WiFi in old house

Horn&corn · Feb 17, 2024

We’re struggling to get proper wifi round the old farmhouse. Presumably thick walls aren’t helping.
Boosters don’t seem to make sufficient difference.
Does it work to run the wifi through the house wiring or is that also going to struggle with the size of the property and distance involved.
Please help my grumpy teenagers

br jones · Feb 17, 2024

Horn&corn said:
We’re struggling to get proper wifi round the old farmhouse. Presumably thick walls aren’t helping.
Boosters don’t seem to make sufficient difference.
Does it work to run the wifi through the house wiring or is that also going to struggle with the size of the property and distance involved.
Please help my grumpy teenagers

Hard wired is always better, but some boosters will work thru the the house wiring ,tp link etc

linga · Feb 17, 2024

Horn&corn said:
We’re struggling to get proper wifi round the old farmhouse. Presumably thick walls aren’t helping.
Boosters don’t seem to make sufficient difference.
Does it work to run the wifi through the house wiring or is that also going to struggle with the size of the property and distance involved.
Please help my grumpy teenagers

I put Devolo range extenders( think that’s what they are called) which work via the house wiring. It seems to work for me ok.
I believe there can be issues if the wiring is especially complex.

Boysground · Feb 17, 2024

Old house here with thick walls so in the same position as @Horn&corn. I have tried everything over the years. From cheap to expensive. Cheap extenders and power line type next to useless. I now have a linksys mesh system which works but i wouldn’t recommend. The app to control it is very clunky and it takes ages. But now i am invested so don’t really want to start again. I have 5 boxes where i should only need about 3x

The best thing to do is cable. I have fttp, a couple of years ago i put cables from the router in my office at one end of the house trough to 2 rooms. I have a lynksys box attached to a cable and also a feed straight to my tv. This is the best solution here, 90% of my tv viewing is over the internet. And most of the time wifi is good.

So my advice is as much cable as you can fit and decent access points.

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Romeogolf · Feb 17, 2024

@Horn&corn we have recently experienced this dilemma in a property of the same type. BT hub and 4 extenders have worked for us, BT contract grantees a speed of wifi in every room and so is obliged to keep sending boosters until that is achieved. Central placing of main hub and experimenting where to place the extenders took a bit of thinking but now very pleased with result. Wiring would be less cluttered, but no small task in old houses.

David. · Feb 17, 2024

We have a new Linksys, and I think Jeff Bezos can have it back. Third pup is constantly flashing red and it is only the other side of a thick stone wall from the kitchen one.

Boysground · Feb 17, 2024

David. said:
We have a new Linksys, and I think Jeff Bezos can have it back. Third pup is constantly flashing red and it is only the other side of a thick stone wall from the kitchen one.

That is what happens here. I can put 2 boxes at the top and bottom of the stairs, connection at the bottom and nothing at the top. From other thread on here i think i should have bought Ubiquity

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upnortheast · Feb 17, 2024

If using the BT extender discs they can be connected by Cat5 wire if unable to talk to each other with wireless signal.
We have 2 houses 100 m apart then another wireless bridge to the farm office connected this way

To the OP Have you tried putting extenders in the loft, so the signal is coming down through floors.
Generally works better than trying to go through walls

Timbo · Feb 17, 2024

Horn&corn said:
We’re struggling to get proper wifi round the old farmhouse. Presumably thick walls aren’t helping.
Boosters don’t seem to make sufficient difference.
Does it work to run the wifi through the house wiring or is that also going to struggle with the size of the property and distance involved.
Please help my grumpy teenagers

Proper mesh system. Multiple access points in strategic positions with cat5 linking them back to router.

Ubiquity or similar. Proper system will allow you to roam from one ap to another seamlessly.

Edit Netgear Orbi is also very good.

Do it properly or not at all. Yes you'll need to run cat5, yes there could be some minor redecorating.

Run extra cat5 to key locations Whilst your at it. Hardwiring is always preferable to wifi for stationary devices.

Timbo1080 · Feb 17, 2024

Somerset Long House here, with 3-4' thick walls. The only solution i ended up being happy with with was:

Broadband supplier router as close to where the FTTP/FTTC comes into the house.
Ubiquiti Unifi PoE Switch connected to the router.
Cat5 cable runs from switch to Ubiquiti Unifi Wireless Access Points.

Access points placed upstairs, on the ceiling facing down. (The WiFi shouldn't struggle to go through floors, so one WAP will cover the upstairs and downstairs of each area)
One access point per zone in the house (I.e. 1 WAP in each area that is surrounded by thick walls).

I used Unifi AC-Lite Wireless access points where I located them on the ceilings on the upstairs rooms, but just yesterday I did a similar installation in a pair of semi detatched 3' thick walled cottage, and placed 1 Unifi Long Range Access Point (Much more powerful than the AC-Lite WAPs) in the loft (As per @upnortheast ), which has covered both properties, and most of the garden!

It is really easy to do, and all meshes together really well, so there are no dropouts when moving around the house. Maybe the kids can do the crawling around in the loft space to run the cat5? That's the worst part!

Good luck,

Tim

Edit: Just as @Timbo says too....!

steveR · Feb 17, 2024

I had Cat 5 to every room when we did the house rebuild. Then use wireless access points about the house as needed.

I have seen of one property where wiFi from the router was no use and they had an issue with the powerline extenders, and ran cat5 around the house, then popped the cable through a small hole in the wondow and then used a wireless access point plugged into the Cat5.

Just started using Starlink and had read that the base unit was "wonderful and had great range..." Pile of crap is my take so far, and it will be hooked up to my existing Router tomorrow and feed the house network and external Ubiquity wireless access point on the roof.

pycoed · Feb 17, 2024

You can get BT Hubs for a couple of quid each on Ebay. The old ones e.g. BTHub 1,2 or3 will do fine. I used some BT3s. Get some powerline adapters – again used BT adapters are dead cheap on Ebay. Then follow the instructions here for the hubs:-
https://www.filesaveas.com/jarviser/repeaterhubswired.html
or

Using a BT Home Hub as a Wireless Extender

Repurpose an old BT Home Hub into a Wireless Extender to beat Wi-Fi deadspots for free.

owenkelly.uk

Plug a cat5 cable from each hub into the relevant powerline adapter & you’ll have additional wifi coverage wherever the BT Hubs sit.

I have 3 set up like this & it works well for me with a 31” stone wall between the main router & living rooms! Previously wifi was available only on one side of the house.

Timbo1080 · Feb 17, 2024

Just a note on the ring main access points…..they do work very well, BUT, they ONLY work on the ring main that the router is plugged into…..Many old houses have several different rings. Ours, for example, has 4.

Edited to say….I don’t know whether it is possible to daisy chain between rings.

pycoed · Feb 17, 2024

I'm pretty sure I have two separate downstairs ring circuits with adapters on... it's too comfortable in front of the woodburner at the mo to go and check

Derrick Hughes · Feb 17, 2024

My bother used the power cables to boost the Internet around the house

Timbo1080 · Feb 17, 2024

pycoed said:
I'm pretty sure I have two separate downstairs ring circuits with adapters on... it's too comfortable in front of the woodburner at the mo to go and check

That will work where the plug WAPs can talk to each other by WiFi….but if the walls between WAPs are too thick & the plugs are on different rings, it won’t work (as far as I know, since they won’t have any physical or WiFi connection)

Exfarmer · Feb 18, 2024

If you have BT hub , that is the start of your issues.
plug a Netgear router in to the back placing this as central as possible. Then use netgear extenders they take little setting up but let the kids do that. If you can use cabling to extend to other points all well and good as that is the fastest. Probably best for the tv if that is used for gaming etc.

Hampton · Feb 18, 2024

I’ve got one of these which works great.
It’s important to remember however that you are still dividing the same broadband speed around the house.
For example, the Netflix and prime on the tv are running on Wi-Fi, but the Xbox upstairs is plugged into the top link. Therefore if the kids decide to download something, the Xbox takes priority which reduces bandwidth to the tv (which can be quite annoying).
That’s my only gripe. Other than that it works brilliantly.

Hampton · Feb 18, 2024

Actually, I’ve thought of one more.
Due to thick walls I have to use Wi-Fi calling on mobile in house.
If I walk around the house, it can affect the call as it the tp-link has its own password etc which the phone links up to.
Not sure I’ve explained that very well.

David. · Feb 18, 2024

Hampton said:
I’ve got one of these which works great.
It’s important to remember however that you are still dividing the same broadband speed around the house.
For example, the Netflix and prime on the tv are running on Wi-Fi, but the Xbox upstairs is plugged into the top link. Therefore if the kids decide to download something, the Xbox takes priority which reduces bandwidth to the tv (which can be quite annoying).
That’s my only gripe. Other than that it works brilliantly.

Had one of those and it is just as good as new Linksys tbh.

WiFi in old house

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100% I’ve had enough of farming!

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