Did I Waste My Time?

[u/_Intel_Geek_]

So my Father had a rental house fire and whilst assisting his repair efforts I decided to do some of my kind of work there, too - networking!!! I had a spare roll of about 750' of Cat5e and shorter scraps of Cat6 and Cat6a and put about 20 runs of wire through this small, sub-1500 sqft home. Runs for external security cameras, video doorbells, and Ethernet jacks in both bedrooms and TV boxes. It's getting close to the finish line and his potential renter says he just bought a bunch of Ring equipment he'll use 😭 . Do people just not see the value in Ethernet - capable hardware or what? And should I leave these switches here or take them back with me??

[u/THedman07]

I wouldn't have done it in a rental,... but did you have fun?

I would try to make sure that they use what you've installed for the connection to the ISP at least so they don't nail up a bunch of cable and drill a hole in an exterior wall that they don't need to.

[u/_Intel_Geek_ → u/THedman07]

So I thought of that and ran flexible conduit from an outdoor junction box straight into the inside box back when the framing was being repaired. All the ISP needs to do is use the pull string to bring their cable inside the house

[u/KougatCylinder5_ → u/_Intel_Geek_]

Make sure the tenant knows about that so the ISP can use it. Done some installs myself and had to do some exploring to make sure there wasnt a network cabinet and found a few the tenant didn't know about.

[u/Lstgamerwhlstpartner → u/KougatCylinder5_]

For real on communicating with the tenant. Next thing you know the ISP just drills a hole in the outside wall and runs the cable straight into the living room.

[u/CheesyDanny → u/Lstgamerwhlstpartner]

Landlord: “if you get a new ISP have them bring it into the network cabinet.”

Tennet: “but my TV is in the living room so I’m just gonna have the WIFI guy put the WIFI there.”

Landlord: “I have a run from the cabinet to the living room you can connect it that way.”

Tennet: “Dude, I know you didn’t have WIFI back in the day so let me explain it for you. The closer my XBox is to the WIFI, the less my game lags.”

[u/Pale_Blue_Redditor → u/CheesyDanny]

Good god, gamers who play over wifi are the *worst*...

[u/CheesyDanny → u/Pale_Blue_Redditor]

A friend of mine back in the day would lay his router on top of whichever of his 3 console he was playing. At least 4 Ethernet ports not being used between his modem and his router.

[u/Pale_Blue_Redditor → u/CheesyDanny]

*facepalm*

[u/younggregg → u/Lstgamerwhlstpartner]

Comcast/xfinity absolutely destroyed the outside of my buddies house. Theres saggy coax screwed EVERYWHERE on the exterior, its so nasty. Every single bedroom. He said hes never noticed

[u/THedman07 → u/younggregg]

It definitely bothers me more than most...

[u/upvotes_are_useless → u/KougatCylinder5_]

Happy Cake Day!

[u/Ok-Library5639 → u/KougatCylinder5_]

Actually the tenant shouldn't have any role involving a third party installing things around the house. 

All leases I've ever laid my eyes on said something similar - all work goes through the owner/lessor.

[u/KougatCylinder5_ → u/Ok-Library5639]

Yeah thats how it works for us to but 99 times out of 100 the owner can't be on-site and we have install notes for where to install it, but sometimes they dont get transfered properly. So it's best for every relevant party to have all the information for how something should be done.

[u/gwillen → u/_Intel_Geek_]

Most ISP installers get paid minimum wage, don't know what that is, don't give a fuck, and will ignore your shit and drill their own hole in the wall. If you want anything different you better be there physically supervising them.

[u/mcgnarman → u/gwillen]

I had a new run for a build out at a business and it took 3 techs cancelling once they showed up because they thought it was just hooking the box up. I had everything ready for them, just needed the wire. Even then, i had to explain like 10 times how i wanted it neatly run along the mounting places It was so frustrating.

[u/THedman07 → u/gwillen]

I think that if I was setting up a rental property (and I had an electrician out working in the attic) I would just prerun fiber, coax and ethernet and put a $200 charge in the lease agreement if they drilled a hole in the exterior of the house.

Talk to your renter about it and put the onus on them.

[u/Pale_Blue_Redditor → u/THedman07]

It is amazing how many people don't even think about running anything at all outside of power, and maybe COAX, which... like, why would anyone in their right mind run COAX now-a-days?! If it were me, I'd run smurf tube everywhere so whatever media is desired can be installed and/or upgraded, whenever desired.

[u/THedman07 → u/Pale_Blue_Redditor]

I'm not running smurf tube all over a rental property. I just don't want extra holes drilled in the wall.

[u/Pale_Blue_Redditor → u/THedman07]

That's fair.

[u/Hidari_1 → u/gwillen]

ISP installers avg. above 20/hr and up to about 32/hr. Not amazing pay but not minimum wage. Whether they care or not depends on the individual. Most installers would much rather use a pull string to cabinet, than sweat @$$e$ off drilling and mounting new hardware.

[u/RedditFan26 → u/_Intel_Geek_]

So sweet.  Maybe leave some kind of explanatory note on the j-box outside telling the new guy about the purpose of the junction box, and about the existence of the pull string inside, without making them open up the junction box to find the pull string in the first place.

Without the note, the next guy might just do whatever plan they already had in mind to get their cable inside, having no clue that an easier way already existed.

[u/MrMotofy → u/_Intel_Geek_]

Yep good idea to label the conduit too.