People either want one socket behind the TV or a plate on every wall. The useful number sits in the middle: the rooms that earn a cable, plus the access points that make WiFi honest.
This is a companion to is Ethernet worth it and Cat5e vs Cat6. The service is data cabling.
Start with devices that hate WiFi
Cable these first, even in a small house:
- Home office. Video calls, VPN, a desktop. One point, two if you also have a printer that you actually use.
- Main TV wall. Streamers and consoles. Stops the 4K buffer when someone joins a call.
- Access points. One run each. This is the backbone of whole home WiFi.
- CCTV recorder. The switch and NVR should not WiFi themselves. Cameras then take their own PoE runs.
Everything else is optional until you live with the first set.
The office is the one that pays for the visit in the first week. A laptop on WiFi will look fine until the rest of the house starts streaming and the call pixelates. A wired desk does not care what the kitchen is doing.
The TV wall is the same idea in the evening. Consoles and 4K sticks are greedy, and they sit a long way from the under-stairs router on most Berkshire semis. A plate behind the set, not a powerline adapter behind a plant pot, is the fix.
Access points are not “another socket”. They are the reason the bedrooms work. One Cat6 per AP, home-run to the switch, is the highest value copper in the house. Skip that and you have paid for plates that do not fix the thing you booked us for.
CCTV is a separate count. Each PoE camera is a run. The recorder wants to sit with the switch, not on a wireless hop in a spare room. If cameras are in the brief, we count them on the same drawing as the APs.
Room by room, without the fantasy patch panel
Hall cupboard or under-stairs. This is often where the broadband lands. It wants a small cabinet or at least a switch, not a spaghetti of powerline adapters. If the router must stay here, AP cables still need to leave it.
Kitchen. Rarely needs a wall plate. Phones and speakers will stay on WiFi. An AP nearby, in a ceiling or landing, does more than a socket above a toaster.
Living room. TV wall, yes. Every alcove, no.
One plate at the TV is the job. A second plate on the opposite wall is how you pay for plastic that never sees a patch lead. If you have two TVs that actually get used, say so. We will cable both. We will not cable the decorative fireplace.
Bedrooms. Work/gaming rooms yes. Spare rooms: one point if we are there anyway, especially in a house you might sell to people who WFH.
A teenager on a desktop is an office. A guest room that is empty eleven months a year is not, unless the loft is already open and the drop is cheap. We would rather add that spare drop while we are there than come back after you turn it into a study.
Loft. Not a living space, but the AP often lives on the ceiling below it. The cable is in the loft. You do not need a pretty plate in the rafters.
Garage. Useful for a camera, a workshop AP, or an EV charger that wants a LAN. Not useful as a “just in case” in a damp corner with no device.
Garden office. A real room. Cable plus AP. Mesh across the lawn is how Teams calls die. Town pages: Windsor garden office WiFi and the garden office hub.
How this maps to house size
A two-bed flat in Slough might need two AP runs and one desk point. A five-bed in Ascot might need four APs, an office, two TVs, CCTV home-runs, and a cabin. The WiFi setup by home size article is the wireless half of the same design.
Do not copy an office structured-cabling spec into a house. Dual sockets at every desk is a commercial pattern.
House size is a starting point, not a kit. A long, thin terrace can need more APs than a compact square four-bed because the radio has to travel through more walls. A detached house with a usable loft is often easier to cable than a smaller flat with no void and a communal hallway.
Dual plates, PoE and “future proofing”
A dual plate in the office is cheap while the plaster is open. A dual plate in every bedroom is how you pay for plastic you will never patch.
PoE is for APs and cameras, not for a lamp. Those runs go to the switch, not to a random wall plate that then needs another cable.
Future proofing that works: Cat6, labelled, tested, with a couple of spare loft tails tied off for an extra AP. Future proofing that does not: Cat8, 24 empty plates, and no switch.
The spare loft tail is the trick people forget. If we leave two extra Cat6 ends coiled and labelled in the loft, adding an AP later is a ceiling cut and a terminate, not a second survey through insulation. That is real future proofing. A dual plate in the downstairs toilet is not.
PoE runs should be home-runs. An AP that “picks up power from a nearby plate” is a story that ends with a midspan injector on a windowsill. Cameras the same. Count them back to the cabinet, not to the nearest spare socket.
If you think you might add CCTV next year, say so while we are in the loft. A couple of outdoor-rated tails to soffit positions is cheaper than opening the house twice. We will not pull twelve empty camera runs “just in case”. We will pull the ones that match a plausible camera plan.
How we count on a survey
We walk the house, mark AP positions first, then desks and TVs, then cameras. You get a number and a drawing, not a vibe. That happens on data cabling in Windsor, Slough, Maidenhead, Reading and Virginia Water.
If you already know the room list, send it with photos of the loft hatch. We will tell you if you are over-wiring.
AP positions come first because they decide whether the WiFi brief is even possible. A beautiful office plate does not save a house whose only AP idea is the ISP router under the stairs.
Then we stand in the rooms you actually work and watch in. Desk against which wall. TV on which chimney breast. We mark the plate where the furniture already wants to live, not where a floor plan looks symmetrical.
Cameras last, because they are outdoor routes and PoE, and they should share the same cabinet. If the camera brief is “maybe later”, we still look at soffits so the spare tails, if any, are in honest places.
You should leave the survey with a count you can read: APs, desks, TVs, cameras, garden. Not “a few points”. If the number feels high, we will show you which ones are optional. If it feels low, we will show you which rooms will still be on WiFi, on purpose.
A sample count for a 4-bed in Maidenhead
Incoming under the stairs: cabinet or at least a switch. Two AP drops, landing and rear ground floor. Office: dual plate. Sitting room TV wall: single plate. Loft room if it is used for work: single plate. CCTV: however many cameras, home-run to the same cabinet. Garden office: one outdoor-rated run and an AP inside the cabin.
That is not twenty plates. It is a network. The spare bedroom can wait unless we are already in the loft with the drum open, in which case one extra drop is cheap insurance.
Compare that with a two-bed flat in Uxbridge: maybe one AP and one desk. West London WiFi is a different count, not a smaller version of Ascot.
What not to cable
Lamps, random alcoves, and “the kids might want it” on every wall. Those plates become unused plastic. Put the money into AP backhaul and the office. If you later need a point, adding Ethernet is still possible.
Powerline, MoCA, and “the coax will do” are conversations we will have if the building forces them. They are not the default in a house we can loft.
Do not cable a socket for a printer you unplugged in 2019. Do not cable both sides of a bed “so we can choose”. Pick the side the desk will live on. Do not cable the cloakroom.
Smart speakers, thermostats and doorbells live on WiFi. They are not a reason for a plate. If the smart home is dropping off, that is a WiFi design problem, not a missing socket above the skirting.
A whole-house “data point on every wall” spec is what you copy from an office fit-out. In a home it is cost, dust, and plates you will put pictures over. We would rather you spend the visit on routes that work, labels that make sense, and a switch you can patch without a torch.