High voltage is over 1kVAC or 1500VDC. It’s rarely (!) encountered in a domestic environment.
This is clarification because a lot of people think 220-240VAC is high voltage. It is not. Domestic wiring is officially low voltage. This is the official IEC/CEI definition. Up to 50VAC/75VDC is ELV (extra low voltage) and this covers telephone, actual PoE, battery scooters, electric lawnmowers etc. - which in use are also SELV (separate extra low voltage). Electric cars are currently low voltage. It’s important to know this in connection with regulations and safety, if only because something which is officially low voltage can easily kill you.
What was the code violation? Just curious, as our coax for DirecTV and Cox internet and some speaker wire is under the house, then fished up through wall plates.
As another data point, we tried to get approval to run Cat5 through external wall-mounted conduit (alongside 110V wiring, that is) and weren’t permitted to do so. Though this was at a commercial facility.
My house was like that. So what I did was use the coax to snake cat6 through instead. Tie it to one end of the coax really well, and pull the coax through from the other outlet. And then replace the wall panels with RJ45 panels. Obviously this was because I wasn’t going to use the coax for anything…
I hope they reply, but from what I’ve read the main issue is that you need to keep low voltage wires away from the power wires.
They can cross over each other if necessary, but you should do it at a right angle and get them 6" away immediately. They can never run through the same drilled hole or conduit. They should not be in the same stud bay (at least loose, as they often will be in walls). I think they were supposed to stay at least 6" apart if both were secured.
The safety concern is that if something went wrong the low voltage could become electrified and then start a fire.
Best bet is probably to just ask the local building department.
In houses, you have to assume that 1) you need to be concerned with flammability and 2) if that stuff gets exposed to fire, people could be breathing the smoke and fumes that come off it, so code may require use of the more expensive cable with plenum-rated insulation. That would have a jacket which is fire-retardant and formulated to produce less smoke and fumes.
I further agree on “Never trust a drunk electrician.” (Or the electrician’s drunk brother who’s assisting him; I inferred a strong correlation between the empty beer bottles under the house and the 30A wires that weren’t tightened down at the circuit breaker panel.)
No wire under the house, so I’m good there.
And the cable was all run up and into the walls from below well distanced from outlets. A licensed electrician did this for me while he was here for other work - putting in can lights in a couple rooms. I assumed he did what he was supposed to do and I’ve had him do other stuff for me in the past.
I used the same stud channels as the electric, which the electrician assured me would be fine. I should’ve known better, but the temptation to save time not routing my own channels won out. I wasn’t too shocked when the inspector said ni. Such is life!
Because we were running the lines along sealed cinder block and concrete, which we needed to keep sealed as much as possible. Also, the wiring needed to be accessible for maintenance purposes. You wouldn’t believe how quickly stuff corrodes when exposed to constant 90%+ humidity and ammonia.
I do just fine with the wired version, same brand. Also on Mark’s recommendation. Powerline has improved immensely.
I get essentially the same speed out of it as I do with a hard line direct to my router. I imagine the wifi version would work at the same speed as if I was connected to my router’s wifi within the same room.
That said I’m probably fairly lucky with that. Our house was rather extensively rewired over the past decade. Lots of small, clean, new circuits with fresh wires. Nothing is old. Most of the noisy, high power draw stuff is on an entirely separate breaker. And the run from the modem to here is at most 50 feet.
I’m sure I’m missing something obvious, but… Why does that make sense? The conduit is rated for multiple wires, so the only concern I can think of is interference from the 110. Which shouldn’t be a code issue but a “this isn’t a great idea” issue.
Though I suppose there is one explanation I can come up with… Conduits have predefined fill rates based on wire gauge. Since wire gauges by definition don’t apply to Cat5, an inspector can’t consistently determine whether the conduit has exceeded the fill limit.
Same here. Started out with original spec, now on 2.0 and getting about 140MB anywhere I need it, even after converting the MOCA back into WIFI.
Considering my ISP connection is 130MB, and as a rule we don’t have a need to copy large files or stream videos between systems in our house, I’m getting everything I need out of it. I might upgrade to 3rd generation if it’s a huge improvement, but at present I’m on a wait-and-see as far as that goes.
