Home network wiring — even in a finished two-story on a slab
Real wired drops for the office, the TVs and your Wi‑Fi access points, in a house that is already built. No crawl space is not a problem; it is the job we do most, and we were doing it before we were an electrical contractor.
Why most electricians say no to this job
The call usually goes like this: you just bought a two-story house on a slab, the Wi‑Fi dies upstairs or in the back bedroom, and you want hardwired ethernet to the office, the TVs and a couple of ceiling access points. You call an electrician and they either pass or quote something that assumes a crawl space.
On a slab there is no underneath. Every cable has to go up into the attic and back down inside the walls. Reaching a second-floor room from the attic is straightforward. Reaching a first-floor room is not: between the first-floor ceiling and the second-floor subfloor there is roughly two feet of framing — the top plates of the lower wall, the floor joists and rim, and the bottom plate of the upper wall — and nothing passes through it without an opening. Add fire blocking and the occasional unexpected beam and you can see why people walk away.
We do not walk away. The company started in structured cabling, and fishing cable through finished houses in Raeford, Fayetteville and the Sandhills is a skill we kept when the electrical side took off. Done right it is a one- or two-day job with a handful of small, clean openings that disappear under paint.
Four steps, no surprises
Walk-through and drop plan
We walk the house with you and agree on exactly where each drop lands: the office desk, behind each TV, ceiling spots for Wi‑Fi access points, the doorbell and any cameras. We pick where the cables home-run to — a closet media enclosure or a small rack — and where the internet comes into the house.
Pathway
We map the route for every run before anyone cuts anything: attic access, which wall cavities are open, where the floor system has to be crossed, and whether an exterior conduit run is cleaner than opening a wall. The goal is the fewest openings in the least visible places.
Fish, pull, patch
Small, square access openings — typically in a closet, behind a door or above a baseboard — let us drill the plates and fish the cable from the attic down to the second floor, through the floor system and down to the first-floor box. We pull Cat6 or Cat6A, then patch every opening mud-ready for paint.
Terminate, test, label
Keystone jacks at the wall plates, a patch panel or enclosure at the head end, every run tested and labeled at both ends. You get a port map, and anything you plug in just works at full speed.
Typical drops in a retrofit
- Home office — a wired desk that never drops a video call
- TVs, consoles and streaming boxes
- Ceiling drops for Wi‑Fi access points — the real fix for dead spots
- Doorbell and camera drops (pathway and cable; system by you or your installer)
- Moving the fiber or cable modem to a sensible spot
- A closet media enclosure or small rack with a patch panel
- Detached garage, shop or outbuilding link
- Pre-wire in new construction, before the drywall goes up
What to expect
Most houses take one to two days. We leave drywall patches sanded and mud-ready, so your painter (or you) can finish them to match. If you send a photo of the house and a list of the rooms you want wired, we can usually give you a number before we come out.
Cable is Cat6 by default, Cat6A if you want 10-gigabit headroom. Every run is tested and labeled, and we are happy to hang your access points if you already have them.
Wiring a finished house, answered
Would a mesh Wi-Fi system fix this instead?
Sometimes, for a while. Mesh nodes that talk to each other wirelessly share the same crowded air that is failing you now. The reliable version of mesh is access points with a wired backhaul — which is exactly the ceiling drops we run. One or two wired access points usually cover a two-story house better than four wireless nodes.
Will you have to cut my drywall?
In a two-story on a slab, almost always yes — a few small, square openings where the cable has to cross the floor system between stories, placed in closets or low on walls where they are easy to hide. We patch them mud-ready. A single-story house or a second-floor-only run often needs no openings at all.
Do you paint the patches?
We leave them patched, sanded and ready for primer and paint, and we can point you to a painter. Matching your existing color and sheen is a painter's job, and we would rather you not pay electrician rates for it.
Cat6 or Cat6A?
Cat6 handles 1-gigabit everywhere and 10-gigabit on shorter runs, which covers almost every home. Cat6A guarantees 10-gigabit on every run and is a modest upcharge; worth it if you work from home with large files or want the house to be done for good.
Do you do this for one-story houses and new construction too?
Yes. Single-story homes on a slab are the same approach with less fishing, and houses with a crawl space are easier again. In new construction we pre-wire before the drywall, which is the cheapest time to do it by far.
What areas do you cover for this?
Raeford, Fayetteville, Fort Bragg, Hope Mills, Spring Lake and the surrounding Hoke, Cumberland, Harnett and Sampson county area. For commercial and military data work, see structured cabling.
Want it wired right, once?
Book a walk-through online, or send a photo of the house and the rooms you want wired to [email protected] for a number.