If you’re building new in Lehi, Saratoga Springs, Herriman, Eagle Mountain, or anywhere along Utah County’s growth corridor — this is the most consequential decision you’ll make about your home’s infrastructure, and you have to make it before drywall goes up.
Pre-wire (also called “rough-in low voltage”) is the structured cabling installed during the framing phase. Once drywall is up, every Cat6 drop costs 5–10x more to add. The walls are open exactly once. What you put in those walls determines what your house can do for the next 20 years.
Here’s the practical checklist we use when we pre-wire homes for builders and homeowners across the Wasatch Front.
Before you talk to a low-voltage installer
Identify your central distribution point
Every cable in the house terminates at one location: a central rack, panel, or closet where your router, switch, and any NVR live. Pick this location intentionally, because every cable runs back to it.
Good locations:
- Basement mechanical room — cool, plenty of space, often near electrical panel and incoming utilities. Our most common choice.
- Garage interior wall — if no basement, an insulated wall in the garage works well. Watch for temperature swings in unconditioned garages.
- Dedicated network closet — in larger homes, a small (3′ x 3′) closet centrally located on the main floor. Best ventilation, easiest access for service.
Avoid attics (heat), exterior walls (temperature swings, condensation), and behind built-in furniture (no service access). The location should be:
- Climate-controlled or at least insulated
- Near the electrical panel for clean power runs
- Near where the ISP demarc/ONT will land
- Accessible without moving furniture or appliances
- Wired with at least one dedicated 20A circuit (not shared with HVAC or major appliances)
Plan for the rack itself
Even if you’re starting with just a router and switch, plan for a proper rack. We covered the full case for this in the server rack for new construction post, but the short version: a 12U or 18U wall-mount or floor rack with proper ventilation, UPS, patch panel, and cable management. The cost during construction is a fraction of what it costs to retrofit later.
The pre-wire checklist (room by room)
Every bedroom: 2 Cat6 drops minimum
Two drops per bedroom: one near the desk/wall where a computer might go, one near the TV wall. Even if the bedrooms aren’t TV rooms today, kids grow up and rooms change function.
Living room / family room / theater: 4 Cat6 drops
This room sees the most network-connected devices. Minimum coverage:
- 1 drop behind the primary TV (streamer, game console)
- 1 drop near the receiver/AV equipment
- 1 drop in the ceiling for a Wi-Fi access point
- 1 spare on the opposite wall for future use
For a dedicated theater room, double this. AV processors, projectors, network amplifiers, and HDBaseT receivers all want their own drops.
Office: 2–3 Cat6 drops
Even in a small home office, run multiple drops. One for the desk, one for a printer or NAS, one spare. Wired Ethernet to the desk is the single biggest fix for video-call quality issues, especially for people working from home along the Wasatch Front who depend on stable video for their job.
Kitchen: 1 Cat6 drop
Behind the smart fridge location, or under the cabinets for a future smart display. Kitchens accumulate connected devices over time — an ovens with Wi-Fi, smart ranges, video assistants, recipe displays.
Garage: 2 Cat6 drops + 1 fiber-ready conduit
One drop for a garage-door opener controller or workbench computer. One drop for an access point if the garage is Wi-Fi-isolated from the main house. A piece of conduit to an exterior wall for future EV charger network connection or fiber pull is cheap insurance.
Every ceiling location for Wi-Fi APs: 1 Cat6 drop
Plan AP locations during framing, not after. As a rule of thumb for typical Utah homes: one ceiling AP drop per 1,500 sq ft of finished space, plus one in the basement if finished, one in the master suite if the home is large, and one in any detached structure (ADU, casita, shop) connected via outdoor cable.
Drop them in the center of hallways or open ceiling areas. Avoid mounting against exterior walls (signal wasted) or directly above metal HVAC ducts.
Outdoor camera locations: 1 Cat6 each, weatherproof
Plan camera placement during pre-wire even if you’re not installing cameras for years. Common locations:
- Front door / porch (covers entry and packages)
- Driveway (catches vehicles and license plates)
- Each side of the house (perimeter coverage)
- Back yard (patio, pool, side gates)
Run the cable to the eave and leave a service loop. When you’re ready for cameras, the cable is already there. Adding camera cable after siding and stucco is expensive and ugly.
Doorbell location: 1 Cat6
Modern PoE doorbells (UniFi, 2N, Akuvox) use Cat6 instead of the legacy 16/2 doorbell wire and a transformer. The transformer hum and underpowered Wi-Fi-only doorbells become non-issues. Run a Cat6 drop to the doorbell location even if you don’t plan to install a smart doorbell now.
Patio / outdoor entertainment area: 1 Cat6
For an outdoor TV, outdoor speakers (with networked amplifier), or an exterior Wi-Fi AP for backyard coverage. We covered outdoor Wi-Fi in Utah’s climate separately — the short version is don’t skip this drop, retrofitting outdoor cable is messy.
Coax (yes, still): 2 RG6 drops
Coax is mostly dead for TV in 2026, but if you’re in an area with cable internet as backup or have any interest in MoCA networking over coax, two RG6 drops to a central point are cheap during framing. We covered cellular failover as the modern backup of choice, but cable as a secondary is still common.
Speaker wire: in-ceiling and in-wall pre-runs
If you want any whole-home audio, the speaker wire (16/2 or 14/2 in-wall rated) needs to be pulled during pre-wire. Even if you don’t install ceiling speakers now, run the wire to the locations and leave it coiled in the ceiling box. We covered the whole-home audio options post-Sonos in detail separately.
Things people forget
Conduit between floors
A 1.5” or 2” conduit run from the basement rack location up to the attic costs $50 and an hour of labor during framing. It allows you to pull additional cables for the life of the house without opening any walls. We pull this in every home we pre-wire and the homeowners thank us for it years later when they want to add fiber to a guest house or run cable to a new bedroom.
Power at the rack
The rack location needs at least one dedicated 20A circuit. Two circuits is better — one for the main rack equipment and one for the UPS. This is electrician work but should be coordinated with the low-voltage pre-wire so the outlets land in the right place behind the rack.
Cooling for the rack
In a basement, ambient temperature is usually fine. In a garage or interior closet, plan for ventilation — either a passive vent to a hallway or a small inline fan. A network rack producing 100–200W of heat in a sealed closet will overheat in summer.
The ISP demarc location
Where will UTOPIA, Google Fiber, or your ISP terminate the fiber? Talk to your builder and the ISP during pre-wire so the demarc lands near your rack. We covered this in the fiber-prep post — ONT placement matters and it’s easier to negotiate during construction than after.
An access panel at every termination
Every cable that goes into a wall should terminate at a wall plate with a labeled jack. Don’t bury cables behind drywall with no access — even if you don’t plan to use them now, you want the option later.
The Lehi/Saratoga Springs/Herriman context
Production builders along Utah County’s growth corridor typically include a minimal “builder-grade” low-voltage package: maybe one Cat6 to each bedroom and one in the family room, terminated at a small structured media panel in a closet. It’s better than nothing but rarely sufficient.
If you’re building with one of the major builders in Saratoga Springs or Herriman, the upgrade path is usually:
- Decline the builder’s low-voltage package (or keep it minimal — the markup is high)
- Hire a third-party low-voltage installer to do the pre-wire after framing/electrical rough-in but before insulation and drywall
- Coordinate with the builder so the installer has access during the right window (typically a 1–2 week period)
The cost of doing it right with a third-party installer is typically less than the builder’s upgrade package, and the result is dramatically better.
Bottom line
The walls are open once. Every Cat6 drop you put in during pre-wire costs $50–$150. The same drop after drywall costs $500–$1,500 and leaves visible patches. Plan generously, run conduit between floors, and put the central rack location somewhere you can actually access. A house pre-wired correctly in 2026 will support smart home, security, and network upgrades through 2045 without opening a single wall.
Keystone Integration pre-wires new construction homes across Lehi, Saratoga Springs, Herriman, Eagle Mountain, and the rest of Utah County’s growth corridor. We coordinate directly with builders and electricians, perform a site survey before framing, and hand you a labeled patch panel when drywall is done. See our full service list, or get in touch early in your build — the earlier we’re involved, the better the result.