DJMala

Probably a slightly weird question... does anyone know how much heat a Cat 5e or Cat 6 cable can tolerate before it fails?

A little background... My cable modem and router live in the living room on the first floor. My office is on the second floor. Ideally, I'd like to have a wired connection between the switch in my office and the router. Ideally, my wife would prefer if I don't make any more holes in the walls and floor than absolutely necessary (i.e. none).

There is a pipe running from the radiator in my office that goes exactly where I need to run the cable, through the wall into the guest room closet and then down into the living room closet, and there is enough of a gap to sneak a network cable through. The problem is that it is steam heat, so the pipes get red hot. I'm not sure of the temps, but borderline too hot to touch, definitely too hot to grab for any length of time.

The cable would most likely only need to contact the pipe where it passes through the wall and the floor. Will a standard cable tolerate this without damage? Is there any kind of "high temp" cable I can get?

Scorpion23

I'm not sure if you can get a special type of cable or not, but regular Cat5 has a PVC jacket. The melting point of PVC is 212°C, the glass transition temperature is around 80°C. So it's possible that over time, contact with a 100°C steam pipe may deform the cable enough to cause shorts.

Actually, I just looked at some cable that I have and it has a maximum temperature of 60°C stamped on it.

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Vitter

The insulating plastic would be the first part of the cable to have any problems, and under those temperatures I'm fairly certain it would melt and cause the cable to fail. How tight would the fit be? Would you be able to insert at least half an inch of insulating material between the pipe/cable? I imagine some small piece of sheetrock would do the trick.

DJMala

I just took a look, and I've got about a half inch total at best. The section that passes through the floor is probably a little tighter than that, so I think insulating material would be tricky at best.

Looks like I'll have to find another way. It wouldn't be so bad to mount a box on the wall and punch the cable through into the closet, then just a small hole in the floor to get downstairs. I just have to convince the wife I can do it without making a mess. The walls are plaster and lathe, which makes it a little trickier.

Failing that, I guess I can always get a WAP and set it up as a wireless bridge. I'm using my laptop the same way right now.

EDIT: Your mention of insulation got me thinking... would something like this protect the cable well enough?

debaser

I think the insulation you linked would be acceptable if the temperature wasn't constant. eventually you are going to heat through that and end up with the same temperatures on the cable. Have you tried searching for high temp CAT5?

http://www.awcwire.com/ProductSpec.aspx?id=Level-5-UTP

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vanblah

Tell your wife that doing it "right" requires you to pull it through the wall. With the right tools it won't be that big of a mess to go through plaster; and it just looks better than wires coming up out of the floor. I have remodeled two houses both of them with plaster walls. It's not that difficult.