Questions on wiring - older house - (long rambling as well)

[mav 0]

The short version : When running CAT5 to POE powered IP cameras, is there any downside to coming out the third floor eaves/walls and down the house beside the potential reduction in the appearance of the house? The house has many windows and plenty of places to tuck and fasten wires along windows, trim, or downspouts. Is there any particular type of cat5 cabling I should use beyond outdoor/weather/yada? Do I need to mount the cameras on some sort of junction box or can I just direct mount and seal the connections with coax seal? Use a drip loop at the camera?

 

The Long version :

Well, I finally jumped in after using a lone Sharx camera for a long time and finding it useful for monitoring the house.

I'm going the Hikvision/Swann/Lorex IP 1080p route - looks like 6 bullets and 2 domes (just 2 bullets right now). I have Blue Iris running on a dual processor box which I'm hoping with direct to disc, I'll be able to support 8 1080p cameras - if not, I'll spring for another Blue iris license or use the Lorex NVR for some of the less important cameras. I have a few mostly idle computers anyway. I've got an 8 port POE switch but may need another one or two depending on how much I split up the wiring.

 

House is a 40' x 40' square with four entrances - front, right side, and two along back (one to first floor and one to basement) and a covered front porch and covered back stoop. We have a detached garage in the back, but I'm more focused on the house at this point.

 

With respect to wiring, I have relatively free access to the basement and 3rd floor eaves of the house - (these eaves would be about 25' to 28' from the ground). On the outside of the house, about the height of the second floor, there is a small 1 foot overhang with about 6 inches of height. These overhangs are 14'-15' off the ground. I assume I will be placing some bullets or domes as they're well protected and somewhat inconspicuous. I haven't tested to see if they vantage point is too high. If so, that's going to throw a wrench in my yet to be well-laid plans.

 

The easiest way for me to run cat5 would be to come out the outside of the house around the eaves and run down the walls along downspouts or windows to the camera points at the 15' outcropping. There are also some internal closets I could run from the unfinished 3rd floor areas down into the closet space on the second floor and out the wall. I would still likely need to go some distance along the outside of the house in most cases. My last option is to try to drill down from the third floor unfinished areas to inside the second floor plaster walls and then out to the various camera points. Coming up from the basement doesn't work as the outside walls are plaster directly on brick. Most likely, I will end up doing a combination of running cat5 down from the third floor and for a few cameras I'll run down inside the closets and out from the second floor.

 

I still need to layout the camera placement. 8 may not be enough, but it should be a good start. Any opinion on # inside vs outside? Should I save 2 cameras for the inside? I'm more inclined to use <$100 IP cameras splattered around the house just to see what's going on while I'm home or away.

 

Thanks!