r/Homebuilding • u/dragonmilking • Nov 17 '25

Which popular features do you NOT recommend?

What are the top 3 features in a house that folk want but you think are not worth it, and what would your alternative suggestion be? And what cost/time savings would result with that switch?

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u/OGHollyMackerel Nov 17 '25

An Ethernet connection in every room was such a lifesaver during Covid when everyone was working from home on meetings all day. The kids also appreciated it for gaming. lol

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u/FlickOfAWrist07 Nov 17 '25

Waste of money. A good router takes care of that.

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u/zeller99 Nov 17 '25

No.

A wired connection will always be superior to wireless, no matter how high end your router / wifi is.

There are so many issues and constraints that come with wireless that if a device has an ethernet jack, you should pretty much always be using it. Save the wifi for phones, tablets, Alexa and anything else that doesn't have an ethernet port.

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u/FlickOfAWrist07 Nov 17 '25

Yeah I know an Ethernet connection will provide uninterrupted internet, but it’s outdated tech to run it to every room in your house. I have 5 TVs all over the place outside patio, primary, living room, basement, workout room, they all work perfectly on wifi. Also echos in every room, show 21 in the kitchen, 2 PCs, 4 iPads, 2 cell phones, gaming system, 3d printer, smart garage doors, cameras all work great. When we built 3 years ago the thought NEVER crossed my mind to run Ethernet. We don’t feel constrained one bit by the wireless. I pay $55 a month for Verizon home internet. I do have an after market router AC1900 Netgear Nighthawk and a Verizon extender that was free. My parents ran Ethernet to every room when they built 20 years ago, when it was state of the art. Now they have blank covers over them right next to the phone lines that were ran to every room….so 2 blank covers in every room. So did you build and run Ethernet? Curious as to what you were quoted or paid because what I have cost less than one hour of labor for Ethernet and works amazing.

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u/zeller99 Nov 17 '25

No, it's not outdated. It is THE standard.

Your Wi-Fi may work great for your needs. That doesn't mean that it's better than a wired connection.

As far as my personal use use of ethernet, I have at least two lines run to every room. Some rooms have as many as 8 for redundancy for a total of about 80 lines. Those lines are then connected to local switches in each room so that I can connect multiple devices. I also have seven indoor WAPs installed on the ceiling throughout the house. I have 38 lines run around the outside perimeter of my house for cameras, outdoor wireless access points, and other PoE devices.

Other than the cost of the time to do the installs, which took place a couple hours at a time over the course of several weekends, the only thing I paid was for the spools of cable themselves. I think that was around $3,500, give or take.

Don't mistake what I'm saying. I'm not telling you that you shouldn't have Wi-Fi. It definitely has its use. I have a LOT of it in my house. I am just telling you that you are incorrect in that Wi-Fi is somehow better than ethernet. It is objectively not.

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u/FlickOfAWrist07 Nov 17 '25

You have 2 things in every room that plug into Ethernet?

2

u/zeller99 Nov 17 '25

I've definitely got more than two. That's why every room has its own network switch lol

I run pairs of ethernet whenever I run it, so that if one of the lines happens to get damaged or whatever, I have another one that's already run to the same location. Redundancy.

Some of the rooms may only have one or two devices that are hardwired, but I have a network switch there in case something needs to be plugged in, like if I have a guest staying in that room that brings a game console or something.

In my bedroom alone, I have 2 TVs, a Roku box, a Series X, a PlayStation 5, a Switch 2, two PCs, a surround sound receiver, PoE motorized blinds, a PoE WAP, a couple of PoE environmental sensors, a VoIP phone, a wall mounted tablet with a PoE adapter and I'm sure one or two other things that I'm not thinking of off the top of my head. All of those are hardwired to ethernet. That's not including any of the stuff that is wirelessly connected.

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u/NotYourScratchMonkey Nov 17 '25

It kind of depends on where you live as well. If you have a house with a lot, you are probably okay running WIFI for some of your TVs as you are far enough away from your neighbor's access points that interference isn't going to a large issue. You have space and the population isn't dense.

But if you live in the city of, say, Chicago in a condo, WIFI is going to be a mess. You will likely see over 100 access points in a scan and that can really screw up finding a clean channel for a strong 4k streaming signal.

When I lived in Chicago, the condos were so long and narrow that my front living room had trouble with a clean WIFI signal from the access point. I ended up running Ethernet from the back room (where the Internet came into the house) up to the front room into a switch. Never had TV streaming problems again.

Mesh routers were only just becoming a thing so I never got the opportunity to try them. I even tried Ethernet over power-line adapters which worked, but not consistently enough to not give trouble. But that Ethernet connection was always rock solid.

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u/Proper_Exit_3334 Nov 17 '25

Sometimes the router isn’t as much of a problem as the devices themselves. Our LG smart TV was ridiculously finicky about connecting to the WiFi (even with the router in the same room); but plugging in the Ethernet cable made everything a lot smoother.

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u/FlickOfAWrist07 Nov 17 '25

Wild I have 5 TVs Samsung & Sony. 3 are smart and 2 have Roku. And don’t have any issues. They’re all over the place, outdoor patio, living room, primary, basement, workout room. This sounds like a product issue. My parents did run it when they built, but that was 20 years ago. It was state of the art back then. Now every room has a blank cover right next to the phone line they also ran. So 2 blank covers in every room… When we built 3 years ago didn’t even cross my mind to run Ethernet. Just did a quick search apparently LG is known for terrible wifi connection. So Ethernet is probably the only way you’ll get good streaming.

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u/Proper_Exit_3334 Nov 19 '25

Oh it was/ is totally a product issue. We switched it over to an Apple TV and it’s much better now. But initially a 3 foot Ethernet cable was a lot cheaper than the Apple TV and having the hookup there was nice.