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New Houses Killing Wi-Fi
Barence writes "Poor Wi-Fi or mobile reception is one of the banes of modern living — and modern building techniques could be making things worse. PC Pro has photos of a new-build being covered from floorboards to rafters in a tin-foil like material. The "highly reflective" material could have unpredictable results for radio signals, potentially bouncing mobile signals away from the house or preventing Wi-Fi signals from reaching the garden. And the new householder is likely to be none the wiser."
Since moving into my new home, I've noticed a significant reduction in secret CIA messages being injected into my brainwaves. Goodbye ugly tinfoil hat!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Insulation isn't usually put on interrior walls and I have no need to broadcast my wifi outside of my house. Those that do can position their WAP near a window.
I'm also certain this is not an a recent issue. Almost all the insulation I've seen, apart from spray insulation, has some kind of foil-like backing.
Maybe complainers should spend 2 minutes trying a different wifi channel instead of blaming their home.
it reflects huge amounts of radiant energy transfer from your envelope materials away from the interior of your home, making it that much more efficient to cool, and during winter it helps keep the heat inside the house. The wifi 'issue' just doesn't seem to be that much of an issue when you're talking about one of the core efficiencies in your house, and one of the biggest loads on the nation's energy usage.
From a look at the exterior shot provided, no special effort appears to have been taken to ground the foil. It appears to just be there to keep moisture and/or rabid sheetrock mites from getting into the interior material. I'm a bit surprised that some plastic wasn't cheaper; but it seems otherwise sensible enough.
For those who know more than I about the dark arts of RF propagation, what would the effect be of ungrounded conductive sheets? Substantial signal attenuation? Not much effect? Completely unpredictable absorption and re-emmision that could vary wildly according to the exact geometry of the piece?
In a similar vein, if one had an AP/router that one didn't love to much(not so hard when they start at $20...), what would the effect be of attempting to use the metal foil as an antenna, by coupling it directly to the antenna output? Horribly non-optimized for the frequency, I'd imagine; but would it be expected to Not Work, to Not Work and kill the RF amp, to work somewhat, to work better than one might expect?
Author of TFA says he doesn't know if the material he observed has an impact on radio, just quoting the fact that it's "reflective" from a vendor brochure, but according to the same pdf the material is in fact metallic
Yep, sounds like a radio-eater all right. Interesting stuff, too.
And the new householder is likely to be none the wiser.
You are telling me that Joe and Jane Enduser don't know about how RF works? Or that their computer is not the monitor? Or that their smartphones are also working off of RF?
And further that there are new homes that are being built without setting up even some basic runs for modern say CAT6 wires? You say that all you need is co-ax? Or some 1900 tech pair of twisted strands?
Oh and the right wing tells me to chant USA USA USA no matter what idiotic news I see? Golly Lassy! Tech Timmy is down a well! Better go run to Fox News with why ignorance is good!
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
I love to complain about stupid things more than your average person, but is this really a problem? Put a repeater in the window. My heating bill, on a 1980s house is by far once of the most cash sucking and depressing aspects of my budget.
And as an added bonus, maybe it'll keep neighbors from stealing everyone's wifi.
Uh, Wifi? I'd think the cell phones (I assume that's what OP means by 'mobiles') are the important one...
Plenty of people including myself only have a cell phone these days.
My apartment's fine, but I have school in a very concrete-and-steel building that has very poor phone reception, which ends up draining my battery in no time. They do have good wifi because of a lot of APs, though. Remember, you can add more APs for wifi, but not for phones.
Wow, talk about content free.
That article had even less content than the guy who was pushing his blog posts awhile back.
Your insulation 'might' be blocking wifi &/or 3g. But we don't know, we didn't bother to do any actual research.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
than spend $500 more in heating costs every year
i for one welcome our new tin foil energy saving house overlords
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Far less leakage, and less chance of home builders skipping putting in ethernet. All new homes should be wired and not counting on wifi to do the trick.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Call someone that has aluminum siding and aluminum screens on their home as them how their home from 1950 that was resided in the 70's or 80's works for wifi to the garden or the grotto.. This is not new. Nor is it news to anyone that actually has a clue about Wifi or home building in general.
Insulation boards have had foil backing for decades. a lot of other building products as well.
It's just whiny rich people that notice after moving into their new McMansion. Because they are too damn cheap to buy a second AP for the back yard.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
possible, surely. financially prohibitive? no demand? perhaps.
My last house was built in 1925, and covered in stucco. Newer stucco is usually some kind of latex goop and doesn't need much of a backing, but this old stucco was basically mortar and needed metal mesh to support it. In this case, it was a heavy diamond mesh like you find on outside stairs and whatnot. The guys who blew insulation into the walls from the outside just loved it...
That being said, I never saw a significant problem with either cellular phone or wifi signals.
Log in or piss off.
you will find very few low, or non voltage wiring requirments in any code... the reason hydro lines are required by code, how to run cable, where to put outlets, number of outlets per wall (min) and cable size.. its becuase its dangerous stuff... houses rarely burn, and people rarely die becuase fiber was installed wrong.. However, over-amp'ing copper or alluminum can start fires and kill people... so all the stuff the home owner wont see, needs to meet code before its covered.. building codes are for safety,... that isnt to say, that in new home construction one shouldnt wire the house for all forseen future projects.. When I reno'd my house I ran 2 runs of cat5e, 2 runs of rg6, and since i had a few boxes in the garage, 1 run of cat6 to each room back to a wiring closet (i use the term closet losely). I think i'm using 2 of the wires total, just for my media centre PC... but im set for my forseeable future... it would be pointless for me to install fiber, since I wont be using it and its not going to net me any return when I sell.... If i was mistaken by your comment, and you meant, fiber to the prem during construction, thats up to you municipality to decide... I know the last mile provdiders here are doing that in my municipality for all the new developments.
Its just insulation. It goes on exterior walls to help form a heat boundary. Its not even a little bit new, the observer is just a really shitty observer and never noticed it being put into every building thats been built in the last 40 or so years at least. Example, my cheap little home built in 1977 has it.
It doesn't go on interior walls, you don't generally insulate interior walls, as the air flow through open doors in your home and the fact that your duct system intentionally moves air into those rooms would defeat the point entirely.
Some people do choose to insulate their interior walls for sound dampening, but not with foil backed insulation, they use cheaper insulation without it or specific insulation for sound, which is what we did when remodeling our living room to prevent sound from the TV/stereo from bothering people sleeping in other rooms.
It won't effect your Wifi signal as its on the external walls only and no one would use it on interior walls (even if they wanted to insulate) because its more expensive and just a waste of money in those locations.
If you can't get a signal between the first floor and second floor of your home it has almost nothing to do with insulation and the fact that the antennas used on wifi routers are designed to radiate horizontally from the antenna (perpendicular to its orientation). It would be, in almost every case, a complete waste of RF energy to broadcast a signal upwards from a WAP when for most cases there will be no one above it or below it that its supposed to get too.
Finally ... it has VERY LITTLE EFFECT on the signal. My home is completely wrapped in it, walls and attic, and we sit on a slab, yet I still have no problem picking up and connecting to any wifi access point within 2 houses of me (and we aren't talking about town homes 10 feet from each other, at least 100-150 feet between homes), though its not like I'm getting full speed out of 802.11g with it, though my workshop, which is about 75 feet from my home will consistently get 10mb out of it, and it is insulated with brand new (built 3 years ago) foil backed insulation as well.
Does it effect the signal, sure, everything does. Does it effect it enough to care about it over the massive energy savings for heating and cooling? No, not even a little.
The home owner is likely to be none the wiser about the size of the wiring in his home either, and wether its really designed to be used like many of us where we have several machines in one room functioning as servers/routers/firewalls for our home networks drawing way more power than the home was designed to deliver to a single outlet. As a general rule, if you don't know what that shiny material is, there are far more important things in your home that you should learn about first if your worried about how your technology is going to be effected. Wiring of the home would be top on my list. Clean power is far more of a concern than insulation. Nothing worse than wiring thats too small for the job causing your power supplies or UPSes to continually be fighting surges and spikes due to turning off and on other equipment. Older homes with shared runs using 14 gauge wire to power multiple outlets are far more damaging and problematic than the insulation, they are also considerably more dangerous in a modern world where 10 amps simply isn't enough power for some home appliances at startup (vacuum cleaner, microwave, big plasma TVs). You really want 12 gauge as a minimum, with individual runs from the breaker box to EACH outlet, 10 gauge if you can afford it is a much better choice and far safer. Considering how little it effects the cost of a new build, you'd be an idiot if you were given the option and didn't take it.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
you get metal studs with a metal mesh lathe laid over the top before you even get to think about putting sheetrock on
Huh?
I'm currently working in a commercial building, and I have been working here continuously since before the gutting and remodeling. Continuously. I saw every wall of this building torn down and rebuilt around me, and while LOTS of metal studs (and the metal "tracks" that go underneath and on top of them) went up, I never once saw any "metal mesh lathe". They just screwed the sheetrock to the studs, just like I'd do to wood studs in my home. Wikipedia seems to indicate that this is normal.
Karma: Poor (Mostly affected by lame karma-joke sigs)
I'm not worried about the wi-fi because I have a wireless router. But the cell phone reception is horrendous. I take a few steps outside and it's fine. While I was fixing the place up I had poked some holes in the walls and found metal beams inside. The place is like a giant Faraday cage. The fact that it's the bottom floor of a three-story condo doesn't help either.
I just spent $250 (it was on sale, too. Normally it's $400) on a cell phone signal booster. I hope it helps.
Technoli
A Linksys WRT54G with DD-WRT installed will do it quite nicely.