Wiring – How to run single ethernet (no PoE) in trench through garden

Concrete walls typically have conduits where all wiring passes (edit: as pointed out by @alx9r, this might not always be the case. Sometimes wiring is cast directly into the concrete). This allows you to add additional wires to the same conduits, but doesn't help if you need to pass a wire between two places that don't have a conduit already in the wall.

Whether or not you can use the existing conduits is both a matter of convenience (are there existing conduits from and to the place you want to run the Ethernet cabling) and of wiring code - is it allowed to run Ethernet (low voltage) cabling along side other cables - high voltage (110/220 V), phone lines, TV coaxial cables, etc.

If there are no existing conduits you can use, you'd need to consider several options (all pictures from Google Images):

1. Run the cable along the walls, often by the skirting boards. The cable can be attached with clips to the wall. This method is easiest, cheapest and fastest, but people often don't like cables running visibly around the house and if the cables aren't properly secured they might be a tripping hazard.

   

2. Run the cables in plastic channels that are attached to the walls. This is similar to number 1, only that the channels help hold the cable better and are probably more aesthetic.

   

3. Run new conduits in the wall. This is done by carving a channel in the wall (called "wall chasing"), placing a plastic conduit in the channel, mortaring the conduit in place and patching up the channel on top of the conduit. As can be imagined, this is hard work (especially for long distances), very dirty (especially if grinding disc cutters are used to score the channel) and must be done carefully to avoid hitting other cables and pipes already in the wall. However, this will give the best aesthetic result.

   

If a conduit is used, fishing the new cable through the conduit is done either using preexisting cables in the conduit or with a fish tape. The new cable is attached to the preexisting cable or the fist tape (after pushing the fish tape through the conduit to the other side) and then pulled until the new cable is fully in the conduit. From my experience, if you have cables already in the conduit, it is much easier to pull them completely out and then fish the entire bundle (old cable/cables together with new Ethernet cable) back into the conduit.

Finally, Cat6 doesn't give that much of a difference in the common house over Cat5e - the extra shielding is useful with lots of cables running close together and for long distances. For home use spans are usually much shorter than the maximum 100 meters defined for Ethernet and there are only a few cables running side by side. However, Cat6 is much stiffer than Cat5e, making it quite challenging to fish it through conduits.

You will want to limit the voltage drop in your DC distribution wiring to 5% or less of the 12V. That would be equivalent to a 0.6V drop. An online wire size calculator suggests that for 600 feet at 3A that you would need to use 1 AWG copper wire.

Cost of that size wire suggests that you may want to consider distributing the AC mains voltage instead and converting to 12VDC at the load points. The reason being is that the amount of voltage drop in the wiring follows the amount of current through the wire. 30-40W at a line level voltage results in less than 0.5A down the wire and 5% voltage drop at 120VAC_rms makes room for a larger allowable voltage drop than the 0.6V at 12V. The net result is that a much more reasonable wire size can be utilized.

If you use optical fiber cables they could be in the same conduit as DC cables. You may want to separate them from AC mains cabling just because it seems like a good idea to keep AC mains by itself.