone location in the house. The IT guy in my office suggested to make all wall terminations double since it doesnt take anymore work to run two cables at once, so in the plan you'll see a ton of X2s on walls, that's why. And any X4s are really two double keystones one low and one high mount for a TV.

I currently have plans for 2 APs in the house, in the living area near the extra bedrooms and one in the master. Then one more in the garage and one more out on where the back deck will be. I still havent landed on exactly what APs to use, but I'm leaning towards the new Unifi AP XG in the house and garage then a U7 Outdoor on the deck. I know this is overkill for this size home but the house is just over what Unifi says a single AP can cover.

I have planned drop for six cameras, plus the doorbell. I may add one more camera in the garage but I'm not sure how I feel about that just yet.

Any feedback you might have is greatly appreciated. I'm no expert, so I googled and the triangle is the symbol I found for a network drop, and the triangle with a circle is a ceiling mounted network drop.

OhioYJ · March 26

The two drops in each room is definitely good advice. When I wired my house I originally did one drop in some rooms the later had to go back up in the attic to add another in all the not very much longer.

I would at least run a line to the garage to give you the option for a camera in the garage just in case. I've ended up with three cameras in my garage.

Real_PhillBert · March 26

1 hour ago, OhioYJ said:

The two drops in each room is definitely good advice. When I wired my house I originally did one drop in some rooms the later had to go back up in the attic to add another in all the not very much longer.

I would at least run a line to the garage to give you the option for a camera in the garage just in case. I've ended up with three cameras in my garage.

Thanks for the confirmation. It's good to hear that my IT guy isnt leading me astray.

Yeah I was for sure going to run a line for a camera in the garage since it's pretty much the exact path I would need for one of the exterior cameras. I may or may not put a camera in the garage but I'd rather do the work now when it's easy.