sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring cat 5 existing or cat 6 rewire?

I have an existing customer moving to a new location. There is some remodeling taking place, but there are about 12 locations that were wired with 2 data and 1 voice, all older cat 5 that the contractor has pulled up out of the walls and has coiled up at the ceiling. I'd like input from the forum on whether to scrap all cabling and replace with new (cat 6), or reuse the existing cat 5 (not 5 e) original. With the economy the way it is I'm trying to save the customer some money, but I don't want to restrict his bandwidth ability with old cat 5. This is also assuming that the contractor hasn't damaged the cable. Thanks for your input.

The bandwidth would probably not be an issue. However, if the cables have been pulled up, I would consider running all new cable, just to make sure everything works when you're done.

I would run this by the customer. Explain the situation and how the existing cable's may be damaged. Provide pricing on: re-wire vs. re-use. Let them decide.

Did you do the original install of this cat5 cable? If not, you have something else to consider: was the cable properly installed in the first place?

I would surmise that if the cables were moved and coiled up that the framing has changed - I don't see a reason to remove them otherwise. If that's the case, there's a good chance that the existing cables will not reach their new locations.

The GC may have taken care in wrapping up the cables, but probably whacked off all of your working slack at the jack end. I would guess that somewhere there is a pile of keystones and jacks with 6" of cat5 still attached to them.

Without knowing more about the building and the customer's needs, it would be hard to say. Generally, I am leery of using existing cabling, especially if it has been partially removed.

Short story: back in '07, I wired up the majority of the guest rooms in a 168 room "old work" hotel. When I got to the 1st floor, the owner decided to completely remodel the place, so the GC removed all of my cable from the rooms and coiled it in the ceiling. He was pretty careful, but not careful enough. There were whacked and crushed cables, and combined with the layout changes we had roughly 55,000ft of worthless cable that was never used and less than two years old.

Jack

FYI, you might want to slap an end on, while they're coiled up and test a few random ones... it'll give you an idea of what you are working with.

I would re-run the lot of cabling. The cables could have been yanked, nicked, broken internally and/or sliced.

This will save you future headaches if something would go wrong. Saving your reputation in the process.

If you have an expensive Fluke cable tester you could cap the ends like MacOSX stated it would give you a very accurate account of the cables condition, but if you just have a regular end tester I wouldn't chance it.

Do what 6String said and then take the remaining cable and turn it in for scrap.

That's just my personal opinion.

See 800.2 and 800.25 in the NEC regarding abandoned cable. If it's not in use and won't be used then it must be removed.

They enforce that is this area.

Here's a quick update on what finally transpired.

The building owner agreed that we could reuse the existing cable and we would run 4 cat6 drops for segment feeds from the rack in the mechanical room to the server location in a small office. By the way the existing cable was fine, the real issue was that it was cat5 and not cat5e.....Okie Dokie...... but wait.... the CG (the owners brother) decided on 3 more cat6 drops.....no wait....a total of 21 more cat6 drops for the data network.
Now we have a "Cisco Network". One for the phones and another for the data!
It's only money.....

I have certified some really old CAT5 cable at different places, which if terminated normally, will usually pass all the criteria for CAT5E compliance and gigabit ethernet.

What would you do if it were your office??.......i know i would reuse the old ones and save a ton of money and no one would ever know the difference.

Cat 5 is more than adequate for the vast majority of customers today....factor in that gigabit ethernet will work with cat 5 or cat 5e and cat 6 isn't even giving you a leg up on future needs....just costing you $.