Tips/advice/resource for running ethernet and cable while walls are completely open

wondering if anyone can share some tips or advice.  My walls are open and i'm looking to expand both my fios cable and hardwire (homerun) several rooms with ethernet for improved video streaming.  Contractor/electrician seems hesitant to take on....and i don't really want to invest the $$ for an AV consult for something so minimal.  Feel generally comfortable running the wires (none extend much more than 100 ft) and drilling out where necessary.  Just looking to see if any veterans have advice...thx

Use a good staple gun. Be careful not to run a staple through the cable.

Use the highest quality cable you can, such as Cat 6, because while you may not need it yet, you can expect to pump higher speed data through the cables in the future.

When wiring jacks, use the T568B pinout as this article says, as it is more common. The article is pretty good, so you should follow it. Get all the tools it mentions, as they pay off.

You should strongly consider having the wiring hub of your house in one location such as your basement. Have each run of cable be a "home run" which means it runs from home to the room, i.e. not from room to room. This will save a tremendous amount of trouble in the future.

Label your cables at each end. Don't label them with location or device name. Use serial numbers which you make up. Then have a chart of which cable goes where. You just might reuse cables, and if you use names on labels, the labels become worse than useless.

This article is also very good and is much nicer looking than the other one, so read both of them fully. Also, search for more articles on wiring a house for ethernet.

thanks Tom_Reingold, exactly what i was looking for.

I've always thought that it would make sense to run the wires through conduit so that if you need to replace them (or run additional wires), it should be easier.

Why are ethernet wires not run through conduit? I don't know enough about the electrician trade to answer, but there must be a compelling reason, since I've never heard of it being done. The conduit would need to have few bends, because too many bends (and too much length) make it impossible to pull a cable through.

Tom_Reingold said:

Why are ethernet wires not run through conduit? I don't know enough about the electrician trade to answer, but there must be a compelling reason, since I've never heard of it being done. The conduit would need to have few bends, because too many bends (and too much length) make it impossible to pull a cable through.

Since they are low voltage, there is little risk of fire. Higher first cost to run them through conduit. 

Right.  Running Ethernet cable is fast and easy.  Buying, cutting, bending, and installing conduit would multiply the cost by a factor of 10.

In reality replacing a whole Ethernet cable is a pretty rare event, and conduit has it's own complications. The normal thing to do if you're paranoid would be to run extra cables. If one fails move to the next one. Most failures would usually be with the jack itself, or the punchdown coming loose, so normally you'd fix it by just taking it out of the jack, cutting a bit off the end and starting over.

Conduit can be used if you want it, but it's more expensive than just running a little extra cable, so it's usually only used if there's a more compelling need.

I wasn't thinking about it as a safety issues, but more as a convenience for upgrading.  As an example, if you originally installed Cat5 and wanted to upgrade to Cat6e, wouldn't it be easier to pull the new wire through conduit than bare holes?

Steve said:

I wasn't thinking about it as a safety issues, but more as a convenience for upgrading.  As an example, if you originally installed Cat5 and wanted to upgrade to Cat6e, wouldn't it be easier to pull the new wire through conduit than bare holes?

Of course, but again, the expense.

yes, clearly  

@cody2002, any progress?