What home improvement work did you do today?

@shifty` , is that a basement?

 

Yes, fully underground on this east-facing side of the house. West-facing of the house side is wide open (garage, 2 car) and the basement wall only comes up about 4-5ft.

 

Nice!

 

My MIL is moving and wanted to rehome some plants so I loaded up about 10...

 

Nothing spectacular but i just finished changing out the hvac filters for the 2 units and also cleaned out the dryer vent.

 

Update on my Walipini.

 

Finished it not long ago

 

Put the gutter on a couple days ago

 

It’s been down in the low 20’s lately at night but it has yet to below 44 in the green house. No backup heat source yet, just thermal heat from the earth.

 

Had to Google it...pit greenhouse...nice! I built my wife an 8x12 traditional greenhouse (kit, metal frame with clear panels, auto vents in the roof), and she loves that thing!

 

Had to google that, very cool

 

Is that a Kubota in the background? Regardless, small tractor for the win!

 

Yes, Kubota L3400. I love that thing!

I dug a trench over to the house and ran water line and electrical line. It’s nice having water and power inside.

 

Heck, yeah!

I've got a smaller one, BX23, same here, love it! I used to say 'if you own a house, you need a truck'...I got this and added 'and if you own land, you need a tractor!'. We only have about an acre and a half, but we enjoy landscape work...I use that thing for trenching and digging...one scoop and you plant a tree! Moving large plants, gravel, large stone, cinder blocks, bags of mortar...whoo!

I'm my wife's favorite husband for having it.

 

Addded some under kitchen cabinet LED lights

 

Same here. I stubbed out the wires when we built the house 7 years ago, just got around to it this week!

 

We have 80 acres and I can’t imagine not having a tractor. Spreading gravel on the drive, hauling trees to split for firewood, plowing the 1/4 mile drive, and on and on.

 

Question for the IT guys here.
I have high-speed fiber internet; My wifi router is connected to LAN2, can I add a CAT5e and another router here to LAN1?

 

Not familiar specifically with what you've got there, but I will say "that depends" on what you are trying to accomplish.

If that is just your fiber modem (and not a router itself), if you connect a separate router to LAN1, you'll be essentially establishing a separate network with that second router. The NAT setup on the second router will keep anything on the first one from seeing anything on the second one and vice-versa. Basically, your modem there feeds internet to the WAN port on two separate networks and goes out from there.

NOW, if your modem is actually a router as well, and you have your downstream "router" set up solely as a wireless access point, then in theory yes. But you would still be setting them up as separate wireless networks unless you are using a true mesh networking system.

Confused yet? I am...

So now we'll wait for the real IT guys to answer.

 

Yeah, the router is in the living room. This fiber box is outside on the garage wall.
I could buy a patch cable and try another router, I'm wanting a stronger wifi connection for the Tesla

*Edit- Yes, confused

 

Best bet is to go with a packaged mesh network system. You might be able to run both off the same fiber modem without issue, but it would need to be a system that is set up to be a mesh network from the start.

 

Gotcha, like one of those Costco mesh package deals?

 

I've personally got experience with Eero. It's pretty basic on the setup end, but that means it doesn't require any IT credentials to set up.

 

Right on, so the basic principle of those is like a mini "remote router"?

 

Kind of.
Think if them like a more robust WiFi extender. They maintain the same wifi network ID but allow your devices to connect seamlessly to the one that offers the best performance. They talk to each other either wired or wirelessly (better bandwidth if you can wire them all).
But how you lay them out and connect them is still important. And that’s the piece I’m not familiar with regarding your fiber modern… right now I can only dream of getting fiber at my place.

My best guess, however, is that you’ll want to do things a bit different than you are thinking:

Get a mesh network kit - either two or three devices (depending on if there are other parts of your house that have lower connectivity). From your fiber modem, you will connect the first mesh router and put it out in your garage by the modern. This router will be your gateway (primary connection). Then, out of that gateway unit you will connect the current CAT cable that you have going into the house. Inside the house will go the second mesh router. This creates a wired backhaul between the two devices back to your modem, with the gateway taking over all of the traffic/firewall/address assignment tasks.

At that point you are done, unless you opted for a third mesh router. If you did, then you can either extend a new CAT drop to wherever you place that third one (best option) or set it up in the software to use a wireless backhaul (which then uses one of the WiFi channels to send data between it and the nearest wired router).

My house is set up similarly… I have CAT5e cable routed throughout the house with a gigabit switch in my basement where they all terminate. My StarLink router is in my garage (I only use it as a modem) and that “modem” is connected to an Eero router acting as the gateway. From the gateway router, I use the CAT line to the basement switch to feed wired internet to the main system and as the primary backhaul feed. Then, I have an Eero router in the basement, another at the opposite end of the main floor, and yet another upstairs in one of the bedrooms that are all connected to the CAT lines that come off the switch. And with those I have seamless WiFi connection everywhere in the house (and most of the top acre of my property) without knowing out really caring which actual one I’m connected to.

 

That's awesome, sounds a lot like what I need.
Thanks for taking the time

 

I'm not a network guy, but I have a few-year old Orbi mesh setup, and it's great for connectivity throughout the house. I'm not going to technically explain it correctly, so somebody help me...

The one issue I ran into is that IOT devices use a lower level standard, and if your network doesn't have the ability to broadcast that separately, you *might* have to do setup things to get these devices to find your network and setup.
Like, my vacuum and Hot Water heater, I had to drop my network on my phone, change a setting on the router, find the network (now lower setting), install/connect the device, restore the network setting...hassle!

 

I'm on the Asus AiMesh, I have no problems with it. I got 4 nodes in a house that's 130 years old with thick wood/plaster walls. I have a node out in the shed which is about 30 yards from the house and do wireless back haul.

I can't say one system is better than the other because I don't really get into tech reviews. Do your research and pick a system to go with, I'm not a fan of TPLink but that's a personal call.

BTW, Wireless IT professional here. I held Cisco CCNA Wireless cert and I design wireless networks for a living.