Looking into home CCTV

[neonplanet40]

So, still researching this. Being quoted £500 for other companies to come and fit the cameras etc so seems like I could save money by doing it myself.

I have decided:

Cameras will be fitted to soffit around house. As such, I can wire them in through the roof space. As such, the cable won't be going outside so I am likely looking at Cat6 ethernet cabling.

What I need to know, however, is how do you cut and terminate your own ethernet cable? I've never done this before. What kind of equipment will I need to do it right? I have seen kits on cable money that was around £100. It seems a bit high... so thought I would ask on here.

Also, where do you recommend buying ladders? For me to reach my eaves I'll need a very tall ladder, which I don't currently have

Thanks!

[Saracen999]

.... so seems like I could save money by doing it myself

Indeed you can, but ..... you knew there was one coming, didn't you.


We've just had a decorator in, for a bit over three weeks. Bear with me, there's a point.

I could have saved money by doing it myself. But :-

- it would have taken me a lot more than three weeks
- she knew what paints would work best where .... and where best to get them
- she had tools (rollers) and materials (types of masking tape, etc) I'd never heard of
- I learned a lot just by watching her technique
- she got an excellent finish I'd have struggled to match
- when a couple of issues arose she knew how to handle them. I didn't.
- she already had the right ladders, steps, etc
- in the event of catastrophe, she was fully insured.

Perhaps the single biggest difference was her sander. Now, I could have gone and bought the identical sander, a Festool unit, with dust extractor, but at a cost of about £800. That wasn't her only specialised tool, but the most obvious. I can't justify buying that mind of tool for occasional domestic use, but using any sander/extractor I've ever had would be nowhere near as effective at dust extraction. Which would mean much more time masking, sheeting and cleaning up. Every day.

And, of course, if I'd done it myself, that was 23 days of about 6 hours/day I couldn't be doing something else .... .like working, to pay for a professional to do it.

All told, it cost me about £15/hour (excluding paint), and that's not accounting for the cost of sanding sheets, frog tape, etc, which is included in that £15/hr. I can earn more than that working, and I reckon it would have taken me at least 50% longer than her, maybe even double the time, and probably got an inferior finish to boot,.

My point, and I'm sure you knew it anyway, is that sometimes, DIY to save money can be a false economy. Also, it was stress and effort-free.

Just sayin'.

[peterb]

Firstly do you need cat 6? If you are useing PoE you are using two cores for power and the will reduce the bandwidth straight off. PoE on cat 5 will also reduce BW to 100Mb/s which will be sufficient.

Tooling - if you are using sockets/patch panels you will need a punch down tool say £15-£20 pounds. Life will be a LOT simpler with a dedicated sheath stripper day £10. Tools for plugs vary enormously in price and quality. Expect to pay £25 to £50 for a decent one.

Have a look at Cablemonkey or CPC.

By the time you have bought that and a ladder (Screwfix or Toolstation) you might think that the commercial installation route might be worth another look.

Of course if you have other projects in mind where the tools are useful, it is an investment and a ladder is also useful.

BUT. LADDERS ARE DANGEROUS you can do yourself serious/life changing/lifethteatening/fatal injuries with a relatively small fall from a ladder. Working at height should not be undertaken lightly or alone.

[Saracen999]

+1 on Peter's ladder comments.

Mind you, a mate of mine worked up and down ladders for years, and not a scratch. Then, broke his ankle stepping off a chair while changing a light bulb in his own hallway. I might have teased him just a smidge about that.

[spacein_vader]

Cat 6 also has less flex and a far more restrictive bend radius which might make getting them into fiddly areas harder.

[neonplanet40]

Thanks, everyone. I had only thought to use Cat6 in case I changed in the future and needed the higher bandwidth.

REgarding the DIY vs professional, I agree. I haven't decided either way yet. I just want to get an idea of the total cost and then decide. If the costs are similar then I may get the professional.

Although having a large ladder would be good for cleaning the cameras in the future of webs etc, also cleaning the gutters and cutting back the tree.

[peterb]

I agree with you about the other uses of a ladder, but you might want to consider a scaffolding tower. Much much safer and break down into relatively small pieces although probably take up a bit more space.

You can use it in a small form indoors (great for painting ceiling) as well as outdoors.

They cost more but they are an investment. Make sure it is aluminium though - for lightness.

This might be suitable (you obviously need to check heights)

https://www.scaffold-tower.co.uk/Min...olding_Towers/

Good for painting or mainting soffits - and of the height is OK, clearing gutters.

[peterb]

One other thing - you are up a ladder, two feet on the rungs, one hand holdin on the ladder for safety. That gives you one hand free to do the work.

And then you drop something - so back the ground and that might make you a bit grumpy - especially after the second time - and that’s when you might start to take risks like increasing the ladder angle and just standing on the rungs - and maybe the next thing to fall is ..,.

I don’t want to be alarmist, but accidents are rarely the result of on mistake - but regardless, the result is the same and was want to keep you safe. Safety has to be your priority.

And I’ll be honest - I’ve taken risks on ladders (in my youth) and luckily got away with it, but I now shudder to think what the consequence would have been if I hadn’t. I might have killed myself or ended up as a quadriplegic or paraplegic or broken bones or serious head injuries.

[neonplanet40]

Thank you. I'll need to measure height but I'm thinking it's a good 8m height I'd be needing. The scaffold towers for that height are far out of my price range.

I will (if I go down DIY route) ensure I keep safe. Thanks for the recommendations.

[Millennium]

+1 on Peter's ladder comments.

Mind you, a mate of mine worked up and down ladders for years, and not a scratch. Then, broke his ankle stepping off a chair while changing a light bulb in his own hallway. I might have teased him just a smidge about that.

+2 on the ladder comments if you want cameras 8m up my pea brain says to pay a professional.

I broke my ankle at the local late-night music spot last year. Dancing too hard and the wrong new shoes. Don't try and break in shoes clubbing folks!
Feel free to rib me for this in future.

Thanks for the interesting question. How much of a deterrent is a dummy camera going to be? How much would an alarm system cost for a 1 bed basement (of a house) flat say I do go for Verisure in the future.

links are the future folks. Berners Lee was spot on. I am really shocked that instagram is buggy on android and both the android and windows (web) twitter clients seem to lack proper ability to read a thread of comments. What has the world come to?

I recently found out that I too have dodgy neighbours so some diligence would be a good idea. Remember that big drugs ring bust in the news early last week? The 10 or so properties raided were in my Borough. Arrests local. Eek.

I do not have insurance and wouldn't know how to go about doing a risk assessment.

[circuitmonkey]

Funnily enough I've also been looking this.

We just got a puppy and I bought a reolink IP pan and tilt camera to keep an eye on her whilst we're out the room.

I'm not doing anything fancy with the footage at this point beyond viewing using the app, but the camera does have the ability to stream using RTSP, RTMP and ONVIF.
You can additionally back up to video to microSD and FTP shares

I've installed an motionEye docker to my unraid server but haven't had any luck as of yet with getting it to stream from the camera. I've not had much time to play with it at this point though, puppy play takes priority!

My future plan is to get an additional camera to cover the garden, and will probably stick with Reolink to keep in the same ecosystem.

In regards to installing your cameras on your soffits, if it's a 2+ story build (and it sounds like it is) you may want to consider the increased angle you'll get and how useful the top of someones head will be as well as the reduced pixel count across the face for identification due to the increased distance if they do indeed look up.

Mounting it lower (although still out of reach) may actually provide better results as well as being easier and safer to install. Cable management however is a different story, any you'll need to find some outdoor rated (there's probably a technical term) cable.

Food for thought

Good luck with your security endeavours

[neonplanet40]

Thank you for the reply. Regarding the height impact on the cameras. I had hoped, going for the 8mp cameras I would still be able to zoom in and get good detail? I'm still hmming and haaing over 2.8mm or4mm lenses.