I would suggest a further protection for UV . I am in South Africa and the sun is much harsher . I used a cover of damp proofing membrane, then damp proofing acrylic then 2 coats of normal external paint
Bit belt and braces but hopefully it will keep the cable safe
The improvement is well worth it
M8ec
Thanks @Mike_O_Neill although I am not sure I would get that past the other half! Plus the sun in the UK probably doesnāt quite match that in South Africa, think drizzleā¦
I am English with a good memory, have you ever been to Manchester ?
Standing joke about the Lake District ā¦ good job there are all those lakes to catch the water 
Mike
I have spent today adding in a patch panel after originally rejecting the idea. I decided to extend the network from my original run (living room to study) so a patch panel made sense. So, I now have my study connected, my lounge and today my spare room. I intend to add my kitchen next and then finally the rear bedroom.
I have found Roon much more stable since adding the network.
I am not sure though that I am connecting it all up correctly, I actually have good speeds, but need to think about whether its connected together as it should be. Currently its Fibre in>router (BT Smarthub with a single ethernet cable to the switch - all my other lounge stuff, ps4, amp all connects to this switch too)>Switch (lounge)>Patch panel (spare bedroom)>Switch (this has the Nuc attached and a Phillips Hue hub)>PC (study)/Spare room. I am not sure I am even doing a good job of describing it so apologies for any confusion.
Anyway, thanks again, I will keep updating as I add bits and if anyone has any useful network connection advice, thats much appreciated.
If you have Gigabit switches on both floors then you should be in good shape. You want to maximize the bandwidth between your servers upstairs and all the gear downstairs, since they all share the same link, which the GigE switches do.
Since youāve already done the hard part of connecting the two floors thereās not much need to go with mesh wireless. You could add a WiFi access point on each floor to cover any remaining rooms. Ubiquity makes some very good APs for this kind of setup, but they are targeted a bit towards professional use. Iāve setup a couple for a friend and it wasnāt too difficult, but I also have some experience with networking since the 80ās.
Feel free to drop me line if you have more questions, but youāre definitely on the right track for performance and most importantly reliability.
Hi @MenloBob, thanks for the comments. I do have Gigabit switches on both floors, and i think I will need a few more, at least one, for the kitchen as I may well end up adding a wifi/mesh point in the future. I also note your other point on Mesh networking; I actually have two devolo 1200 wifi homeplugs, which actually perform really well. I had some issues with the router wifi so I turned it off as a test and Roon has been so much better to control with just two Devolo plugs running, although I am not totally convinced on speed and they canāt get the signal far into the garden, so I may look again at other solutions at some point.
Back to the subject at hand. I have just convinced the other half that I need another Ethernet connection in the lounge. I can do this because I will bring the connection in through a toilet, directly underneath the cupboard pictured above. The toilet is due to be replastered in a few weeks so a great opportunity. If I do this, I am setting up the possibility of moving my whole lounge around, this means, the potential for a larger TV (currently at 49") and a larger stand/cupboard for kit, as the current one has to sit in an alcove to the right of a chimney. So a bit more drilling this weekend.
Cheers
If you do decide to go with mesh, look at Orbi. Unlike most mesh systems, each Orbi has a dedicated radio and high speed wifi channel dedicated for the inter-AP communication. Itās not as good as dedicated Cat6 between switches, but itās close.
Quite interested in doing this myself - had an electrician quote for the job, wiring cat6 to 10 rooms. He wanted Ā£8000 so I ,erm, decided not to do it. Impressed you are trying this yourself. I suppose itās not difficult, just time consuming and disruptive.
Home plugs for me - and I only get c.50Mbps from a 500Mbps homeplug. Hardly ever have any drop out, but thinking of upgrading a few end points to better DACs and upsampling.
If you are DIY proficient @jayrammusic then you can do this. I not exactly great, I can put up a picture hook, drill a hole etc, you donāt need much more to run your own Ethernet cabling. I think the key is just take a bit of time to understand what is going on and you should be fine. I suppose I have a couple of hundred of Ā£ās on cables (all purchased from Amazon), switches and patch panel and a few days to do it. My cables are basically like an exo-skeleton around the outside of my house, culminating in the cupboard above accessed via the loft.
