Wiring – Should I have multiple cable runs for a room, or just one

wiring

My girlfriend is finishing up her basement and has set up a good layout for electrical outlets throughout the rooms (family room, bedroom, and office), but she's only accounted for a single coaxial cable run to each room for her ideal furniture arrangement. I talked her into at least running a phone line along with the cable to match the rest of her house (and at least an ethernet connection as well for when I move in to accommodate my geek projects), but I'm trying to talk her into more than one run per room. I've rented for several years and most apartments have at least 2 cable/telephone outlets on opposite walls/corners of the room to widen the options for furniture arrangements. Since she's looking at putting her place on the market in a few years I'm trying to convince her it will be a helpful selling point, but my Google-fu is failing me at finding supporting or negating evidence. Is there any evidence one way or the other, or are my geeky more-is-better ideas influencing me?

Best Answer

I doubt most buyers will even notice or care if it was pointed out to them. Today, everyone uses a cordless telephone, wifi for networking, and any cables are just run around the baseboard. And I say this as a geek that ran conduit through the walls when I redid my basement. Speaking of which, if you ever remodel (or build) something you plan to stay in, run conduit through the walls.

The key point you need to keep in mind is that it should be possible to get to a majority of the walls along the baseboard from your wall jacks without passing a door or closet. If a large wall could be used for a TV but requires running the wire over the door, then I'd put a second jack on that side.

My guess for apartment owners is that two jacks results in less wires over carpets or nails holding wires everywhere, so they do this more to reduce damage than to make your life easier.